Ready Kids › Getting Around Without a Car › Badge 4 › Lesson 4.1
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Transit on your own
Plan a bus or train trip, and know what to do when you miss one or get on the wrong one.
1Watch
The wrong number
The wrong number
A kid at a bus stop, phone in hand, checking the app. A bus pulls up. It has the right number and the wrong destination on the front. The doors open. The driver waits. Freeze.
20 secondsTwo things are printed on the front of every bus. He has read one of them.
2The idea
Three things, and you are most of the way there
Most trips go fine because you know three things: the stop you get on at, the number you want, and the stop you get off at. Write them down before you leave, with the time of the bus after yours. A phone can die. A note in your pocket cannot.
The plan has to survive one thing going wrong. A missed bus, the wrong bus, a missed stop. None of them is an emergency. All of them need a next move you decided while you were calm, because the bus is not the place to work it out.
3The steps
When it goes wrong: the next move
Missed it: stay at the stop. Get the next one. Message home with the new time.
Wrong bus: off at the next stop. Cross carefully. Same number back the other way. Message home.
Missed your stop: off at the next one. Walk back if it is close and you know the way, or cross and take one back. Message home.
Never off between stops, never off somewhere you do not know to walk it. And before you tap on: ask the driver. “Does this one stop at the station?” They would rather answer than carry you the wrong way.
4Worked example
Two stops in, going the wrong way
Maya gets on the 14 and two stops later realises the shops are going past the wrong window. She stays on to the next stop, gets off, crosses at the lights and finds the 14 stop on the other side. Her card says the next one is in eight minutes. She messages: wrong direction, back on the right one, about 20 min late.
Ten minutes lost. Nobody is looking for her in the wrong place. The message was not asking permission. It was so the person waiting knew the new time.
5Look
The pocket plan
The pocket plan
A folded index card in handwriting: the stop name, the bus number, the stop to get off at, the time of the next bus after yours, and one phone number.
The time of the bus after yours matters more than the time of yours. It is the one you get when you miss it.
6Decide
Two stops in, you realise the bus is going the wrong way.
Pick one to carry on.
7Say it
The question you ask before you tap on
Say it to the driver, in your normal voice
“Does this one stop at the station?”
Swap in your own stop. Drivers would much rather answer than have you on the wrong bus.
8Your turn
Three problems on a route
Three problems on a route
A route map with your stop, your line and your destination. Three things go wrong in turn: the bus does not come, you realise it is the wrong direction two stops in, you miss your stop. For each, tap the right next move.
There is a right next move every time. None of them involves getting off somewhere you do not know and walking.
9Find them
Which of these go in your plan before you leave?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 5.
10Do it
Before you leave this page
Plan a real trip you might actually make, by bus or train, to somewhere you would want to go. Write the card. Show a parent the plan and the backup for missing it. Then keep the card in your bag.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
Know the stop, the number, and the one after it. Missed one: wait for the next. Wrong one: off at the next stop, and tell someone.
Next lesson: Being dropped off and picked upBadge 4 · Getting There and Back
4.1Transit on your own4.2Being dropped off and picked up4.3Getting home from somewhere that stopped being fine★Badge Challenge