Metro Access Tale

My driver yesterday was about 10 minutes late. This struck me as strange, because the ride was for Sunday morning at 7 AM, and there usually aren't that many scheduling conflicts at such an unpopular time.

When the bus finally showed up, the driver apologized and said he had been all the way up in Montgomery County Maryland when they added me to his list. That is a real problem I see with Metro Access and a way Metro seems to be wasting lots of money. The dispatching system needs to be fixed! I've had them drive way off in the wrong direction because that is the way the GPS sent them, and then double back and detour up and down neighborhood streets before taking me where I'm going.

Anyway, this guy couldn't figure out how to hook up the GPS at all. He got my wheelchair tied down, told me that it was his first day (dios mia!), and pulled to the end of the drive way. The GPS said, "Make a U-turn in 20 feet." There was not 20 feet of road ahead. The driver sputtered incoherently, and I said, "Turn the GPS off and I'll just tell you how to get there."

We did fine for a long while. I stopped paying attention. Then he suddenly slams on the brakes and starts frantically repeating, "Now what? Norw what?" I look out the window and see that we are at an unmanned, automatic tollbooth.

He should have gone to a manned one, of course. where they have a form to fill out.

He says franticly, "What do I do?"

I say, "Just drive through it".

So we did. Of course the alarm rang. He'll probably be ticketed later.

But do you blame me?