Riding the dog

Greyhound Canada is the largest provider of intercity bus transportation in Canada, serving nearly 1,100 locations. It has become an icon of bus travel, providing safe, enjoyable and affordable travel to 6.5 million passengers each year. The Greyhound running dog is one of the most-recognized brands in the world.

According to Transport Canada, buses provide passengers with remarkably safe travel compared with other road vehicles and other modes of transportation. Greyhound Canada's own safety rate has been calculated as 10 times better than the trucking industry standard.

For a company so proud of its high standards, why then are they so sensitive about their customers taking photographs of their buses? So sensitive indeed that their conditions of travel state: Photography, video or audio recording of Greyhound personnel, equipment or procedures is strictly prohibited.

To find out why, Island Blog sent a mystery traveller across Canada - from Toronto to Vancouver - 3 days and nights riding that world famous dog.

All went to plan through Ontario (28 hours), Manitoba (11 hours), Saskatchewan (10 hours) and into Alberta. Two buses, several drivers and all went smoothly. Until, at 6am on day 3, and the dog shuddered to an unscheduled halt. Calgary was still more than an hour away and the dog was going nowhere. Greyhound's customers were not happy. Hungry and tired, they wandered aimlessly at the roadside admiring that icon of safe, enjoyable bus travel.

It was apparent that all was not well with this dog. Where there should have been six wheels on the road the dog was almost down to five. Wheel number 6 had shed most of its wheelnuts and has hanging on by a whisker.

Such incidents have happened to buses throughout the world - and in most cases they are as a result of wheel studs not being properly tightened when a wheel has been refitted. A lucky escape for our mystery traveller then - that the driver was alert to the problem before the wheel parted company altogether - which it surely would have done within the next mile or so.


Maybe Greyhound is rightly sensitive about photographs being taken by its customers? Maybe they will not always portray the image the company would like?