Having inherited Boris Johnson’s rather accident-prone and cumbersome “bendy-is-trendy” buses I can’t help wondering if the country would have been better served by introducing double-decker buses instead, as some local coach companies have done successfully.

I find it difficult to rationalise the mindset at Arriva, in accepting that accidents are inevitable, rather than pushing for zero accidents or accepting a vehicle with a known poor accident record. From a due diligence point of view, Arriva seem to be offering anyone involved in an accident with an Arriva bus, a blank cheque.

It’s a bit like an airline stating they are safe because they only crash occasionally. Are Arriva saying that it is therefore inevitable that some drivers will have an accident with a bus and that that’s acceptable? This seems terribly unfair on other car drivers and an appallingly inept level of corporate responsibility.

Not only are bendy buses traffic-congestion cloggers all on their own, but they are also devilishly difficult to negotiate, particularly for cyclists. While it’s never a good idea to overtake any long vehicle on the inside, they are still the devil to overtake normally. Particularly once snarled or crawling in traffic. They never seem to end and the middle swings out alarmingly at even the slightest of bends.

Neither do bendy buses, due to their extreme length, seem to give more clearance when passing cyclists. They also tend to either cut in far too soon or fail to judge sufficient clearance to pass the cyclist completely (particularly if traffic stops ahead of the bus or the driver’s misjudged how fast a cyclist is actually travelling).