Pyschical Conditioning and Injuries

No pain, no gain…

Bus Steering Wheel Radius

I started driving and owned a car since 1992. I used my car to commute between my home and office. Occasionally, I will take my family up North to Malaysia for some 8 to10hours of driving.

Initially, I was not aware, that, the bus steering wheel radius is so much bigger than my ordinary saloon car.  The older version bus has a radius 3x the size of the car; and fortunately the current newer version of buses is about 2x.

Prior to embarking on this new career journey as Bus Captain (BC); I did not do much psychical conditioning or muscle strengthening to my body. As a result, for the 1^st three months of training and driving thereafter, I suffered much skeletal muscles aches and pains.

Specifically, the muscle of the pectorals major, deltoid, biceps, triceps and rectus abdominis; will be undergoing stress and strain in handling the oversized steering wheel.

 

The hand brake

In the bus, the hand brake is located on the right hand side. It is lever-cam method of positive locking and the ease of release with an upward pull movement. My left hand is my power; however, I am not a left handed person. I write with my right hand and eat with my right hand.

My left hand is used for power and strength movement for example in playing badminton and sweeping and mopping the house. Daily, on an average, I will perform repeat movement of locking and pulling the handbrake for some 200 times using my “weaker” right hand.

After 2 years, I have done some 100K reps for my right hand. In the beginning there is much muscle pain to my entire right hand, from shoulder joint to the extreme end of my fingers!.

 Now , I can see in the mirror that, my right hand biceps is certainly bigger than my left hand and I think, it is also, a much stronger than my left hand now. But it still lacks the dexterity of my left hand lah.

As the result of so many-many repeated hand action, daily, my right palm now is also much rougher than before.

 

My Right Foot, accelerator and brake pedals

In early 2015, my right leg toes were swollen very badly with inflammation. To cure my swollen and infected right big toe, I was given a 6 days of outpatient sick leave by a medical officer from Khoo Teck Puat (KTP) Hospital.

Initially, I sought treatment form Woodlands Polyclinic. This is one of the medical institutions that my company would recognize any medical leave (MC) been issued in Singapore. For the last 30 years working in Singapore; I have not visited any government run clinics. The waiting time in the Polyclinic is very long and very uncomfortable at all. Having waited for close to 3 hours a kind staff approached me and redirected me to another floor; so that the physician can attend to me to sooner.

To me, this is can be considered as a kind of legal way of “Cut Q” and I am grateful for that concession been offered to me.

I showed the kind doctor of my big toe condition. According to him, it has to be operated asap; to release all those fluid been building up inside the big toe. His professional judgement was that, I need to get to a Hospital that have the full facility to operate on me.

He immediately, gave me a Polyclinic referral letter to go to any A&E of my choice. Since KTP is in Yishun and is the closes to where Woodlands is; immediately, together with my son, we drove to this Hospital to seek treatment. The rest is history lor.

I have learned my lesson on how to use, my lower extremist in getting the bus moving forward and stopping. To prevent further recurrence to my right foot toes; I now use the sole of my right foot to do the job.

Because of repeated foot action, the area below and around the small toe of my right foot; corns are continuously growing here and there. Corns are caused by thickening of skin.

 It is very painful whenever; I walked bare footed while at home. The painful feeling is caused by the pressurized contact point of the corns against the hard floor. This has caused repeated physical pain to me. When I could not take it anymore, I will use my finger nails to peel it off to reduce the pressurized pain; the relief is only good for couple of days, and the whole cycle of skin growth and pain will repeat itself and this suffering is going on round and round again.

I guess this unavoidable, and I continued to suffer and bear with this physical pain as it is needed to exert sufficient leg stepping force or pressure to brake and stop the bus.

Beside corns, my right leg muscle of tibialis anterior is the most affected muscle. This set of muscle is used throughout my driving journey. The heel of the leg will act as a fulcrum on the bus floor, and the calf muscles usage is not so strenuous as compare to the tibialis anterior .

The tibialis anterior is a muscle situated on the front of your shin, and primarily is responsible for ankle dorsiflexion, which the up-and-down motion of your foot used to brake and stop the bus.

Right side front window

When reversing the bus, for safety reason, the right side window has to be ajar.   I follow this safety requirement so that, if anyone is horning or shouting at the vicinity to avert an accident, I can be easily picked up the sound. When the window is shut, the audible decibel is much reduced.

When reversing the bus, the rear of the bus is a blind area. Something that is blind to the BC, there is always potential danger lurking around. Unfortunately, almost daily, in the depot and bus interchanges, a lot of bus to bus accident cases happened when the bus is reversing!.

Beside using the right side window as above; it is also often been used by me, for lane changing from the far left lane, cut across, 3 to 4 lane to get to the outer right lane. My personal practice is that for safety and to give a positive signal to the on rear oncoming vehicle. Having opened this right side window; I now can easily stretch out my right hand in an affirmative manner and “telling” the vehicle behind me, that, I am now cutting cross the lanes and please give way. Of course, I will have the right signal lights, on, throughout this process of negotiating the lane switching.

My right hand deltoid muscle does have pain from time to time because of this repeated opening and closing of the right side window of the bus.

      

Engine Compartment Door

The bus engine capacity is a 12,000cc power plant that can carry some 110pax in one go. It is located at the rear of the 12M long bus. With this engine size, diesel consumption is like drinking water. On the average, a liter of diesel can only move the bus no more than 3KM.  The engine compartment door is fastened with two resistant hinges. 

The engine cover door is big, and I need several pound of muscle strength to open it. For 1^st parade task; it is mandated that, this engine door to be opened to check; the engine oil level; power steering oil level, belts and radiator water are in order even before I can crank or start the engine.

To open this large door, I will use both hand to grip the handle and keeping my both feet in parallel position, and in one motion of using my pelvic and lower back strength to yank it open.

Closing the door is also a chore. In order to close the door properly, it is necessary to confirm that positive locking on both far end of the door are secured. Normally, I will my buttock to it slam it close. Hurray, done!

I am a mid-heavy weight person by Asian standard. I am about 85Kg and 1.75M tall. Personally, I find it difficult to manage this opening and closing of the engine compartment door, and at time, I wander how those lady BC or smaller built BC can manages this 1^st parade task day-in-day-out without a noise from them!!, how lah.