Rally driver Rosemary Smith was quick to take issue with Ray D'Arcy’s description of Jennifer Dixon as a female bus driver: "Ray, she’s a bus driver. That’s it. I’m a driver, I’m a rally driver. It doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female."
Ray’s defence was the fact that Dublin Bus are actively looking to recruit more women to join the ranks of their bus drivers. Men make up 96% of bus drivers at Dublin Bus – out of 2,550 drivers, only 97 are female – and the company would like to change these numbers, so they’re on a recruitment drive.
Rosemary and Jennifer joined Ray in studio for a chat about… drivers.
The first woman to drive a bus for Dublin Bus was called Joan and she joined the company in 1980. Ray told Rosemary and Jennifer how Dublin Bus had no uniform for Joan, so she had to take the uniform home and, in her words, renovate it.
Presumably, Jennifer, who’s been with Dublin Bus for three years, had no such problems when she signed up. But why bus driving?
"I wanted to get somewhere where I could have a career…. And I also wanted to work my way up, so I realised, Dublin Bus – there’s no cap, so you can keep going the whole way up."
Rosemary's never driven a bus, but she’ll be getting behind the wheel of one at Dublin Bus’s Phibsboro depot. Try anything once, was her advice to a slightly-gobsmacked Ray. Although the top speed of the average Dublin Bus might be a little disappointing to a rally driver: 67 km/h.
The fastest Rosemary’s gone in her career, she told Ray, is about 315 km/h, when she made the Irish land speed record in Cork in the 1970s. That record’s in no danger on Saturday, but Rosemary’s not at all daunted at the prospect of driving a double-decker bus.
"I’m so used to driving now – I’m not saying I could manage a bus, but I’ll certainly give it a go."
You can hear Ray’s full chat with Rosemary and Jennifer here.
