Jayross Lucky 7 Bus

The following account is based purely my own experience and is not meant to cast aspersions on the dead, but to explain why I have been boycotting Jayross Lucky Seven Tours since late last year.

I confess I was one of the people who used to stand along EDSA trying to get a ride home in the evening after work who would let each and every old MIA buss pass by because I wanted to ride the new Lucky 7 bus instead. The vehicles were new and very clean and the air conditioning compressor on every vehicle was obviously in tip top shape as well. When they started out you had to have a jacket with you if you wanted a comfortable ride in a Jayross Lucky 7 bus. Otherwise you would lose your extremities from frostbite.

Since they were new and flashy and air conditioned and even had movies on DVD video, Jayross Lucky 7 buses were preferred by most commuters along EDSA. As a matter of fact even if the aisle was already crowded with people standing and hanging on to the handrails on the ceiling, people would still get on and try to crowd in rather than take the next old bus on the same route right next to it. This was an aspect of human nature I could not understand. Why would one insinuate ones self into a crowded bus, when one could take the next one, never mind if it was older and didn’t have video, but wherein could sit down in comfort for the rest of his trip?

In the third quarter of 2007 I began to notice a few things about the Lucky 7. Even if they were not full, and quite a few commuters standing at the waiting shed on EDSA/Estrella were MIA-bound, the Jayross Lucky 7 buses would not stop to pick us up. They would zoom past, as if chased by the devil, not recognizing Estrella as a legitimate bus stop. Back then I told myself maybe they were after the SM Ayala crowd, and didn’t care much for us. And in the times when one would stop, the driver would slow down to a crawl just long enough for me to get both feet on the first rung (estribo) and then he would floor the accelerator. All of them did this, there were no exceptions. And when it was time for me to get off the same thing happened. I would have to say something out loud like “Boss sandali lang!” so that they would slow down (not stop) enough for me to hop off without getting myself in an accident. These Jayross bus drivers didn’t seem to comprehend the meaning of the term “bus stop” which I thought was simple enough. It was a place were buses stopped.

When the time came when I had to choose between spraining my ankle and risking a fight with the driver by telling him he was obliged to stop to let me off, I decided I had enough. I never rode a Jayross Lucky 7 bus again. Not even if they now slow down (yes they slow down but not completely stop) at the Estrella waiting shed. I would ignore them at the waiting area across the NAIA Cargo facility, where sometimes three or four of those buses would pass by in quick succession. I prefer Gasat, Mayamy and Precious Grace. Even the newer JMK and AC buses have better drivers than the Jayross Lucky 7 liner.

My boycott does not mean much to them, of course. I am a mere speck in the universe of commuters they now serve and who, by other blogs I have read, are quite happy by the way they zip along like the kings of EDSA. But then one driver got too cocky with the swerving and the cutting in. I wouldn’t want to be a passenger in the next Jayross Lucky 7 bus that suffers the same fate.

*photo of Lucky 7 bus taken from this Flickr Photo Stream

Note: There are other companies whose products/services I boycott, for reasons that I will write about soon. Among these companies are Nestlé and Monterey.