PORT TOWNSEND — Those who ride Jefferson Transit with Lloyd Eisenman at the wheel might feel safer knowing that they are cruising with the second-best bus driver in North America.
That’s right, the second-best driver in United States, Canada and Mexico.
Eisenman won second place in the 35-foot coach division of the American Public Transportation Association International Bus Roadeo in Austin, Texas, on Sunday.
“If there are buses on Mars, that would be the next level,” Dave Turissini, Jefferson Transit’s general manager, quipped during a celebration of Eisenman’s victory Thursday at Transit’s Sims Way offices.
Achieving his win, the 42-year-old Port Hadlock resident and Jefferson Transit driver for 2½ years, said took defying the odds of using a bus in questionable condition, one that he had never driven before.
Only bus driver Arthur Murillo, an Austin Capital Metro bus driver who was on familiar turf and riding his own system’s bus, rolled past Eisenman.
It was no easy task for Eisenman.
He faced the driver who took first place in the 35-foot bus category at the Texas state “roadeo” this year, and has twice before won the international championship, in 2002 and 2005.
Keeping his cool under extreme pressure, Eisenman drove down barrel-lined lanes at 25 mph with three inches of clearance on each side, and stopped just three inches from a pylon he could not even see once he was on top of it.
In seven minutes, far less than the normal 20 minutes, he identified eight things wrong with a bus in a test pre-inspection, such windows left open, a hidden gas can in the back of the bus and a missing mirror near an exit door.
“It is a safety competition. That is what we’re practicing,” Eisenman said.
