Hapless London bus driver gets lost in the City

Commuters were taken on a mystery tour of the City when a hapless London bus driver got lost during morning rush hour.

The driver, who passengers said spoke “little English”, spent 30 minutes on a loop around Chancery Lane before admitting defeat and asking for directions.

Frustrated travellers aboard the 521 from Waterloo to London Bridge eventually demanded to be let off when he confessed to being lost.

Instead of going east from Holborn Circus, he veered north towards Smithfield before heading off even in the direction of Clerkenwell.

One passenger, David Spens QC, stepped in when he realised the bus was going in completely the wrong direction.

“The driver was just lost. He wasn’t apologetic or anything, but he was just confused,” he said.

Barrister Mr Spens, a former chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, boarded the service at Holborn bound for London Bridge at 8.50am last Thursday.

He said at first he thought the driver was following a series of diversions, but grew concerned as other passengers became “restless and bemused”.

At the junction with Gray’s Inn Road, Mr Spens asked the driver if he understood English. When he responded, ‘a little’, Mr Spens then asked him if he was lost. When the driver replied, ‘yes’ Mr Spens offered to direct the driver to their destination.

By the time the bus returned to Chancery Lane, after a two mile detour around the City of London, it was 9.20am.

Mr Spens said: “I asked him where he was going next. He said Waterloo then St Paul’s. I decided it was time to abandon the bus. That this could happen in London in 2012 I find truly astonishing,”