Chapel Hill Transit bus driver David Deming has been a bus driver for Chapel Hill Transit for around two decades, and has been posting quotes on his bus for 10 years.
“It’s a little bit of work, but it’s fun,” he said. “It creates more of a chance for interactions with the passengers.”
Deming described a story of one of these cases of interacting with a passenger.
“Ten years ago, there was a woman from Greece. She use to get off at a certain spot, and then I noticed that she stopped that and stayed on the bus, while I went out to McDougle Middle School,” he said. “There was a little layover, and (the bus) came back and then she would get off across the street from where she normally did. She really liked the quotes and she was learning English.”
He has countless other stories about passengers who have started conversations.
One is of a former military man who started talking to Deming after he put up a military history quote. The man explained the quote to Deming and even presented Deming with an 8.5-by-11-inch compilation of military quotes that were being circulated by students at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where the man attended.
Deming randomly selects most of his quotes, either from his reading or from websites online, choosing ones he finds funny or witty. He said that many Mark Twain and Woody Allen quotes are some of his favorites.
Avery Cheves, a UNC graduate, who regularly takes the J bus to commute to her job at Lineberger Cancer Center, said she appreciates the gesture.
