'That Boy Can Drive': Behind the Wheel at the 2012 International Bus Roadeo

LONG BEACH, Calif. – Excitement is in the air, like the heat rising up from the asphalt of this hotel parking lot where a couple hundred men and women have gathered, traveling from all over North America, to compete in what is likely the most vaunted event in all of public transportation: the 2012 International Bus Roadeo – or more colloquially, the bus olympics.

It's an event that celebrates what may seem the most basic of duties. And yet it's a duty that so viscerally determines the circulation and heartbeat of nearly every city. Bus drivers are surely taken for granted, but they literally make our cities move. And for at least these few days, before the eyes of hundreds of family members, colleagues and, yes, even fans, bus drivers are placed under the spotlight simply to do what they do: drive the bus.