On the General Tardiness and Stupidity of Our Great Country

Where do I even begin with this one? Another day, another rant. Firstly, on buses.

What is it about buses, that they always seem to be late whenever you don't want them to be? A bus that shouldn't have any trouble arriving on time due to the time it's supposed to arrive at, still happens to be minutes late. It's supposed to take 15 minutes to get to the first bus station. It took half an hour. Not only that, but the bus driver was overly friendly/helpful. As a bus driver, that's sometimes a good thing. But yesterday, I really needed that bus driver to just DRIVE. THE. BUS.
There was a European driver who got lost, so the bus driver gave him directions. For the entirety of the journey, the HGV followed us. The bus driver stopped another 2 times to correct him on his path, and took the trouble of removing his change bag from the cabin and lugging it with him when he left the bus. I realize this is sensible, but it almost irked me too much - the fact that he didn't trust any of his 50+ passengers to leave the money well alone. It's only petty change, after all.
Secondly, nearing town, he stopped another two times at two separate bus stops to tell ladies with prams that there wasn't enough room on the bus for them to get on. Not only could they see that themselves, it would have saved time to just drive past the stops. The other thing is, there are another 2-3 buses that regularly pass by those stops, at least one every ten minutes. I'm sure they could have waited, without our driver having to take the 20 seconds to stop and TELL THEM why he wasn't going to let them on. I know it's common politeness, but the bus was already VERY LATE and I was beginning to think I would be too.
The other bone I have to pick regarding buses has nothing to do with the drivers ( I realize they have a horrible job and receive lots of abuse anyway). It has to do with the passengers. Please for all things good, get your change ready before you get on the bus. One woman stood by the cabin labouriously counting outloud each 10p "that's 20, 30,40". Seriously just slap some change down or get it ready before you get on the bus. I understand if you don't know how much it is, but when you are a regular passenger on the bus service, please don't do this. It's really annoying.

On the same day in my English class, we were reading a text aloud. We encountered the word "chasm". Not one, or two, but FIVE people in the class piped up - "Miss, what is a 'chasm'?"

DO. YOU. NOT. READ. BOOKS. Failing that, do you not read AT ALL? Sorry, I didn't realize wide reading was needed to have a basic vocabulary so that you can understand basic A-level information texts. What's worse is, when the teacher gave the example of the Grand Canyon as being a chasm, someone else in the class said "What is a Grand Canyon?". Not only did she have no knowledge of what it is, she called it 'a' instead of 'the'.

I can't contain my despair. This isn't something that happens rarely in this class. It happens a lot. I understand if people don't know what a 'lingua franca' is, but even then - studying English Language, surely they must have encountered it somewhere before!? This occurs with even the simplest of words, and makes me wonder about a lot of things.