Fun story in Boston.com today about the MBTA’s new bus driving simulator:

The most notable obstacles from the driver’s seat of this rumbling MBTA bus are the taxicabs – so many of them, each more frenetic than the one before, all steered by fearless drivers darting across lanes with nary a worry in the world.

Then there’s the weather, clear as gin one moment, blowing snow as thick as bisque the next. There are fuzzy landmarks – is that the Hancock Tower in the distance? Then come the rotaries, fiendish little enemies of common sense that can make even the most hardbitten T drivers weak in the knees.

This is not the view from a real bus ride. It’s not even the view from a real bus – but rather, from the seat of a new $1.3 million bus simulator MBTA officials are just beginning to use to train new drivers and retrain old ones.

But Boston is not Phoenix, with its dry, straight boulevards and relentlessly sunny skies. It isn’t even New York, with its wide avenues and generally obedient pedestrians. So in this custom-crafted simulator, there are Northeasters, obnoxious jaywalkers, overhead lines for electric buses, and the Preble Circle rotary in South Boston, complete with a view of Whitey Bulger’s former liquor store.

And then there’s the narrow Silver Line tunnel heading to Logan International Airport.

There’s even a video of a reporter trying to drive the SimBus, badly. As one would expect, it is harder than it looks, but this guy makes Sandra Bullock looks like a Bus Rodeo hall-of-famer!

Ps. Bonus fact: Speed won 2 Oscars! Sure, they’re in sound categories but still! Oscars!