This clever riddle asks:
“A bus driver goes the wrong way down a one-way street. Why isn’t he stopped?”
At first, it sounds like the driver is breaking an obvious traffic law. If someone drives a bus the wrong way down a one-way street, surely they would be stopped.
But there is one important detail the riddle never actually tells you.
It says the person is a bus driver, but it never says he is driving a bus at that moment.
The answer is:
He is walking.
A bus driver can still be called a bus driver even when he is off duty and walking down the street. One-way traffic rules apply to vehicles, not pedestrians, so there is nothing unusual about him walking in the opposite direction.
That small assumption is what makes the riddle work. Most people automatically imagine him behind the wheel.
Answer: He was walking.
Did the words “bus driver” trick you at first?
