There is no fairer review of cheap bus travel than this.

On Sunday, Lucas Peterson, a journalist who writes for The New York Times’ Frugal Traveler blog, boarded a Megabus in Chicago bound for Milwaukee. At first, there was an irritating, but not disastrous, problem.

Soon enough, things took a turn for the worse. The bus quickly caught fire, and the passengers were forced to evacuate the bus, leaving their luggage inside.

Peterson, probably the very last person Megabus could have hoped for to be riding this specific bus at this specific time, tweeted out updates of the incident as it happened:

Summary: we left Chicago, immediately there seemed to be something wrong bc we stopped on shoulder of highway couple times, driver got out.

Then driver said we have to turn around and go back to Chicago to switch buses. About five min later tire blows and we pull over on hwy 41

Driver says it’s just a flat tire, that there’s no need to panic, and goes outside. Minutes later smoke starts pouring out of the bus.

Someone on the top deck eventually says: “we should get off of this bus.” So we all get out. People trying to get their luggage. Small fire.

S mall fire over wheel becomes big; people abandon luggage and get away. Entire thing goes up in flames, series of loud booms.

Thankfully, no one was injured. Peterson reports, however, that passengers are angry that they lost their luggage—some of them lost laptops and even a birth certificate. Of course, Megabus only guarantees liability for lost luggage up to $250.

Luckily, the passengers made it to their destination at last. Their mode of transportation was, naturally, another shitty Megabus.

[Image via Twitter]

Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.