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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

The life of a transit bus driver is no ride in the park

By: Ashley Wiebe and Anrea Zaslov

Posted: 12/31/2011 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

(JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES)

The heels on the bus

What Winnipeg Transit drivers say about abusive riders: “I have someone yelling or swearing at me at least once a week for reasons that I can’t control, like not knowing where a street is.”

“I can’t barely go to the bathroom without someone yelling or harassing me.

‘How long are we going to sit here for?’ ” “I had a really intoxicated guy on my bus one time who was bragging that he just got out of jail to this passenger that was sitting behind me and he started a fight with him. I ended up taking him off the bus in a bear hug.”

“I’ve told people that you can’t go and buy a newspaper with 75 cents so why should I let them ride the bus for nothing? Usually they start swearing and get off the bus or they just mumble a few swears and sit down anyways.”

“Some woman got on my bus and she was clearly under the influence. She started saying she wanted a transfer but she didn’t pay so I wouldn’t give her one. It went back and forth for a while before she sat down without paying. When she went to get off, she turned to me and said ‘You never gave me the transfer’ and I told her it was because she never paid and she spit in my face... There was a woman sitting behind me who called in the incident to 311 and reported every single detail. Except for the detail that she spit in my face. So I got in trouble for being rude to a passenger. I never reported the incident because it was two stops from the end of my shift and the woman was off the bus and gone.”

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WINNIPEG Transit drivers routinely get sworn at, screamed at and spit on. And that’s on a good day.

According to a freedom of information request, Winnipeg Transit drivers have reported 10 instances of verbal and physical assaults since 2009 as reported by the Critical Incident Stress Management team.

What’s all Winnipeg Transit would say. Despite a renewed focus on driver safety, Winnipeg Transit refused to reveal any details about the incidents, saying due to a confidentiality agreement with the drivers "all meaningful information had to be severed from the record, which made the remaining information meaningless."

But spend an afternoon riding city buses, and transit drivers themselves tell no shortage of hair-raising stories. In wide-ranging interviews with 10 drivers who spoke on condition of anonymity, they described near daily harassment.

One driver told of a passenger who made a gun gesture with his fingers before revealing an actual gun in his jacket.

"He threatened to take me out," said the driver. "I did press charges and it is currently in the courts now."

A female driver said she was verbally assaulted just recently on the job.

"An older man walked up to my bus and started screaming at me, asking me to find schedule information for him," she said.

When she said she didn’t have the time, he called her "a butchy bitch."

"You need to have real thick skin to do this job," she added.

Another driver said he gets sworn at all the time just for following the bus route.

"This mother gets on the bus with a child in a stroller and another kid.

She asked if I was turning right on Arlington Street. I said no," he recalled. "She started yelling, ‘F— a—, I phoned 311 and they told me your f— bus was turning at Arlington.’ I told her again that I was going straight.

She called me a f— a— again and told me, ‘You don’t know what the f— you’re doing.’ " Said yet another driver: "I’ll never forget some of the things people say or do to me. Stuff like that really sticks with you."

Stan Dera, the Canadian director of the Amalgamated Transit Union, said five drivers are physically assaulted every day in Canada.

A media release from Winnipeg Transit said there were 70 physical assaults on drivers in 2009 alone and about 40 per cent of those involved a passenger spitting or throwing an object at the driver. The city has been testing plastic shields to protect drivers.

Winnipeg Transit Client Services said if a driver is assaulted and reports the incident, as he or she should, a police investigation will follow.

Despite several requests to speak to drivers, Winnipeg Transit referred all calls to the city’s media inquiries office. A spokeswoman said the "safety and security of employees and customers is a top priority."

"Winnipeg Transit is always looking at new ways of improving safety and security for our employees and customers," said the spokeswoman.

ashleyk.wiebe@gmail.com azaslov@gmail.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 31, 2011 A6

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