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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Driver defence
WINNIPEG Transit drivers have for years complained about assaults from passengers, particularly those who seem to think they have a right to a free ride. The installation of cameras and the experimentation with safety shields appear not to have made a difference in discouraging violence. Drivers want quicker response in their calls for help.
The local Amalgamated Transit Union is asking the city to hire more special constables, in addition to the current 12, to help when a driver's call comes. Hiring more security, however, should follow evidence of increased need, and the use of special constables has proven effective. The drivers' union says the response is not fast enough. Hiring bus marshals to ride along, as Coun. Ross Eadie seems to suggest, might work on a particularly risky route, but would prove prohibitively expensive if adopted broadly.
The number of reported assaults recorded took a dramatic hike after the definition of an assault, which encompasses spitting, verbal abuse and outright physical attacks, was expanded after 2008. In 2009, 70 assaults (up from 2008's 39) were recorded and last year it was 63.
Drivers have to put up with being spat upon, dodging projectiles or weathering verbal threats. Some are injured. Cameras can help in prosecution, but do not deter nor do they protect. Better patrols and communication with drivers on routes of proven risk might speed up response of constables. Above all, city council should insist drivers be trained well and regularly in self-defence.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 17, 2012 A10
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