A bus driver was recovering in hospital Friday after being beaten by a passenger at Douglas and Bay streets.
The passenger became upset when the driver said he could not pull over at a decommissioned Victoria bus stop at Douglas and Kings Road about 1:30 p.m., said B.C. Transit spokesman Mike Russell.
“The operator informed the person that he’d have to wait for the next stop,” Russell said.
“The suspect didn’t like that and started to assault the operator while the bus was moving.
“Thankfully, the operator was able to get the bus pulled safely to the side of the road.”
At that point, the assault continued for a brief time before the passenger fled. Other passengers called 911 during the incident.
A suspect was located soon after by Victoria police and a transit supervisor, and taken into custody. The bus happened to be equipped with closed-circuit monitoring as part of a pilot project.
“That information’s going to be passed on to VicPD for their investigation,” Russell said.
Police would like to speak to anyone, including any passengers who may have witnessed the incident.
“Many of those on the bus left before speaking with officers and our investigators would like to speak with them,” said Victoria police spokesman Bowen Osoko.
The assault comes about a month before five protective barriers for drivers, made of a special type of glass, are tested on buses in the region, said Ben Williams, who represents the drivers as president of Unifor Local 333. He said the union has been working with B.C. Transit, Coast Mountain Bus Co. on the Lower Mainland and WorkSafe B.C. to develop a project.
The search for a suitable design has been North America-wide, Williams said. He said a different type of barrier was tested on a single bus this year but was not what was needed.
Friday’s assault points to the ongoing issue of assaults on buses, Williams said.
“It draws the attention to what we have been saying for quite some time now, where we have said that assaults are happening in Greater Victoria and they’re not necessarily the times of day when people might think. Here’s an assault that happened at 1:30 in the afternoon on a Friday, sunny day, in the middle of downtown.”
In the past three years, there have been 126 incidents involving bus drivers in Greater Victoria, according to B.C. Transit.
WorkSafe B.C. had 416 time-loss claims from bus drivers across B.C. from 2004 to 2013, including 39 that involved serious injuries.
