A delay – due to traffic – that a passenger just couldn’t tolerate. So much so that he even hit the plexiglass partition that separates the driver’s seat with a stick.
Yet another attack against a public transport driver took place late last Sunday afternoon.
The bus is late
It was around 6.25pm when bus line 212 arrived at the terminus in Piazza Carducci, in Monza, a few minutes late due to rather heavy traffic.
When opening the doors, the driver found himself in front of a man in his sixties who approached him with an aggressive attitude.
Passenger hits the vehicle with a stick
Screaming and hitting the partition that separates (and protects) the driver with his stick. Shouting and insults, accompanied by repeated attempts to open the driver’s seat door.
“I have to go home and you are late or miss the rides, I will beat you”, the threat made by the 60-year-old to the driver who, together with the other passengers who intervened in his defense, attempted to bring him back to calm.
The arrival of the police
All attempts failed, so much so that the worker was forced to interrupt the service and call the operations controller who advised him to call the police. But not even the arrival of the police calmed down the 60-year-old who continued to insult the driver, trying to get close to him to hit him. At that point the officers stopped him and made him get off the bus which, in the meantime, had accumulated a considerable delay. “My luck was to have a bus equipped with a driver’s safety door that does not open from the outside – the words of the driver later reported in the report – Otherwise I would have also suffered a physical attack”.
“We are exasperated”
An episode that occurred only a few days after another unpleasant event he had involved Salvatore Russo, driver and member of the city’s League, who received insults from a passenger for inviting him to muzzle the two large dogs he had brought with him on the bus. «We drivers are exasperated – Russo reiterated – We need safety on public transport. It is necessary to provide for the presence of law enforcement agencies and cameras connected to the operations centers. We cannot work in this climate of fear.”
