A bus driver was attacked with pepper spray and punches after asking the partner of one of the passengers to remove her feet from the seats. In the past two weeks, there has been a 20% increase in incidents of assaults against public transport workers.
Violence against bus drivers: A driver from the Electra Afikim company on line 143 was attacked last night (Monday) by one of the passengers in the settlement of Tal Zion.
Upon the bus's arrival at the final station, after the bus had emptied of passengers, the passenger attacked the driver with pepper spray and fists. Additionally, two more friends of the assailant got up and tried to break through the driver's partition unsuccessfully, while threatening the driver. The driver was taken for medical treatment after being injured in his nose, head, and having his vision blurred due to the pepper spray.
The cause of the violent incident began after the driver asked a passenger to remove her feet from the bus's upholstery. The passenger refused and cursed the driver, calling him a "terrorist." She "promised" the driver that her partner would take care of him. Later in the journey, her partner joined in the threats against the driver but refrained from physical contact. Last night, the driver recognized the partner boarding the bus at the Givat HaTahmoshet station in Jerusalem. As mentioned at the end of the line, the passenger decided to "settle the score." Following the incident, a police vehicle will be added to the Tel Zion bus terminal.
N, a bus driver, described the 'difficult experience': "It all starts with a minimal requirement, these are new buses." I'm sorry about the upholstery. There is no justification for the curses and threats I received. We are used to such curses every day, but usually, they are small children. The aggressive passenger, I recognized at the beginning of the line, he was whispering on the phone and it already felt threatening to me.
At the end of the line, within seconds I felt trapped in a partition. They're attacking me from all directions, and what's going through my mind is that I'm lucky I managed to pull the handbrake in time. Half a second of inattention and I could have run over dozens of children standing in front of me, God forbid. On the buses, we are all together - Jews, Muslims, and Christians, there are no differences. It can't be that we continue to be the punching bag of passengers.
"A 20% increase in incidents of assaults against public transport workers"
Tamar Ohana, Head of the Transportation Division at the Workers' Power union, responded to the incident: "We thank the company management for their swift response and hope that the deployment of the mobile unit will deter violent passengers." This is exactly the example of handling such cases - police vigilance in high-risk areas. Racist curses towards Arab drivers are a daily routine, but since the war, drivers have been attacked with curses like "terrorists" and "bombers" that particularly hurt them.
According to him, "In the past two weeks, we have been following with concern the approximately 20% increase in cases of violent assaults against public transport workers." The centers of the attack are Haifa and the West Bank. And we are already at the onset of the holidays—a period in which there is consistently an increase in the levels of passenger violence. We call on the Ministry of Transportation to accept our recommendations for addressing violence on buses. And foremost - the deployment of patrols on routes prone to disturbances and the recognition of public transport workers as public servants.
