Nov
13
To protect drivers, bus partitions
ByNearly one year, Edwin Thomas, a driver along the B46 bus route, was fatally stabbed by a passenger who refused to pay the fare. Three weeks later, the MTA announced plans to start a bus partition pilot program, and now the MTA is gearing up to install these protective partitions. According to Pete Donohue of the Daily News, an L-shaped plastic partition will be installed in 100 buses in Brooklyn in an effort to better protect drivers for unruly passengers. As 340 bus drivers have been physically assaulted this year, this move is long overdue.
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High-floor buses need to have the driver operate the wheelchair lift when a passenger in a wheelchair boards. This means that the partition could only work with low-floor buses.
Alon, unless you are privy to information that suggests otherwise, one would imagine that the driver will be able to exit the partition to operate the wheelchair boards. It may take a little longer than the bar that “protects” the driver now, but it’s not like the driver will be stuck in a bubble unable to extricate himself.
I’m not privy to such information. I just think that if the bus driver needs to get out of the partition frequently, then it’s not going to be too useful.
Even on a low-floor bus, the driver has to get up to strap the wheelchair passenger in.
I don’t like that so much. I wold like to think that the diver is part of the same environment that the passengers are in. It might not be his/her job to protect me, but I would like the think we are all riding the same bus.
I’m not a big fan of isolating myself behind a sheet of plexiglass while my passengers are exposed to whatever the threat is …
Lets get the D.A’s to prosecute these animals to full extent of the law .. with the same vigor they do when someone assaults a Police officer, Paramedic etc…
It may not stop them but most will think twice before wailing on a Transit Operator in the future