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Ryan Bridge: Why would you want to be a bus driver? · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Why would you want to be a bus driver. Yesterday
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: a driver, fellow passengers all witnessed a stabbing take place
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and the person died. This is two thirty in the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: afternoon on a bus in suburban Auckland and someone is
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: stabbed to death. There's been beatings of passengers and drivers.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I don't have to explain this. You've seen the headlines.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: The problem of drivers safety seems to only be getting worse.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I was walking past a bus just a few weeks back.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: There was a guy. He looked wild in the eyes.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: You know the ones that just look crazy, You know
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the ones that I'm talking about, swearing and yelling and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: walking up to buses and kicking their doors. So every
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: time a bus would come along, the guy would just
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: kick their door, and he did it to several of them.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I didn't say anything. I was with other people. They
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: didn't say anything because you're just worried he's going to
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: go nuts at you. But we could carry on walking
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: down the road. When you work on public transport, you
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: cannot escape the public. And when the public is increasingly hostile,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: there are more and more bad eggs on the bus.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Where do you go to? Nowhere? You can't go anywhere,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: and the long promised safety screens are finally being installed,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: but as we heard on the show a couple of
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: months back, it'll take another two years to even get
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: to eighty percent coverage. There are plenty of safe bus
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: journeys out there, plenty of drivers who love what they do,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: no doubt about that. But the more you hear about
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: these awful acts of violence on or around our drivers,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: you've got to ask yourself, is it worth the risk?
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: to news Talks it'd be from five am weekdays, or
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio