Brisbane City Council bus driver punched in the face

Drivers have reached “boiling point” after an elderly bus driver who was punched in the face this morning. The union says he was attacked despite sitting behind a partial protective barrier.

AN ELDERLY bus driver has allegedly been punched in the face and rushed to hospital this morning barely a week after another driver was robbed by a man armed with an axe.

A Queensland Police spokeswoman said police received a call about 8am that a male passenger had allegedly assaulted a bus driver and went to the scene at Stafford Rd, Stafford.

Police charged a 27-year-old man with drug possession, he will appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on September 19.

Investigations into the assault are ongoing.

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It comes a week after a driver at Forest Lake was robbed by a man armed with an axe.

Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) Queensland secretary Tom Brown said he had known the bus driver, a 79-year-old man, for 30 years, and spoke to him shortly after the attack.

“What I know is the driver remained seated, behind what he believed was a protective screen and all of a sudden got a left-hook, around the screen, and busted his nose,” he said.

Mr Brown said the driver was running the 369 service in the Stafford area when he had to break hard to avoid a collision, and had to pull up after a passenger reported an injury.

“While he was stopped, the allegedly injured passenger became more and more abusive and then violent.”

A Brisbane City Council bus driver was assaulted on August 4. File picture: AAP/Josh Woning

Mr Brown held serious concerns on whether the partial protective barriers worked in violent incidents and called for the council to show him the CCTV immediately.

“I don’t want to be premature but it looks like a fail for this screen,” he said.

He said when Toowong Depot drivers heard of the attack, they reached “boiling point.”

“They wanted the screens ripped out, they wanted a mass meeting, they wanted the Lord Mayor’s head,” he said.

“Council has hung their hat on these partial screens and we have warned them right from the start that they were not up to it.”

Public and Active Transport chair Krista Adams did not address questions on whether the driver was seated behind a partial barrier when the assault occurred.

Deputy mayor and Public and Active Transport Committee chair Krista Adams. File picture: AAP/Josh Woning

Cr Adams said it was horrible to hear a bus driver was assaulted “while simply doing his job this morning”.

She praised the police for responding so quickly to the incident.

“The bus driver’s actions during this challenging circumstance were admirable and I wish him a speedy recovery,” she said.

Cr Adams also repeated, word-for-word, her response to last week’s incident.

“For more than two years Brisbane City Council has been urgently calling on the State Government to step up and provide more Senior Network Officers to protect our bus drivers and passengers,” she said.

Labor public transport spokesman Jared Cassidy. File picture: AAP/Richard Walker

Opposition Public and Active Transport spokesman Jared Cassidy said morale among drivers was “pretty low at the moment” as a result of performance pressure and “constant” assaults.

“It actually is a reality that there’s an assault every week,” he said.

“They’re under an intense pressure to meet customer expectations in a city which is now the second most congested in Australia,” he said.

“Added to that, they’re faced with this increasing epidemic of assaults and it just points squarely to the fact that they need more protection and support from their employer – Council.”