News: Union Offers Bus Driver Beating Reward

Vancouver Sun

Published: Friday, November 30, 2007

VANCOUVER - The union representing bus drivers is offering a $2,000 reward for any information leading to the conviction of people who swarmed and beat a Coast Mountain bus driver on Halloween night.

The unidentified driver was dragged off a bus and hit after she threw some Halloween candy to trick-or-treaters near Commercial Drive and Napier Street.

A couple of passengers on the bus intervened and stopped the attack. But the driver was physically injured and emotionally traumatized.

Her union, Canadian Auto Workers, Local 111, said the woman is back driving a bus on a different route, but it will not release her name because she is still fearful of her attackers.

The union is calling on federal MPs to pass a private member's bill that would mean stiffer sentences for people convicted of assaulting on-duty bus drivers and other transit workers.

The bill proposed by Burnaby-New Westminster NDP MP Peter Julian would allow judges to impose sentences of up to 20 years for assaults on public transportation workers.

"Our members shouldn't be driving in fear," CAW Local 111 president Steve Sutherland told reporters Friday.

"You shouldn't be afraid to go to work because you might be assaulted."

Sutherland said he expects the number of attacks on drivers in Metro Vancouver will exceed the 241 assaults that occurred in 2006.

"There's no doubt it's getting worse," said Sutherland. "We're getting more brutal assaults and we're getting them for no reason."