Bus routes to fear

YOU can't blame York's bus drivers for being frightened. Bricks and stones are one thing. Having a shotgun fired through the window of your bus late on a Saturday night must be terrifying.

Little wonder drivers have been threatening to withdraw evening services across the city unless something is done.

Managers at York's bus operator First have no illusions about just how serious the latest incident was.

"Bricks and things we're used to," admits Paul Bell, First's operations manager who is responsible for security on the buses.

"When firearms are involved, you are looking at a totally new ball game. It was very dangerous, and that is why the police are taking it so seriously."

So are First. On Sunday morning, at a meeting with drivers, Mr Bell was emphasising that the incident had been a one-off and was unlikely to happen again.

Even so, he admits, many drivers were reluctant to go out on the road following the previous night's incident - a reluctance he fully understood.

Even if drivers don't withdraw evening services, there is now a very real possibility that First might do it themselves in certain areas of the city. "Our major concern is the safety of our passengers and staff," says Mr Bell.

In many ways, Saturday night's incident served merely to highlight what has been a growing problem on York's buses.

As the interview with an unnamed driver on below reveals, many drivers simply don't know what to expect any more when they set off at the wheel of a late-night bus.

During the last few weeks brick attacks on buses have become almost routine.

Last week, buses were targeted every night - and in one incident, a police van escorting a bus down Danebury Drive was itself attacked.

Recently, a service was withdrawn in Haxby after a bus had its windows smashed - and last year, the last bus of the night through Chapelfields was withdrawn because of attacks. It has not been resumed.

Mr Bell says targeting First's fleet of new buses seems to have become the latest 'craze' among teenagers.

"They seem to want to be able to tick off a list of how many buses they can brick."

Whereas at first the vandalism was restricted to a few areas of York, during the last few weeks it has been becoming more widespread.

"Last week there were new problem areas popping up all over the city, and incidents nearly every night," says Mr Bell.

"I had a driver ring today and say he was not coming in to work, because he was hit in the face with an egg and he'd got bits of shell in his eye."

That, of course, is an entirely different order of things than being shot at.

Police were today stressing there was 'no connection' between the thuggish stone-throwing behaviour and the shotgun incident on Saturday night. "It was a horrendous thing for a bus driver to be faced with," agrees Chief Insp Howard Harding of York Police. "But there is no connection between that and the Danebury Drive incidents.

"What we've got there is a situation where groups of young people have just taken the law into their own hands a little bit.

"They are throwing stones at buses, pulling the emergency stop buttons."

Whether the shotgun incident was a one-off or not, bus managers and the police still have the problem of what to do now.

First's fleet of new buses already carry CCTV cameras, and have heavy, shielded doors designed to protect drivers.

What more can be done to protect them and their passengers?

The police say they will do 'whatever it takes' - but even Paul Bell admits having a police escort for every one of the company's buses isn't an option. "You can't have 100 police cars running around with buses all day," he agrees.

"A more realistic possibility is to have plain clothes officers riding as passengers on targeted services - an option that has been used in the past.

That would at least hold out hope of catching some of the teenagers who think throwing stones at a bus is fun, says Mr Bell - and might ram home the message that it's not a lark, but a serious criminal offence with potentially dangerous consequences.

That may well happen.

Sadly for passengers, however, the easiest option - in the short-term at least - may still be the Chapelfields solution.

Which in a pleasant, prosperous city such as York would be little short of a tragedy.

"The most frightening thing that happened to me was up at Chapelfields...

...I drove up there one night, coming into Bramham where the shops are. They had barricaded all the road off with council bins.

They all came charging at us from the playing field area with stones, and it starts. It's quite frightening, I tell you. I thought, what do I do? I just put my foot down and went straight through the barricade, bins went flying everywhere.

You never know what's around the corner."

This terrifying ordeal was only one of many experienced by a First bus driver of some years' standing. The driver, who we are not naming, said life on the buses in York was nerve-wracking, especially at night.

"It's getting worse and worse. It's just ridiculous. What is it going to take before something's done about it? Someone's going to get killed.

"I am all on edge when I am going down Danebury. I went along there at 20 to eight in the morning and a brick was thrown at the window.

"You go along Alcuin Avenue up Tang Hall and young kids are throwing stuff. You hear a bang, and you think, 'what the hell's that?'

"These kids on Danebury Drive are nine, ten, 11 - what the hell are they doing out at half-ten, 11 o'clock at night?"

Morale is low among drivers, and many are said to be looking for a way out. "Everybody's always looking for something else. The job's absolute garbage at the moment."

There are no easy answers to making a driver's life safer, the source said. "What protection can they give you? You're public transport, you're out there. I can't blame First, because in these new buses we have got big, heavy doors with shields coming down.

"To be honest, it's the police and the magistrates who are not acting properly. The police don't have the money or the resources. They don't do anything for fear of repercussions.

"One of our bus drivers had a police escort there the other night, and he said the police van was attacked too.

"What's going to happen is a bus is going to go out of control and hit one of these little b******s, killing them. Or a driver will get killed. There'll be a big outcry and then they'll do something about it.

"I have got kids. What happens if anything happens to me? For £5.46 an hour, I'm starting to think it's not worth it."

Updated: 12:14 Tuesday, March 19, 2002