Bill targets brutality on buses
MP seeks to have penalties raised for those who physically abuse drivers
Bus drivers in B.C. have been choked, punched and jabbed with dirty needles.
The complaints came out on Friday at a roundtable discussion in Burnaby seeking ways to stiffen penalties for convicted assailants.
“A sleepy little town like Kelowna has had two serious incidents in a month and a half,” said Les Milton, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents transit drivers in Kelowna and Merritt.
“One (driver) suffered a broken jaw and the other was stabbed with a dirty needle,” he said.
Saskatchewan MP Ralph Goodale (Liberal-Wascana) is trying to get the penalties increased through a private member’s bill he has submitted to Parliament.
“Bus drivers are required to put themselves in vulnerable circumstances,” he told the meeting.
“This legislation is necessary and urgent.”
Goodale’s bill calls for the “aggravated” nature of the assaults on “vulnerable employees” be taken into account during sentencing.
Coast Mountain bus driver Gordon Dunkley spent six frightening weeks waiting to find out if a spitting woman had infected him with HIV on a Vancouver route.
“My whole world came crashing down,” he said. “It felt like a bullet fired at me.
“I couldn’t talk to my wife and kids. I couldn’t focus on anything except what I was going through,” said Dunkley, whose test results were negative. He has since returned to driving.
The most aggravated case was related by Coast Mountain driver Lori Jackart, 42.
She is still trying to get her life
“I have erratic, disturbed sleep. I don’t celebrate anything anymore, including Christmas.” Bus driver Lori Jackart on the after-effects of an assault on her while working
together three years after drunken passenger Colin Moore tried to strangle her on a Maple Ridge route.
“I have erratic, disturbed sleep. I don’t celebrate anything anymore, including Christmas,” she said.
“My children lie in constant fear their mother is going to have a nervous breakdown,” said Jackart, who has forced herself to return to driving.
Moore, 39 at the time, was given house arrest for three months and nine months probation.
Jackart said she hopes the private member’s bill will be approved.
“More of a deterrent would help,” she said.