TIMOTHY FAIRLESS

BUS OPERATOR

Bus driver Timothy Fairless kept cool during an all-toocommon but dangerous moment — an unruly passenger on board.

On the evening of Aug. 9, an apparently drunk man started to yell obscenities and revolting insults at an MTA traffic checker who was aboard a full Q53 bus in the Rockaways. The insults gave way to a hard smack in the face. That’s when the rookie driver from Long Beach, Long Island, parked the bus and stepped between his assaulted colleague and the man, who had a good 20 pounds on him, by his own estimate. “I told him, ‘You’re not going anywhere,’” Fairless, 43, said. That allowed police to get to the scene.