Lawmakers Demand More Protection For Bus Drivers

Lawmakers have called on the government to ensure more protection for bus drivers after a video of two women attacking a bus captain on Thursday went viral on social media.

The footage showed the women shouting in Putonghua and punching and pulling the hair of the driver after the bus ended service at a Discovery Bay depot, as other passengers who had alighted looked on.

During a Legco transport panel meeting, some lawmakers raised the issue and called on the authorities to take action against the two women.

Neo-democrat lawmaker Gary Fan, citing the report of an independent panel, said the government had failed to prosecute such attackers before.

Civic Party lawmaker Tanya Chan said the report had called for more protection for drivers and urged the government to implement measures like a protective partition, security cameras and audio recording equipment.

The panel was appointed to look into franchised bus operations after a crash in Tai Po killed 19 people early last year. Its report gave 45 recommendations and called for a major overhaul of the approach to public bus safety.

The report had severely criticised the government's policy on the matter, saying the official approach was always to react after accidents and never to take steps to prevent mishaps.

The Legco panel passed a non-binding motion calling on the government to scrap 14-hour shifts for drivers, which was one of the recommendation in the report.