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Female bus drivers attacked in two boro incidents

By Courtney Dentch

Two female city bus drivers were attacked in separate assaults in Queens last week, the latest in a long series of incidents that have transit union officials seeking more protection for their members and stiffer penalties for attackers.

The attacks, one in Springfield Gardens and one in Queensboro Hill, add to an ongoing problem of attacks on transit workers, said Maurice Lewis, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, who has been compiling incident reports since 1997.

“It’s about a full ream of paper,” he said of the reports for the past five years. “We’re averaging 200 to 300 attacks a year citywide.”

The first of the most recent incidents took place in Springfield Gardens last Thursday at 12:42 a.m., police said. Driver Laura Tyson stopped her Q5 bus when someone ran in front of it near the intersection of Merrick Boulevard and Montauk Street, Lewis said.

As the person approached the bus door, someone else threw an object through the windshield, showering Tyson with glass, Lewis said. She was taken to Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica, where she was treated for cuts on her wrists and arms, police said.

The second incident occurred just a few hours later at 3:50 a.m. in Queensboro Hill, police said. Two men began arguing and fighting with passengers aboard the Q58 bus on the Long Island Expressway near College Point Boulevard, police said. The men ordered the woman driver, who was not identified by police, to stop the bus and then assaulted her, tearing two gold chains from around her neck, police said. She suffered a minor injury to her right hand, but refused medical treatment, police said.

No arrests have been made in either incident, police said.

The attacks came just three weeks after a St. Albans bus driver was stabbed in the back by an irate passenger on his Brooklyn route who wanted him to drive faster. The driver, Clinton Phillip, was able to wrest the knife away from the him and stab his attacker, who later died at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn.

“It’s a very difficult, delicate mix dealing with the public on a daily basis,” Lewis said. “We have to follow the rules and sometimes it annoys the passengers.”

Lewis’ group is working with police and New York City Transit to improve bus security, he said. They are looking at a number of options, including two-way radios, emergency panic buttons and signs notifying passengers of the penalties for attacking drivers, he said.

The union also is working with the state Legislature to impose stricter punishments on attackers by making an assault on a transit employee a felony, grouping it with second-degree assault charges, Lewis said. The bill was introduced last year and passed by the state Senate, but it has been referred to the codes committee in the state Assembly.

The group also is talking with the City Council to get more police protection for areas where there are a lot of incidents, Lewis said.

Lewis would like to see increased funding for training to teach drivers how to deal with hostile passengers, he said.

“The reality is that with a bus, the operators are out there by themselves with no protection,” Lewis said. “You’re not really trained to deal with members of the public who are hostile.”

But the biggest concern is the safety of the passengers, said Lewis. Borough President Helen Marshall also voiced her concern.

“The two reported attacks on bus drivers and passengers in Queens today are outrages that cannot be tolerated,” Marshall said in a statement released last Thursday. “Drivers and passengers cannot ride in fear of being attacked and robbed as they commute to and from work and other places.”

Reach reporter Courtney Dentch by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com, or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 138.