VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - Partial plastic shields around transit bus drivers' seats will be tested to see if they can prevent assaults and other violent situations.
"We made a commitment only to testing them to see what the feedback is... there is no commitment at this time to install them on a full time basis," says assault analyst Rick Claybo.
The pilot project begins on Wednesday and will run for six weeks. Full shields were initially proposed but the Coast Mountain Bus Company found they gave off too much glare and were uncomfortable for drivers.
"We just have the one bus that we are moving around. With the full shield we were able to talk to almost 1,100 operators which was a great pool to draw feedback from. Hopefully we should be able to hit up as many operators this way," explains Claybo.
There were 118 known assaults on bus drivers in 2010. A driver assaulted in Burnaby last week says during his 25-year career he has been assaulted 14 times.