Bus Safety: We Won't Be Distracted From Public Ownership

Twenty-five deaths and nearly 12,000 injuries have been caused by buses on the capital’s streets in just two years. The lethal pressures heaped on bus drivers are shown in a new report ‘Driven to Distraction’, by the London Assembly’s Transport Committee.

- Andy Beadle

Unite’s bus workers are demonstrating at City Hall to demand the report’s fine words are translated into action. This is a scandal that stands alongside the deaths and devastation from Britain’s privatised trains. The same companies, like Arriva, First and Stagecoach, operate London buses.

“Long periods of intense concentration and a system run on stressful, barely achievable targets inevitably have consequences for the industry”, says the report.

If we do our job properly, we will be pressed with demands from the controllers and reports to our manager for being late. We will be punished with being forced to finish late and shortened meal breaks.