Bus users say - please make us feel safer!

Apr 20 2007 By Ben Hurst, Paul Bradley and Lee Kenny, Birmingham Mail

SCORES of angry passengers clashed with transport policy makers in a heated row over safety on the buses.

Bus chiefs were accused of putting passengers at risk while bending over backwards to protect staff.

Anti-social behaviour and the desperate need for more bus lanes in the city were the main talking points at the open forum.

Former bus conductor Keith Taylor, from Ladywood, led the criticism. "People are not evil, nasty or stupid,they just do not understand that their behaviour is unacceptable. We have got to find new ways of saying 'please do not do that'," he said.

"We need to find lots of ways of saying 'please behave nicely', and one of the ways of doing that is by putting conductors back on our buses."

Kathleen Hughes, from Northfield, aged 73, added: "In my day children who were causing trouble would be told off by the inspector. Nowadays, I am scared to travel on the buses because the children push and shove their way in front of me."

Perry Barr Liberal Democrat councillor Jon Hunt said: "Why is it not okay to expose members of staff to health and safety dangers but it is fine to expose customers to them?"

But Richard Bowker, chief executive of National Express, parent company for Travel West Midlands, hit back.

He said: "We take the safety of our staff very seriously. We can't put each passenger behind a protective screen like our drivers."

The debate at Villa Park's Holte Suite gave more than 70 readers the chance to put their questions to the city's transport policy makers.

They included Len Gregory, cabinet member for transport at Birmingham City Council, John Partridge from bus drivers' union the T&GWU and Stephen Rhodes, assistant director for bus services at Centro-PTA.

But Mr Bowker also went on the offensive against Birmingham City Council bosses, accusing them of ignoring bus priority measures. He said: "It is hard to remove bus lanes because Birmingham hardly has any.

"I make this pledge now - if more bus lanes are put in then we will invest more in equipment."

But David Bull, from Birmingham City Council, said: "There are already plenty of stretches of bus lanes in the city.

"In total we have more than 30km of bus lanes."