For six years, NBC Bay Area has investigated attacks on public bus operators. Our team found they are being assaulted at an alarming rate in the Bay Area and across the country.
Concerned about the impacts of the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown on these critical frontline workers, our team revisited our original 2018 Driver’s Under Siege reporting.
For the past 12 months, we developed new bus operator sources, fought for public records from transit agencies, and reviewed hundreds of documents – all while bus operator advocates voiced concerns that some transit agencies are hiding the true scope of the violence.
We uncovered new cases of bus operators being shot at, punched, harassed, and even threatened by a machete-wielding passenger who hijacked a bus. Our months of digging into the incident revealed gaps in the transit agency’s emergency response system.
After NBC Bay Area’s original 2018 reporting helped spark national attention – and one week after our first Surviving the Drive investigation – the Biden-Harris Administration announced nationwide action to address transit worker assaults. A month later, in January 2024, the international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union penned a letter to United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. This past April, the U.S. Department of Transportation finalized new requirements for transit agencies to identify and manage transit worker safety risks through data. The new rules went into effect across the United States last May.
Part 1: Hit, shot at, kidnapped: Bus driver violence rises as AC Transit has highest assault rate
Part 2: Feds take nationwide step to address transit worker assaults
Part 3: VTA bus hijacking video highlights fragmented transit emergency response
Part 4: 80% of VTA bus panic button calls are false alarms, deputies must respond
- Watch our original award-winning Driver’s Under Siege reporting by Vicky Nguyen and Kevin Nious
