Driver did everything he could to help after deadly attack on bus – AT

The bus driver has been praised for his response to a fatal knife attack on bus number 74 in Onehunga on Wednesday.
Photo: RNZ/Lucy Xia

The driver of the bus where a woman was fatally attacked has been praised by Auckland Transport for trying to help the woman and other passengers and doing everything right.

A man has handed himself in to police following a manhunt following the knife attack on the number 74 bus in Onehunga on Wednesday.

The woman died at the scene of the accident. There were nine other passengers on board.

When the attack occurred, the driver pressed the panic button to call for help and stopped to get his other passengers off the bus, Auckland Transport director of public transport Stacey van der Putten said Checkpoint.

He also tried to help the woman who was attacked.

“It must have been a shocking situation for them and the driver definitely did everything right by stopping the bus, keeping customers safe and getting help, so we applaud them.” “I did did a truly exceptional job,” she said.

“(Public transport operators) are all pretty devastated… it’s a bit of a shocking incident, the driver is doing well given the circumstances… all of us here at Auckland Transport are devastated about it.”

Van der Putten said the driver had been offered support and given a day off, and that operators had followed a “very thorough post-incident process” and had good support processes in place.

Stacey van der Putten, Auckland Transport’s director of public transport.
Photo: RNZ / Rayssa Almeida

“In recent years we’ve seen a big increase in anti-social behavior” on public transport, she said: “There’s more of it, people are seeing more of it.”

Police said the attack appeared to be random and there had been no previous altercation, but the man was known to police.

The police are still looking for witnesses to the incident.

Van der Putten said Auckland Transport had a target of fitting plexiglass barriers to 80 per cent of buses over the next two years to protect drivers, but this bus did not have one. All buses are equipped with CCTV cameras, GPS tracking and driver panic buttons.

Bus depot staff can respond to drivers’ panic alerts, immediately see what is happening on the bus and send police to the driver’s location. In this case, the CCTV footage was made available to the police by depot staff immediately after the incident.

Auckland-based ACT List MP Parmjeet Parmar previously said this bus – and all buses in Auckland – were not equipped with first aid kits.

Auckland’s transport network currently has 54 safety officers, which van der Putten described as a “limited number” given the size of the network they cover. There are currently another eight in training, but there is no budget for any more.

Security officers wear body cameras and are trained in de-escalation, but do not have stab-proof vests and have limited powers of intervention. They also have to ensure their own safety, van der Putten said.

She said people who notice suspicious behavior on public transport should always report it as it helps in making decisions about where to send safety officers.

Auckland Transport also worked with some local initiatives to tackle crime on buses.

“We as a community need to look at why these problems are occurring in the first place,” van der Putten said.

“We can’t solve this on our own… more money would be great, but this isn’t a discussion about money, it needs much more than that. It needs the involvement of other agencies.”

“These social problems – they are very, very complex, no amount of guards everywhere is going to solve them.”