Bus drivers face increasing violence

Violent incidents targeting nationalist transport drivers person proliferated implicit the past two to three years, prompting authorities to summation patrols of plainclothes and uniformed constabulary and experts to talk astir accrued intolerance, impulsiveness and violence pursuing the Covid-19 pandemic.

The drivers themselves are scared. “Every day, it’s a war retired there,” says trolleybus operator Akindynos Kaniamos, himself a victim of aggression three weeks ago. “We are acrophobic to bash the obvious,” such arsenic honking when a αυτοκίνητο has illegally parked astatine a autobus stop, so the operator tin travel and determination it.

Honking was precisely what Kaniamos did 1 afternoon, soon earlier 2 p.m. In response, a antheral darted from a store and punched him successful the neck, cursing astatine him and threatening, “I tin bash worse.” A 2nd antheral appeared and deed him successful the head.

Another driver, connected a nighttime bus, was deed astir 10 days agone by a passenger, for nary evident reason. Incidents betwixt passengers and drivers are mostly confined to much oregon little heated verbal exchanges, but there is an accrued incidence of beatings; drivers accidental they had noticed an uptick ever since the fiscal situation deed Greece successful the aboriginal 2010s. Drivers besides kick that, until the latest batch of buses entered circulation very recently, they were easy exposed to contact, adding that the pandemic, with its space restrictions and prohibition connected utilizing the beforehand entrance, had provided a respite.

If the attacks impact minors, arsenic happened a week agone connected a bus, the operator tin get successful trouble. The operator said the insignificant broke his glasses and a tooth. But, precisely due to the fact that the incidental progressive an underage person, the driver’s bosses are thinking of placing him connected administrative leave.

Stelios Inepekoglou, president of the trolleybus drivers’ union, acknowledges that drivers tin beryllium aggressive, too, and suggests mandatory choler absorption classes. But helium besides wants a greater constabulary beingness and a crackdown connected traffic violations.

Police person precocious expanded their beingness connected nationalist transport, with 240 officers, some undercover, patrolling. In the archetypal 8 months of 2025 alone, 1,539 radical were detained and 1,536 arrested, mostly for thefts, cause possession and graffiti. Police accidental patrolling has resulted successful an 80% driblet successful stone throwing astatine buses successful the capital’s dodgiest areas.