Monday, November 7, 2011

People who catch the bus in predominantly black Detroit may be waiting awhile

About 100 Detroit Department of Transportation bus drivers are at work, but are refusing to drive their buses. Henry Gaffney, spokesman for the D-DOT bus drivers union AFL-CIO Local 26, said that this was not an organized maneuver by the union. Gaffney said that it’s a matter of bus drivers fearing for their safety, citing an incident that happened recently. “Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney. He said that bus safety is an ongoing problem. “If it’s to the point where if the driver is not safe on the bus, then the passengers are not safe, then the citizens are not safe. You know, what about them too? We have no security, you can’t get the police, nobody is doing anything to protect us. And I’ve been begging the mayor and the council for two years to do something to help us,” said Gaffney.

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