The bus driver who was recorded driving with a broken steering wheel should not have been suspended because “he did nothing wrong”, according to his employers.
“He didn’t kill anyone. He stopped driving as soon as the steering wheel came off,” Adrian Buttigieg, from transport subcontractor Żunżan Transport, told Times of Malta.
The bus driver was suspended after a video showing the steering malfunction caught the eye of the State public transport operator. The video was uploaded on timesofmalta.com and the bus was also referred for inspection.
Mr Buttigieg, however, said he felt the driver’s suspension was excessive and was the result of the media having “blown things out of proportion”.
“This is a lot of fuss, to be honest. Didn’t we have Arriva busses which were always catching fire,” he said, stressing this was his own personal view.
The bus is back in service but the driver is still suspended.
However, Malta Public Transport saw things differently and yesterday expressed concern at the incident. In a statement, it condemned the driver’s behaviour as “irresponsible and putting passengers at risk”. It insisted that drivers were obliged to immediately stop their bus at the first safe place on noticing any issues that might put passengers or other road users at risk.
This, however, was not the case. In fact, Hannah Billen, the woman who recorded the You Tube video, told this newspaper the steering wheel had been wobbling dramatically for more than 20 minutes before the driver came to a stop. “I got on the bus in Buġibba and noticed quite soon that something was wrong; so did the driver. It wasn’t until the wheel came off completely that he stopped,” she said.
Ms Billen said she was more bemused than frightened but thought of recording the incident when she saw how serious the problem was.
“When the wheel came loose, the driver tried to put it back on and drive on but when he realised that didn’t work he told us to get off. This was when it became a bigger problem because I was on my way to the airport to go back home,” she said.
Malta Public Transport said the driver was bound to inform passengers of the situation, apologise for the inconvenience and assure them that a bus was on its way to pick them up and take them safely to their destination.
It said it insisted with all employees that public and passenger safety remained its highest priority. It always demanded that everybody adhered to the highest levels of checks, safety protocols and procedures.