Assault on Bus Driver Renews Calls for Security : Transit: Some Torrance routes have been dangerous for too long, a city employees union complained to the state after the sixth attack in five years.

A Torrance municipal employees union has filed a complaint with the state Occupational Safety and Health Administration alleging that conditions are unsafe for city bus drivers on several Torrance transit lines.

The complaint follows a scuffle between a driver and an unruly passenger two weeks ago, according to city officials and union representatives. The driver, whose name has not been released, was not hurt. But the incident renewed calls for increased security measures on city transit lines.

“The bus driver actually beat up the attacker,” said Guido De Rienzo, a spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 36. “But that’s not her job. She should not have to be in a position to ward off an assault on a bus. Her job is to drive the bus.”

It was the sixth time in five years that a Torrance bus driver has been attacked by a passenger, De Rienzo said.

Ray Schmidt, Torrance Transit manager, said problems on Torrance’s nine bus lines are relatively few, considering that the bus system carried 4 million passengers last year.

“When you look at the number of incidents and the number of people we’re transporting annually, I would not throw up a red flag,” Schmidt said.

Nevertheless, the city plans to seek bids in the next few weeks on a high-tech, automatic bus locator system that would be triggered by silent alarms or other electronic devices aboard the buses, Schmidt said.

The City Council first approved the bus locator project in 1990, when $400,000 in federal and county transit funds were obtained for the program. However, contractors’ bids for the project were rejected in July after coming in far higher than the city had expected. So, last November, the city hired a consultant at a cost of $47,000 to help solicit lower bids.

The city has also allocated $80,000 for other bus security steps, although measures have yet to be specified. De Rienzo said the city has dragged its feet on the issue of drivers’ safety, even though the union first brought up the matter three years ago.

“The problem is, we don’t want to wait until a bus driver ends up dead or seriously injured for the city to all of a sudden be concerned about security on the buses,” De Rienzo said. “Right now, the drivers are out there naked.”

De Rienzo said he filed a complaint last week with the Torrance office of the state occupational health agency. The agency’s officials would not confirm that they received the complaint.

The union says bus drivers must endure a variety of unsafe conditions, particularly at night, along the bus routes linking Torrance to Long Beach and Los Angeles. The problems range from youths who throw rocks and bottles at the buses to passengers who harass--and sometimes attack--the drivers and other passengers.

Currently, drivers in trouble must radio a supervisor at the Torrance City Yard, who relays the information to police. Because bus radio frequencies differ from those of law enforcement, the radios cannot be used to call police directly, Schmidt said.

Driver D. C. Young said the current system wastes too much time and failed to work for her during an attack in the late 1980s on a Torrance bus line that serves Long Beach. Young suffered a concussion from the assault.

Her attacker “started stomping on my right foot, which was on the pedal, while the bus was in motion,” recalled Young, who says she has been on disability leave several times as a result of the attack. “I called in to the office and didn’t get no response. The man tried to pick me up and throw me out the window. I was told he rammed my head against the fare box.”