Bloodied driver prevents crash

Bus driver Lillian Ngawhare was more concerned about her passengers than her own injuries after a band of thugs threw her head-first from the vehicle on a late-night run through Mangere.

Battered and bloodied by the eight fleeing youths, she staggered back on the bus to help the two passengers to slam on the brakes to stop it rolling into oncoming traffic on busy Massey Rd on Thursday night.

Ms Ngawhare, in her 50s, said the youths tried to wrench her cashbox off its stand and one whacked her on the head before dragging her out of the bus. She was taken to Middlemore Hospital, where she received stitches for a head wound, but was recovering yesterday with the support of two busloads of fellow Stagecoach drivers who visited her at her East Tamaki home.

Her ordeal has shocked drivers from the company's Wiri depot, who say they have been subjected to several attacks at night in Mangere in recent months and want the company to do more to protect them.

Driver Dave Peacock said he was accosted by two youths in the town centre at 10.20pm on Thursday, about 10 minutes before the attack on Ms Ngawhare, but drove them away after recognising one, whom he suspected "took a swing" at him two months ago.

"They looked like they were on P. They are doing it for the drug money, and I think they are sussing out drivers and how many people are on the buses."

Some drivers are calling for an all-up stopwork meeting with police and company representatives to trade accounts of assaults and gain assurances of extra security.

Auckland Tramways Union president Gary Froggatt is calling for conductors to be added to night-time bus services on certain routes but says he has started working with the company towards holding depot meetings rather than an all-up stopwork.

But he acknowledged that he had only just learned of some previously unreported attacks, a reason Wiri depot union man Brian Webb wants a mass meeting.

Ms Ngawhare has been given a week off but says the attack will not put her off driving Stagecoach buses, a job she has held for four years.

"No way, I won't let them do that to me. I'm from up north so I'm pretty tough."

She said she was concerned about the welfare of her passengers, one of whom she feared might have been roughed up by the youths before they fled, evading police dogs and the Eagle helicopter.

Dazed by the attack, she initially tried to get back into the bus through the rear door, before realising she was at the wrong end and that the vehicle was rolling down the road.

"I was holding on to the side of the bus trying to stop it. All I could see was headlights coming the other way."

She eventually got back through the driver's door to find a passenger frantically pushing buttons to stop the vehicle before she helped him to slam on the brakes. "He didn't have a clue what he was doing but at least he was trying to help."

Stagecoach operations director Warren Fowler, who visited Ms Ngawhare in hospital, said the company took any attack on its drivers seriously and always reviewed its procedures afterwards with the union.