Police called 38 times in one month
The 207 has been named as London's most dangerous bus route in an article in the Evening Standard this week.
The 207, which runs along the Uxbridge Road between Shepherd's Bush and Uxbridge, suffered the most disturbances between 25th October and 25th November. Police were called 38 times, mostly to deal with disputes between passengers, as well as the eight instances of criminal damage, three violent attacks and one theft.
Overall, the Metropolitan Police transport unit was called to 272 disturbances, 47 instances of criminal damage, 30 robberies or thefts and 26 violent offences over the period. These figures were published the day after five ticket inspectors were suspended when they refused to work on bendy buses for fear of being attacked.
A unit spokesman said: "Buses in London are pretty safe to travel on and more incidents are now being reported. Some of them do go through some pretty rough areas, in which a lot of criminal damage is done to buses. Disturbances include things like one person having a go at another person. Maybe somebody bumped into another without apologising, and they get nasty."
The transport unit's 965 officers are charged with keeping London's major bus routes crime and congestionfree. They made 4,188 arrests in the year to April - almost three times more than in the previous 12 months.
January 30th, 2005
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