Trimet driver Ivan Bissel does a press interview

He made some funny statements leading me to believe he was probably coached by Trimet management. He just got punched in the mouth yet he makes this statemet:

"This is about as safe a job as you can get." 

I don't know what Mr Bissel has done before coming to Trimet but that is a truly bizarre thing to say. Working with the public at all hours of the day and night dealing with some not so nice characters is not a 'safe a job as you can get' so I find that statement curious. Only twice in the 15 years of being a Trimet bus driver did I feel like I could have been attacked but it never happened and the threats had nothing to do with me. But I never felt like I was working an office job or an executive job, where there are no threats from the general public. Mr Bissel obviously does not listen to the Trimet scanner where there are numerous incidents of varying degree of assaults on operators, not just here but around North America. I't's also curious what the media chooses to cover and what it doesn't. I send numerous dispatch calls to the media after assaults happen and none of those get picked up, one has to question why this was so readily picked up by our lovely media. I think TRIMET definitely has something to do with it.

TriMet driver Ivan Bissell speaks out about assault at Washington Square Mall | OregonLive.com

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