Benjamin Bauer is a friendly man. In personal conversations, the 41-year-old from Wiesbaden likes to laugh a lot. But for some time now, he has stopped laughing because the bus driver is badly insulted and insulted during his work. Bauer is like many other bus drivers in Wiesbaden, who are increasingly exposed to threats and verbal attacks. “If you don’t have a thick skin here, you’re lost,” says the driver and calls for help from politicians. The Eswe transport company is already under pressure due to its sluggish implementation of the traffic turnaround and the blatant lack of drivers. Employees who quit in frustration exacerbate the situation.
Bauer drives thousands of bus passengers safely through Wiesbaden every day. He has to be wide awake every second, the traffic in the city demands a lot from all drivers. Without a bus driver, the old ladies wouldn’t get to the doctor and the children wouldn’t go to school. Nevertheless, Bauer regularly has to be insulted for things that he as a driver cannot do anything about. “Sometimes I get verbally abused two or three times in a week,” he says. Then he was rudely addressed with expressions like “idiot” or “complete idiot”. “The passengers often complain about the company, then it’s like, ‘Only idiots work at Eswe’ or ‘You don’t get anything baked,’ he describes the insolence of some passengers who have no respect for the bus drivers.
