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Airport-style security on rural buses 'impractical,' Greyhound says
Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, August 01, 2008OTTAWA -- It would be nearly impossible to have airport-style safety checks on rural bus routes, the Greyhound bus company says.
"The rural nature of our network doesn't allow us to have airport-style security," Greyhound Lines spokesman Eric Wesley said yesterday from Texas. "It doesn't make it practical for us to do that."
"This is very rare, unique occurrence. Bus transportation is one of the safest modes of transportation," he added.
However, Greyhound will consider installing surveillance cameras.
Wesley said that, even before Wednesday night's horrific incident, the company was working with Transport Canada on extra security for intercity buses.
Jim Higgs, local president of the union that represents Greyhound drivers, said concealed weapons pose a problem. "Without security measures like at an airport, there is no way in the world that we could've prevented this," he said from Calgary. "When someone is carrying a concealed weapon, there is not much you can do."
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day cautioned Canadians to remember this was an isolated incident. "Let's keep in mind that this, as bizarre and tragic as it is, is extremely rare. Certainly, the perfect nature of it is probably one of a kind in Canadian history."
Day said his department would nonetheless review security measures, but a nationwide knife registry was unlikely.
"We have legal provisions in place now to deal with crimes . . . and I wouldn't even want to open up a discussion about possibly registering the millions of knives dealing with kitchen purposes alone, let alone hunting purposes."
