SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Dec. 3, 2022 (Gephardt Daily) — Criminal charges are being reviewed after a cyclist allegedly assaulted a Utah Transit Authority bus driver, landing him in the hospital with a broken hip.
The incident came Thursday afternoon at 900 E and 10th South in Salt Lake City when the man on the bicycle took exception to how the bus passed him. When the bus came to its next stop, the cyclist came up to the driver’s window yelling, then pushed in the side-view mirror.
Then at the stop after that, the driver got out to fix the mirror and the cyclist confronted him again. “That lead to words, which lead to the the cyclist shoving the driver to the ground, which lead to the broken hip,” UTA spokesman Carl Arky said Friday, the driver needing surgery.
“He was upset,” Arky said of the cyclist. “He thought the bus had come too close to him.” But, he said, Initial review indicates there was no contact between him and the bus.
The cyclist initially left the scene, but later called authorities and turned himself in. His name is not being released as the incident is still under investigation, Arky said, although prosecutors in the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office are already considering charges.
The bus driver, Paul Bateman, is in his 70s, possibly 77. “I hope he is able to come back to work,” Arky said, noting the cyclist is reportedly 67 years old. “When us old guys get worked up, it just never ends well.”
