Italy: Bus Drivers Take Martial Arts Training to Better Enforce Coronavirus Rules

Bus drivers in Rome, Italy are taking martial arts lessons so that they can better enforce new rules that have been implemented in the wake of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

Bus drivers who say that they are being physically attacked for trying to enforce new coronavirus-related rules involving wearing face masks and social distancing are now taking martial arts training, according to a report by Il Messaggero.

The report added that there have been more than 40 “episodes of aggression” related to coronavirus rules on Rome’s public bus transportation system in just the last month, with one of the latest incidents involving a foreigner who destroyed a plexiglass barrier next to a driver in Torre Gaia on July 13.

A few days later, on July 15, a 26-year-old Nigerian man who boarded a bus without a mask began attacking everybody in the general vicinity of his person after the bus driver took his lit cigarette and crushed it, before telling him that he could not smoke on the bus and needed to wear a mask.

Over the weekend, a driver with Rome’s ATAC transport network became the target of a volley of punches after telling a passenger that he could not board the bus unless he was wearing a mask.

On Tuesday, a 25-year-old Libyan man threatened fellow passengers with a knife after he was asked to engage in social distancing.

“That’s enough, I’m exhausted,” said a 50-year-old bus driver from Rome, to Il Messaggero.

Claudio Di Francesco, the combative leader of Faisa Sicel, the union that organized the training, said that the “ATAC is not intervening for now, that’s why we decided to organize self-defense courses for drivers, they will learn martial arts and Krav Maga techniques.”

Krav Maga is a mixed martial arts fighting style used by the Israeli armed forces.

“I don’t teach my students to start a fight,” said Muay Thai boxing instructor Ennio Della Bianca. “To my students I always say that the fight should never happen, only when you are attacked, you react.”

The report added that even drivers of Rome’s underground trains are signing up for the martial arts training program.

“We are less exposed than bus drivers, because we have a closed cabin, but the risks are the same,” said one driver.

In July, a man on a Rome train pepper-sprayed fellow passengers after being scolded for not wearing a mask. Staff had to intervene.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler at @alana, and on Instagram.