#Irate bus rider breaches coronavirus shield to berate driver

An irate bus rider with his mask falling off breached the plastic barrier meant to protect driver during the coronavirus pandemic and berated the man behind the wheel, new video shows.

The clip posted to Reddit Wednesday morning shows the man screaming at the bus driver, who is mostly not visible.

The man’s mask is only partially covering his face, with his nose exposed.

“Hush the radio,” the man says to the driver, then returns to seat while muttering “dumbass.”

“You’re the motherf–ers that started this sh-t anyway,” he says as he sits down with his mask still falling off. “How do you like that?”

The caption posted by user BrickLorca said the man broke through the barrier “to confront [an] Asian operator about the volume of the bus radio.”

But an MTA official said the driver did not report it and “did not interpret any of it as racist” and that the dispute was about the speed of the bus.

“Contrary to the headline of the video, the reason the man approached the front of the bus was that it was moving slowly and was stuck in traffic,” the official said.

“This is an all too common experience, but did not appear to be a racist incident. It appeared to be a disrespectful rider yelling at the driver because the bus was late.”

The video was shot Tuesday on the Q67, the MTA confirmed.

The Q67 route goes from Ridgewood to Long Island City via Middle Village, Maspeth and Sunnyside.

The MTA did not immediately return a request for comment.

Transit officials plan to install plexiglass and vinyl barriers around all 5,800 bus operator seats in the city in the coming months.

The new barriers will take up significantly less space than the existing set-up, which closes off rider access to much of the bus.