Econut of the Day

A New York City MTA bus driver was assaulted by a woman who complained that the bus she eventually got on was not a hybrid bus.

The frantic passenger who bit a veteran driver's arm was upset that his bus wasn't a hybrid, he said Thursday.

"She came on the bus, and she said she waited more than an hour for a hybrid," said MTA driver Peter Williams, 42. "I said, 'I'm not in control of what bus is assigned to me.'"

Williams, a dad of two who is in the Navy Reserves, plans to take a little time off after Wednesday's bizarre attack on an uptown M104 bus.

The woman, Shelia Bolar, 49, started hollering at Williams soon after she boarded the Broadway bus on the upper West Side.

When her rant was done, she she grabbed his arm.

"Miss, don't touch me while I'm operating the bus," Williams warned Bolar.

At W. 79th St., Williams let passengers off and gestured to a dispatcher he called for help.

"That's when she bit me. ... I couldn't believe it."

Bolar chomped through a jacket, a sweater and a thick shirt, causing a bruise and swelling but not breaking skin.

"She bit through all that," said Williams, still shocked.

And then she fled - but cops nabbed her blocks away. Bolar, who faces assault charges was held without bail, pending a psychiatric exam.

If you are so concerned about the environment, walk. It beats taking the bus for carbon emissions. It would do your body good, and it would avoid entanglements with law enforcement.

The MTA is currently operating about 850 hybrid buses and should have 1,700 hybrid buses by 2010, the largest such fleet in the world. The MTA operates 4,578 buses in 2007.