Bus passenger Jacque Ruston had a "frightening" and "freaky" experience on Saturday night when a thrown object smashed the nearby window of a Ritchies bus in Clyde St, Dunedin North.
Ms Ruston, who lives at Roseneath, said she was sitting near the rear door of the bus, heading to the city from Port Chalmers, when it turned from Union St into Clyde St, opposite the University of Otago commerce building about 7.30pm.
"Suddenly the back door exploded. None of the shards of glass hit me but they were all over the centre aisle ...
"We all got off the bus while the driver was phoning his supervisor."
Ms Ruston did not see who threw the object, which she thought may have been a bottle.
Two women passengers were "keen that the bottle thrower was identified" and went into a nearby party but did not stay long.
"As soon as we’d pulled in, a Balaclava bus came round the corner behind us and another bottle was hurled at it — but nothing broke.
"I asked our driver if we could just flag that down and get on — so we did. We all sat together for comfort as it was pretty freaky.
"We weren’t waiting around, in the cold and dark outside a crazy dangerous party. I just wanted us on that bus and outta there.
"The Balaclava bus went a different route to take us to the Octagon."
Ritchies Dunedin manager Peter Varrie could not be contacted for comment.
Ritchies business development manager Malcolm Budd said damaging buses in this way was "just irresponsible behaviour by whoever threw the object".
This "very rare incident" was unacceptable and had exposed bus passengers and the driver to potential danger, Mr Budd said.
A police spokeswoman said police had received a report at 7.42pm on Saturday that two buses had rocks thrown at windows.
Police were making inquiries.
