Praised the driver: Bernd Fichtner. "It was, quite obviously, a disgusting, frightening and very upsetting experience, but for two reasons both my wife [Pam] and I felt a sense of relief at the end of it all," he said. "Firstly, because the driver did a fantastic job in negotiating with these girls, later insisting on their leaving, and the whole time communicating with us, the other passengers. "Secondly, because unlike in the other similar incidents reported recently, this time the passengers did not let the perpetrators get away with it. They stood up to them, protected and looked after the victim as best they could, and together got rid of this small minority, which otherwise might yet again have triumphed." He was so affected by the experience he wrote a letter to Fairfax Media to praise the efforts of those on the bus.

Mr Fichtner, 60, said he and his wife boarded the crowded bus in Taylor Square, and he was pleasantly surprised when two separate young people offered to vacate their seat for him. But as they drove down Anzac Parade, a commotion began at the back of the bus and two passengers came forward to tell the driver that the teenagers were "terrorising and racially abusing a young Asian lady" and drinking on the bus. He said the driver immediately stopped and told the teenagers to behave and dispose of their alcohol or get off the bus. The driver returned to his seat and resumed the journey but, soon after, the girls launched another foul-mouthed rant and began abusing other passengers. Mr Fichtner said they were calling the Asian lady "all kinds of horrible words". The driver stopped the bus and told the girls to get off within one minute or he would call the police.

"At this stage, several of the passengers also let these girls know in no uncertain terms that they were no longer welcome on this bus," Mr Fichtner said. "After some considerable time the penny dropped and they left the bus, only to hurl further abuse at the driver and the young Asian lady in question from outside the bus." He said the girls chased the bus and began banging the windows and throwing rocks at it as it pulled away. The driver reported the incident to the depot and checked that the other passengers were okay before continuing the journey, Mr Fichtner said. He said the woman who had been racially abused was in tears and shaking from the experience.

But it could have been worse if the driver and other passengers had not stood up for her, he said. "[Saturday's] trip to Maroubra ended relatively harmlessly because the group of people on the bus acted in solidarity and were admirably led by the driver, who did much more than his professional duty and deserves the highest commendation," Mr Fichtner said. The incident is the latest in a string of racist verbal attacks on public transport. On Easter Saturday, a man abused an Asian couple on the 470 bus from Circular Quay to Lilyfield, and a woman who tried to intervene said most passengers ignored what was happening. In March, a video filmed on a Perth bus showed a woman verbally abusing another woman, who she refers to as Chinese, for speaking in another language. In February, ABC newsreader Jeremy Fernandez tweeted about being called a "black c---" who should "go back to his country" by a female passenger on a Sydney bus. He was told by the bus driver to move seats but refused to.

In November last year, footage of a racist attack on a French woman on a Melbourne bus went viral after she was called a dog by male passengers, threatened with having her breasts cut off and told to "speak English or die".