That there aren't psychometric tests is the whole point. The union wouldn't stand for it, but how else is a company under these hostile conditions of it being automatically assumed the company is to blame here, meant to know if a driver will do something like this, when people seem quite happy to use the excuse of mental health to claim a driver would have no idea they had this in them, or would have justifiable reason not to report it. And yes, these tests do figure out to a very reliable degree what someone is likely to do when they receive terrible news.

The alternative is prosecuting the driver for costs, if the passengers ever go after the company in the courts, as a deterrent to knowingly unprofessional behavior on the part of employees who are quite clleary not hired on the simple basis they can turn a wheel and push a pedal. No company would want to do that, but it is an option, and I do not think the employee would have much chance of proving this came out of absolutely nowhere. There would be instances where the employees lack of action was pertinent. There would not however be much if any evidence that the company failed in its legal duties.

One of those duties is of course to respect legal break times. If drivers don't like how a particular company operates within the law, they are free to take their labour elsewhere. They should count themselves lucky they live in a country where if they are that unhappy with their employer and are that confident they know how to run a company better, they are legally allowed to set up their own bus company. It is of course ironically a lot harder to do these days precisely because unions and left wing governments have never been fans of this sort of thing. It suits them to have everyone believe that workers and bosses are entirely different species.