Thursday 27 August 2009

Bus driver who ran down pedestrian was reading a timetable

A bus driver was reading a timetable just before ploughing into a pedestrian, a court heard.

Crash investigator Pc Michael Baxter said the onboard CCTV camera caught the victim's brightly coloured trainers when he was 31 metres away.

He added: "At 23 metres away, the camera shows it is absolutely clear that there is a person in front of the bus. But it's likely the driver would have seen him sooner. As far as the human eye is concerned, it would be very clear that there would be someone there before he appears on the footage, probably around two seconds before. Those two seconds are very significant. In my opinion, the collision is avoidable if the person is seen two seconds earlier."