Crash blamed on driver error

Press, 27 April 1987, Page 8

Crash blamed on driver error

PA Hastings An error of judgment by the driver caused a school bus to plunge down an embankment at Keren! on February 17, said the Hastings Coroner, Mr D. N. Williams. The driver, Mr Cedric Goucher, aged 59, was one of five persons who died in the crash. At the inquest into their deaths, the Coroner said that after considering all the available evidence “there must have been an error of judgment on the part of the driver. “That is not to say that the Court accepts that the driver was speeding,” he said. In fact, the evidence of a fellow bus driver travelling behind the school bus indicated that Mr Goucher had not been travelling at excessive speed when the accident happened. But the stretch of road where the accident hap-

pened was narrow and winding with only a half a metre of grass separating the bus from a steep bank. .“A small error of judgment could very easily have had horrendous consequences and that is in fact what happened," the Coroner said. Hastings* trauma team doctor, Dr Greg Beacham, told the Court that seat belts would have saved the lives of the five persons killed when the bus rolled down the bank. The Coroner said bus companies might resist the fitting of seatbelts on economic grounds but the safety of passengers should be paramount. The inquest found that Mr Goucher, two teachers, Phillip Knight, aged 32, and Julie Watson, aged 37, and two pupils, Kate Bridget Hutchinson, aged 15, and Belinda Pitta, aged 11, all died from injuries suffered in the crash.