NEED FOR SPEED: Bus driver ‘not in control’ before Cambridgeshire crash

Speed-demon bus driver revealed to have been going 23 mph over the speed limit in February crash which injured five.

Addenbrookes Bus bus crash Cambridge danger dangerous driving Hospital speeding

After a bus mounted concrete tracks in Trumpington on 22nd February injuring five people, an investigation has revealed that the driver was travelling 53mph in a 30mph zone. 

Following the incident the driver of the Stagecoach bus, which was travelling between Addenbrooke’s Hospital and Trumpington, was dismissed whilst the investigation was pending. Two people, an elderly man and woman, were injured and needed hospital treatment for their injuries, with the other three people treated at the scene.

Need for speed? With buses this fast, you can get your thrills from the comfort of Cambridge

The report concluded that it was “unlikely the bus was under the driver’s control” due to the “excessive speed” it was travelling at, causing the driver to be unable to steer from a single into a dual carriageway, resulting in the mounting of the tracks. The Cambridge guided busway, connecting Cambridge to Huntingdon and St Ives, enables busses to travel across specially build concrete tracks, which in this case resulted in one of the wheels being “sheared off” 

According to CCTV inside the vehicle, the driver appeared to be “shocked” at the incident, having been shown to be distracted and “reading something” as the accident occurred.

Evidently the driver had difficulty manoeuvring a big object into a small space

The authors of the report concluded by encouraging the council to work on developing more open and transparent policies with the bus companies that utilise the busway in order to establish codes of training and monitoring to ensure issues like this  are not repeated.

After all, this is Cambridge, not Fast and Furious.