A bus driver who smashed into the notorious Montague Street bridge in South Melbourne has been found guilty of causing serious injuries to six of his passengers.
Jack Aston, 55, was found guilty of six charges of negligently causing serious injury earlier this month following a two-week trial in the County Court.
Aston was driving a 3.6-metre-high Gold Bus Ballarat coach on February 22, 2016, when he crashed into the bridge – which has a three-metre clearance – at 56km/h. The force of the impact pushed the top of the bus back to the fifth row of seats.
The passengers – four women and two men – who had been at a tourism conference at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, suffered injuries including head and spinal fractures, broken collarbones and facial lacerations. Eight other passengers were on the bus.
Aston was also seriously injured.
Prosecutors argued Aston failed to take heed of five warning signs dotted over the 290 metres before the bridge, didn’t see a sensor on the road that triggered a red flashing light if it detected high vehicles and missed a sign on the bridge itself.
A sign on the bus dashboard indicated the vehicle was 3.8 metres high, the jury heard.
After the verdict, Judge Bill Stuart granted Aston bail for him to return to court in December for a pre-sentence hearing.
The trial was told Aston was on his third job of the day soon after 10am, having begun his shift picking up V/Line train passengers and transporting them to Melbourne.
He had never previously driven along Montague Street, the court heard, and his lawyers questioned if he received adequate training and assistance from his employer.
Gold Bus Ballarat’s sister company, Bacchus Marsh Coaches, had a bus crash into the Montague Street bridge in 2006, but no change in policy for drivers to avoid the area was formally written down after the earlier crash.
Bacchus Marsh Coaches and Gold Bus Ballarat are owned by the same umbrella company, the court heard, and at times share policies, buses and drivers, but they are based at different depots.
Aston, an experienced driver, began working for Gold Bus Ballarat in 2013.
– The Age
