A mechanic has been banned from the roads after crashing into a bus and causing an 80-year-old passenger to suffer a bleed on her brain.
Boyd Gunn, 19, veered his car into a bus lane in Edinburgh, forcing the single decker’s driver to brake suddenly in a failed bid to avoid a collision.
Around 40 passengers were on the Lothian bus, including ten who were standing, and they were “propelled” forward in the impact.
Margaret Gray was taken to hospital by ambulance where she spent three weeks after being treated on a brain injury ward, Daily Records reports.
Gunn appeared at the city’s sheriff court on Wednesday and admitted a charge of causing serious injury to the pensioner by driving without due care and attention.
Fiscal depute Bruce McCrossan said the bus had been travelling in a bus lane on Stenhouse Drive at around midday.
Mr McCrossan said Gunn was driving a Ford Fiesta in the same direction in the second lane.
The court heard bus driver Kevin Kennedy was getting ready to halt at a bus stop a short distance after the junction with Stenhouse Gardens North.
He said Kevin braked but his bus collided with the nearside of the Fiesta.
Mr McCrossan said: “This caused a number of passengers to be thrown forward in their seats.”
The court heard Margaret was taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary where she was moved from A&E to a brain injury ward after the bleed on her brain was discovered.
Defence agent Andrew Houston said Gunn had been moving from “one lane to another” at a time when the buses only rule wasn’t operational.
Mr Houston said the bus was in his client’s blind spot and he “failed to look over his shoulder”.
He added: “He wasn’t sufficiently far ahead of the bus to carry out a safe manoeuvre.”
The solicitor said the actual impact was “comparatively minor”, but the bus driver necessary decision to brake had “propelled some of the passengers forward”.
The court heard first offender Gunn’s younger brother was a passenger in the Fiesta.
Mr Houston said his client, of the city’s South Gyle area, was “in shock” following the incident on October 1 last year.
He said: “He knew the lady passenger was taken away in an ambulance. Happily she seems to have recovered.
“He accepts responsibility for an error in judgement. It was immature driving.”
Sheriff Peter McCormack disqualified Gunn from driving for 12 months and fined him £420.
