On the same day the head of surface transport lectures a conference on road safety, one of his bus drivers appeared in court, accused of killing a principal architect at Network Rail, while driving carelessly and “without due care and attention” in the morning rush hour.
The idea of banning the safest vehicle on the road & allowing Leon's big red killing machines access to Bank Junction holds less credibility by the day.
A leading London architect was killed when a bus driver pulled into the path of his motorbike despite being unable to see the road ahead, a court heard.
Nathan Quintyne, 25, is accused of killing Nicholas Shaw, 57, a principal architect at Network Rail, while driving carelessly and “without due care and attention” in the morning rush hour.
Mr Shaw, who lived in Nunhead with his wife Gill, was heading to work on February 10, 2015, when the collision took place.
He was a principal architect for the recent redesign of London Bridge station and worked as a design manager for the extension of the Jubilee line to Stratford in the Nineties.
CCTV footage played at Inner London crown court shows Quintyne overtaking a parked scaffolding lorry immediately after a van and pulling into the lane of oncoming Mr Shaw, in Willowbrook Road, Peckham.
As a result, the court heard, the architect had about 1.5 seconds to react and sharply applied his front brake, locking his front wheel and launching him head-on into the front-right of the bus. A post-mortem examination found he died the next day of multiple injuries.
The court was told Quintyne, driving a Go-Ahead No 63 double-decker, could not have seen the victim on his BMW R100 as the stationary van in front also waiting to overtake was blocking his view.
He denies his driving was careless. But Robin Sellers, prosecuting, told the court: “He couldn’t see the motorcycle because he decided to do his overtaking manoeuvre when he shouldn’t have done.
"What he should have done is waited [behind the scaffolding truck] until he could see.
“The presence of the bus caused Mr Shaw to have to take evasive action. The reaction he inevitably took was to brake, which locked the wheel up and caused him to part company with the motorcycle.
"He came unseated, the motorcycle went straight along the road into a lamppost and Mr Shaw impacted with the front of the double-decker.”
Mr Sellers told the court Quintyne admitted not seeing Mr Shaw before pulling out when radioing his base station immediately after the crash and to police who spoke with him at the scene.
However, this changed one month later in a police interview, the prosecutor said, when Quintyne told officers he could see ahead and thought “there was plenty of room” to overtake the lorry.
The CCTV shows Mr Shaw lying in the road as cyclists and other drivers come to his aid after the crash at 9.15am.
Pc Stephen Cash, a Met specialist, told the court Mr Shaw had been in an “appropriate” position on his side of the road and that it was “not unreasonable” for him to brake as he did.
He estimated he was travelling at an average of 12mph and a maximum of 16mph. The limit there is 20mph.
He said Mr Shaw was forced to decide whether to “steer or brake”. He said: “With the movements of the bus, he was given no more than 1.5 seconds to do something about it.
"He’s decided to brake and brake very hard and lost control of the motorcycle, but in summary he didn’t really have enough time.”
He said Mr Shaw had right of way as the lorry was parked on Quintyne’s side of the road and that most people react to such hazards within 1.5 to two seconds. Quintyne, of Peckham, denies one count of causing death by careless driving. The trial continues.
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