Another Coventry City Centre Stagecoach Incident

[Sandy Lane]

Pedestrian injured in Trinity St on Saturday.
http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/pedestrian-injured-collision-bus-coventry-11686154

In recent years this is the third event involving Stagecoach, including two fatalities along Trinity St.

Just round the corner and down at the now traffic light less Burges crossroads a fourth Stagecoach service killed an OAP.

Is Coventry just being unlucky with Stagecoach or is there a dangerous theme surfacing?

[markcf83]

I'd say they are unlucky. But peoples should always exercise caution at or near to busy roads,regardless of where they are.

[Ally]

To be fair, it does say that the man "fell" into the bus, so that particular accident could have happened to any vehicle at all. As for the other accidents, I still wouldn't suggest that it's anything dangerous surfacing, though I can't comment on the Sainsbury's decker as nobody knows what happened still. The X17 and the Pawnbrokers was supposedly panic error trying to avoid a taxi that pulled out on the bus as it pulled out of the stop, and the MAN E200 that hit and killed the pensioner on "Death Diamond", the driver was arrested but found innocent of any wrongdoing - to be fair, the council should have been the ones up on a charge for making such a silly junction!

As for the other MAN E200 hitting and killing the person at the bottom of Trinity Street, god knows what happened with that, people do have a habit of just crossing without looking or giving a damn, but he was pretty much in the middle of the road - although there was no crossing there at the time so he shouldn't have been there.

I've noticed that every time there is an accident now, the entire City Centre comes to a standstill because the roads are too thin for anything to get round the accident and that causes huge delays to the emergency services arriving. Since I began working at Sainsbury's in March, I've photographed 3 such occasions out of the canteen window during my break. A coincidence that all 3 happened around 17:30?

Something I feel might be key on some accidents is the driver's experience of the area. Not using any actual examples of accidents, but we have NX drivers who spend all day nearly every day driving through Coventry City Centre, it's fair to say they know it like the back of their hand, including what pedestrians are likely to do in certain areas, i.e. crossing at a certain point without looking (the top of The Burges being a prime example), but then you get a Stagecoach driver who might only end up in Coventry once every week or two, if that (Nuneaton's late drivers get 1 Tamworth duty every 9 weeks so it can happen), having such inexperience can't help matters, especially if it's a newer driver. As I say though, this isn't working off any actual accidents, it's just something I would bring up in a case.

To be fair to the old guy, I very nearly fell into the side of a Nuneaton Solo just after I got off it a couple of weeks ago, must have been a couple of inches off at most! :-[

[Sandy Lane]

Something I feel might be key on some accidents is the driver's experience of the area. Not using any actual examples of accidents, but we have NX drivers who spend all day nearly every day driving through Coventry City Centre, it's fair to say they know it like the back of their hand, including what pedestrians are likely to do in certain areas, i.e. crossing at a certain point without looking (the top of The Burges being a prime example), but then you get a Stagecoach driver who might only end up in Coventry once every week or two, if that (Nuneaton's late drivers get 1 Tamworth duty every 9 weeks so it can happen), having such inexperience can't help matters, especially if it's a newer driver. As I say though, this isn't working off any actual accidents, it's just something I would bring up in a case.

To add to that the number of road closures around the city centre over lengthy periods adds to the problem. Involves detours and traffic problems. Examples of Hales St, Gosford St and now Cox St for a staggering 9 weeks.