Cambridgeshire County Council fined £6m over busway deaths
A council has been fined £6m after three deaths on the world's longest guided busway.Jennifer Taylor, Steve Moir and Kathleen Pitts died after collisions on the Cambridgeshire busway between 2015 and 2021.Sentencing Cambridgeshire County Council at Cambridge Crown Court, Judge Mark Bishop criticised the authority for its "rigid and blinkered response" to the fatalities, as well as numerous near-misses and accidents.The authority previously admitted two safety breaches and said it was "truly sorry". It was ordered to pay the fine over three years.
Cambridgeshire County Council runs the transport link that serves Cambridge, St Ives and Huntingdon. It opened in 2011 and much of the 16-mile (26km) route involves a modified bus being guided along a track.Ms Taylor, 81, was hit by a bus when she crossed the track on foot at Fen Drayton in November 2015.Mr Moir, 50, fell into the path of a bus after clipping a kerb with his bicycle that separated him from the busway in Cambridge, in September 2018.Pedestrian Kathleen Pitts, 52, was struck by a bus on the same stretch in October 2021.The county council previously admitted two charges under Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, relating to the public trying to cross the busway at designated crossings and being struck while moving alongside the busway.
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