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news
Leith Walk (licensed CC BY-SA 2.0 by Marcus Hagdorn on Flickr)Edinburgh bus driver sacked after knocking cyclist off bike loses unfair dismissal case
An Edinburgh bus driver who was sacked after he crashed into a cyclist, resulting in the rider needing hospital treatment has lost a claim for unfair dismissal.
Employment tribunal judge Amanda Jones ruled that Lothian Buses (the respondent) “had followed a fair procedure” in sacking Sam Beech (the claimant) following the incident, which happened on Leith Walk on 21 September 2019.
The tribunal heard that at around 20.34pm that evening, the cyclist “banged the outside wing mirror” as Beech was pulling out of a bus stop in his double decker bus. He had not seen the rider beforehand, and sounded his horn.
The cyclist was said to have “then pulled in front of the claimant’s bus, made obscene gestures and used foul language towards the claimant,” and “the bus being driven by the claimant then hit the cyclist who fell off his bike.”
Beech, employed by the company since 2008, and who had undertaken training including how to deal with vulnerable road users including cyclists, stayed in the vehicle for 9 minutes before disembarking and taking pictures of the rider’s bike before checking the cyclist’s condition.
He was suspended by Lothian Buses for suspected “careless/reckless driving” and following a disciplinary hearing on 27 September 2019 at which CCTV footage of the incident was reviewed was dismissed for gross misconduct.
After an initial unsuccessful appeal of the decision in October 2019, a further appeal two months concluded that “you should have seen this cyclist and reacted accordingly and that your failure to do this amounts to gross misconduct.”
Beech had been accompanied during the company’s disciplinary process by representatives of UNITE, the union he belonged to, but represented himself at last month’s employment tribunal, which was held remotely.
Judge Jones found that while the bus company’s “witnesses were credible and reliable in their evidence,” Beech’s “evidence was at times contradictory and unclear,” and that“on occasion [he] was evasive and did not answer questions asked in cross examination.”
She also highlighted inconsistencies in statements made to the company during its disciplinary process and evidence given to the tribunal, an example being that “he indicated [to his employers] that he thought the fault for the incident was 50/50” but told the tribunal that “the cyclist was 100 per cent to blame.”
The judge expressed concerns on Lothian Buses not following up Beech’s claim that the cyclist was drunk, and that “there was no attempt to contact the police or traffic officers who attended the incident.”
But she added that the company had considered the CCTV footage, and that while “all of the respondent’s witnesses made clear that they were of the view that the cyclist’s conduct had been entirely unacceptable … they were all of the view that the claimant ought to have responded differently to that conduct by coming to a stop as soon as he was aware that there was a hazard on the road, rather than accelerating towards the hazard.”
Dismissing Beech’s claim, she concluded that the company’s investigation “had been within the band of reasonable responses,” that it had “reasonable grounds” to find that his behaviour equated to gross misconduct, and that “a fair process had been followed in relation to [his] dismissal and his appeals.”
According to the Edinburgh Evening News, Beech is now employed by First Bus.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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23 comments
Why did the police not follow up the traffic collision as it appears that they attended the scene? I would have expected them to request the bus CCTV footage at the very least or do they simply not care about cyclists being run over?
What is particularly annoying is that the union Unite backed this individual purely because he was a union member. This is proof of how damaging unions can be.
Backed, in that they provided support to their member as per the terms of the membership contract?. Well, yes I'd expect them to.
Proof? Maybe, i'd not go that far though. Evidence cited to support an opinion perhaps.
Damage? Please quantify damage done by the Union in this case.
Are you suggesting that perhaps unions are overall a bad thing, and we'd be better off of they'd never come about?
By and large, yes. I would say that unions can be very damaging, and pursue cases not on merit, but on affiliation to their gang. And I speak from experience, having seen this first hand at a previous job. Don't get me wrong, unions have their place, and can do good but they spend far too much time trying to defend people, as I said, because they are union members, regardless of what they have done.
He's entitled to support during the disciplinary process. Of course the Union supported one of their members, that's their job....
And in this case, I'd still like to understand your quantification of damage done. To me it all looks like due process being followed on each side.
Note that the final round he represented himself. Could it be that the Union advised him to drop it?
So, no, so far I'm not convinced that this is a particular case of the evils of the union.
Unite is my union, I joined the MSF, which became Amicus then Unite.
He was a member, representing their members is part of what they do.
People need representation, no matter how awful their actions that would have lead to the legal situation. Alleged murderers, terrorists and rapists get defense lawyers who must try and defend their clients to the best of their abilities.
I'm glad he was sacked and I'm glad the tribuneral found that that was right. Not seeing the cyclists was bad enough, but to then use his bus as a weapon when the cyclist dared to express his disatifaction at a professional drivers terrible driving was a horribly cowardly act.
But he still needed proper representation.
Phew, that's a relief. I was beginning to worry about that poor man being out of work because of that selfish cyclist.
It's rather telling that the driver now works for First Bus having been sacked by LRT.
Totally fits with observed behaviour. LRT drivers are better than the average car, van or lorry driver in my experience, but First seem to be more towards the "bunch of homicidal maniacs" end of the spectrum on average. I think the difference is probably good training and company culture.
As the police didn't get involved, he didn't get docked points \ lose licenses and was sacked for a disciplinary matter only. Yes he might not have told them why, but then taking this further is Not exactly private. Of course, having someone legally state he was at fault even if just for employment terms might make them at least question the judgement, but unless he lied on his application / does something to break their rules they can't sack him. Unfortunately his continued claim against the original decision seems to indicate he didn't think he did something wrong which doesn't bode well though.
LRT did produce a very good cycle awareness training video for their drivers a few years back. And as a local I have found their drivers to be decent, with a couple of exceptions.
However for "accelerating" into a cyclist one wonders why Police Scotland did not bring charges? But then again they are one of the few who refuse to allow videos of near misses etc to be sent in. Coincidence?
Great punchline !
Let's get to the important question. No, not "why is he now employed by First Bus" despite the fact that they must know what he did. That's just typical.
Is it acceptable to refer to the side mirrors on the bus as "wing mirrors"? They're certainly not "door mirrors".
I'm intrigued by the qualification of “...the outside wing mirror” [emphasis added].
An offside wing mirror I understand; but who on earth has an inside wing mirror? Why?
Possible to have inside camera displays instead of mirrors. Not sure if any buses have them though.
Some large vehicles do have double side view mirrors for different view angles, in which case I suppose you could consider them an 'inside' and 'outside' mirror.
But I suspect it was probably just lawyer-y double stating because using more words makes you sound more authoritative.
"The tribunal heard that at around 20.34pm that evening, the cyclist “banged the outside wing mirror” as Beech was pulling out of a bus stop in his double decker bus. He had not seen the rider beforehand, and sounded his horn
...
But she added that the company had considered the CCTV footage, and that while “all of the respondent’s witnesses made clear that they were of the view that the cyclist’s conduct had been entirely unacceptable"
Yeah the cyclist could have been a d*ck, and who started it...but it does look like the bus driver pulled out without looking, almost hit the cyclist then wondered why he was being shouted at. I've seen many a bus driver do a stupid move like this...it is a hard job especially in a busy city but still, you gotta control your temper and assume you may have done something wrong when this sort of thing happens
I think this is something that gets lost on drivers. For a cyclist to be annoyed at them enough to engage, knwoing the driver can run them down at a moment's notice, the chances are they have done something pretty reckless/careless. Whatever the drivers' view on it, the reality for the cyclist is clearly that they have felt threatened and what happens after that (abuse, hand gestures) is a (sometimes over-) reaction to that.
As a driver as well as a cyclist, if I were to get such a reactionI hope I would be reflecting on my actions rather than responding aggressively to the person having a go at me.
Indeed, drivers talking about all these angy cyclists they come across, are clearly bad drivers. In all my years of driving I have never had a bad experience with a cyclist.
Unfortunatley the same cannot be said about car drivers while cycling.
One of my least favourite experiences has been pedalling fast along a bus lane, hearing a noise and looking over my shoulder to find a double decker bus about three feet behind me...
I've had this and closer, when I've been going at a reasonable lick. you end up being unable to slow down at all due to the fact that there is no way that you can trust the driver to react and slow as well
Exactly - you just keep pedalling faster and faster, aware of the bus breathing down your neck and trying to keep an eye out for somewhere to safely bail...
Theres a single carriageway road I ride often that's used as a bus route as well, and they genuinely could build a nice segregated cycle lane in the space, but you have to treat it like a TT section until you get to a point where the bus can pass, it's horrible sometimes being stuck in that position and the bus gets impatient as ****. Theres another bus route section on a windy country single track road and I pray I never meet the bus on that part.