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Published 15 November 2022 | 2 min read
A Wellington bus driver who drove a double-decker bus into a low-roofed garage causing $98,000 worth of damage was not unjustifiably dismissed, the Employment Relations Authority has ruled.
Ivan Young was a bus driver for Wellington bus company Cityline, which operated in the regions of Eastbourne and Kaiwharawhara.
In March, Young drove a double-decker bus into a Cityline garage built for single-decker buses.
The “substantial” damage cost $98,000 to repair and ultimately contributed to Young’s dismissal, the authority said.
On top of the crash, Cityline alleged Young failed to stop at a compulsory final stop outside the depot and exceeded the depot speed limit of 5kph.
Cityline operations manager Kenneth Pearson told the authority the incident was a concern for the business.
“Bus drivers must drive with due skill, care and attention at all times. Any failure to do so can have very serious, and indeed fatal, consequences,” Pearson said.
Following an investigation, Pearson reached the conclusion that a dismissal was warranted.
“Having a driver who is so disconnected from their driving that they do not know what speed they are going, do not know how big their bus is and manage to drive a bus into a building going twice the speed limit is deeply concerning.
“The company cannot accept such a level of inattention on the job,” Pearson said.
A union representative, on behalf of Young, raised two previous incidents in which bus drivers had driven double-decker buses into the low-roofed garages and were not dismissed.
But Pearson said that as Cityline had previously warned drivers “not to drive double-decker buses into the barn”, and Young was driving faster than in the previous incidences, the accident was more serious.
Young submitted a claim for unjustified dismissal to the authority and alleged Cityline acted inconsistently by dismissing him for an accident other workers had previously been warned for.
At the time of his dismissal, Young was the fifth bus driver to drive a double-decker bus into the low-roofed garage, the authority heard.
The union argued that as Young was the first driver of the five to be dismissed for such an incident, the decision was not fair or reasonable.
Authority member Michael Loftus concluded Cityline was within its rights to dismiss Young.
There was no disparity between the company’s response, because Young was accused of a higher number of additional charges than the previous accidents, he said.
“Young entered the depot at about three times the posted speed (15 kph) while the other driver’s entry speed was double (10 kph). While the other driver slowed to the required speed before hitting the garage, Young did not,” Loftus said.
Pearson said the most important factor in Young’s accident was that warnings for drivers about the garage had been posted through three different methods.
Young’s claim that “no-one reads these messages”, was dismissed by the authority.
It ruled that Cityline’s decision to dismiss was fair and reasonable. Young failed in his claim to have the dismissal ruled unjustified.
Click here to read the article by Stuff.co.nz.