In court: A mini-bus driver has faced court over a fatal crash at Arcadia South in 2021.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
The driver of a mini-bus involved in a fatal crash at Arcadia South where an Echuca woman died had veered off the road and into the gravel several times before the crash, a court has heard.
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Bruce Kenneth Slater, 77, of Gunbower, pleaded guilty in Melbourne County Court to dangerous driving causing death and three counts of dangerous driving causing serious injury.
Slater was the volunteer driver on a bus trip from Gunbower and through northern and north-eastern Victoria in May 2021, taking a group to look at silo art.
The group had travelled just under 300km so far that day and was heading to Colbinabbin when the crash occurred at Arcadia South, just before 3.30pm.
The court heard the bus travelled for 104m with at least one side of it in the gravel on the left side of the Murchison-Violet Town Rd, before Slater corrected it, driving across the road, into a ditch on the opposite side and into a paddock where the mini-bus rolled at least twice.
The court was told that in the moments before the crash, Slater had not reacted after several people started yelling when he wandered into the gravel on the left-hand side of the road.
He then hit a small white post on the side of the road with no reaction.
After hitting a sapling gum tree he braked, drove across the road to the right, hit a ditch and rolled in the paddock, before the bus came to rest back on its wheels.
A 40-year-old woman, who was a passenger, died at the scene.
Three other passengers were flown to Melbourne hospitals with life-threatening injuries.
Guilty plea: A man has faced court over a crash that saw an Echuca woman die.
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AAP Photo
Slater was also flown to hospital in Melbourne.
Collision reconstruction experts say the bus was travelling between 104km/h and 120km/h on the gravel shoulder of the road.
Prosecutor Jonathon McCarthy said one passenger said Slater had driven off on to the gravel shoulder of the road “10 times” during the entire trip.
Others had expressed concerns about him driving too fast.
Between Violet Town and the site of the crash some of the passengers became increasingly ”concerned about his driving”, with one passenger saying he had “wandered” on to the gravel twice during that section of road, where two other passengers said it had happened two or three times, Mr McCarthy said.
One passenger had even asked if Slater was all right and offered to drive at one point.
Mr McCarthy said Slater had several health conditions, including sleep apnea and diabetes.
Slater had used a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine for his sleep apnea from 1995.
An examination of his CPAP machine by an expert after the crash said analysis showed that while the machine had been used daily from November 25, 2020, it was only being used for a maximum of just over four hours each night.
He also said there was excessive leakage of air from the mask, and it showed Slater was having 22 “events” per hour, when this number should be less than five by someone using a CPAP machine.
The court heard that in an interview with police, Slater said he had not driven hundreds of kilometres “for many years”.
He also told how he normally had a 30-minute nap after lunch each day.
Slater’s defence counsel William Blake asked that his client not receive the mandatory jail sentence citing health issues.
Mr Blake said that since a sentencing hearing was held in February, his client had been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease and obesity.
He was also admitted to hospital for a small heart attack in January.
Mr Blake also said Slater had mobility issues and needed a walking frame to get around and needed help to shower.
He said the combination of a number of medical diagnoses and deterioration of Slater’s health in prison, should be enough to show rare and exceptional circumstances that he not be imprisoned.
