Former truck driver pleads guilty to negligent driving in Melbourne in 2022

A former truck driver has pleaded guilty to negligent driving over a collision with a school bus west of Melbourne three years ago.

Transcript

00:00There are a lot of the victims of this bus crash in court today to hear Brett Russell

00:06plead guilty to negligent driving causing serious injury relating to his B-double ploughing

00:12into the back of the school bus that they were in in September 2022 here in Victoria.

00:19The crash occurred at around 3.15 in the morning, it was dark, the road was wet and the truck

00:25had been travelling down a hill.

00:27Now normally the speed limit on that stretch of freeway would have been 110 kilometres

00:31per hour but in this case it was subject to restrictions because of an unrelated incident

00:37that had happened on the road the previous evening.

00:40Traffic had been slowed to 40 kilometres an hour, there were traffic management staff,

00:45there were traffic management appliances and that had worked for all the vehicles except

00:49for the B-double that Brett Russell was driving on which the brakes were not properly working.

00:55Now what he's pleaded guilty to was driving that truck knowing that the brakes were not

00:59properly working.

01:00We know that because he told police in a police interview that in the course of his job, as

01:06he did five nights a week, he would drive from Melbourne to Nill, a town in western Victoria,

01:12where he would meet up with another truck driver who'd come over from Adelaide, they would swap

01:16over their B-double trailers and Brett Russell would then return to Melbourne.

01:20On this occasion when the trailers were being handed over, the truck driver who had come from Adelaide

01:26told him the brakes on this are stuffed, the brakes on the two trailers are stuffed.

01:31Brett Russell then left, hooked the trailers up anyway, said he tested the brakes as he left Nill

01:37to head back towards Melbourne, said they were unresponsive and in the police interview when

01:43he was asked why did you keep going, his answer was because I knew I'd be alright, he took the risk

01:49anyway.

01:50So what we've heard today is the first of a number of victim impact statements, the first

01:56one from a student who was really seriously and horrifically injured, had part of her foot

02:02amputated and for months and years afterwards went through extremely painful surgery and recovery

02:08but also talked about missing those major moments in her life, an accident that took place when she

02:14was 15 years old and missing the summers, missing independence, missing swimming on family holidays,

02:20missing dead balls, all of those things, really really quite emotional, breaking down herself in

02:26the witness box a number of times and of course her fellow students feeling that emotion as well.

02:32There will be more victim impact statements to come.