Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Triple fatal coach crash driver given seven years
An elderly driver who killed three men and seriously injured a fourth when he ploughed into the back of a car has been jailed for seven years.
Alan Peters, 78, was in a “state of semi-consciousness” when he crashed a doubledecker bus carrying 62 Canterbury cheerleaders into a stationary Audi that had its hazards lights on.
The men who died were the Audi driver, Allan Evans, 59, and back-seat passengers Nathan Reeves, 23, and Tom Aldridge, 20.
Jake Dorling was in the front passenger seat and suffered fractures to his skull, hips and ribs, nerve damage and a punctured lung.
At the trial, Mr Dorling, 23, said Mr Evans agreed to drive them home from a night in London for £60.
They ran out of oil on the M1 in Bedfordshire – where the hard shoulder can be deployed as an additional inside lane but wasn’t on this occasion – and Mr Evans topped the engine up on the hard shoulder.
Mr Dorling said: “We were almost ready to set off.
“I looked back... My next memory was waking up in hospital with a bandage around my head, confused.”
Peters denied causing three deaths, and serious injury to Mr Dorling, by dangerous driving on Saturday, February 14, last year but was unanimously convicted.
Judge Richard Foster told him: “You failed to notice and follow the clear signage indicating that you should not have been driving on the hard shoulder. “Having done so you also failed to register that a parked car was on that hard shoulder with its hazard warning lights illuminated 1,500 metres, or 55 seconds in driving time, ahead of you.
“The only conclusion to draw is that you were in some sort of state of semi-consciousness.”
Peters, who was driving for Sheerness firm Travelmasters, picked up the cheerleaders from Canterbury’s University of Kent and was taking them to a convention in Birmingham.
A reference from the Reverend Angela Walker, who got to know Peters following his wife’s death, was read out in court.
“Alan deeply regrets the accident,” she wrote.
“He would never willingly hurt anyone. The scene of the accident plays over and over again in his mind. He has shown deep remorse to those he has hurt. Alan is being punished every day.”
Peters, from Gravesend, was also banned from driving for eight-and-a-half years.