Semi-trailer truck blamed for death of E.China bus driver

The combined photo captured from surveillance video on June 2, 2012 shows the process of driver Wu Bin's stopping the bus after the fatal hitting. Wu Bin, a 48-year-old Hangzhou bus driver lost no time to stop his vehicle and saved 24 passengers after a piece of iron broke through the windscreen and hit him badly. The driver died of the wounds on Friday in hospital. <File Photo=Xinhua>

WUXI, Jiangsu, June 11 (Xinhua) — A red semi-trailer truck has been faulted in an accident that killed a bus driver in east China’s Jiangsu province on May 29, local authorities said Monday.

It was confirmed that a piece of debris from a broken brake hub on the truck smashed the windshield on the bus driver’s vehicle and left him with fatal injuries, the public security bureau of the city of Wuxi said.

The driver of the Guizhou province-registered truck will not be held criminally liable, as he did nothing wrong or illegal to cause the accident, the bureau said.

Wuxi police screened over 3,000 vehicles that drove on the road where the accident occurred, finding the suspect vehicle on the morning of June 6 in east China’s Jiangxi province.

An investigation revealed that one of the truck’s brake hubs had been recently replaced. The driver of the truck confirmed the results, admitting that he noticed a problem with the vehicle’s brakes on May 31 and had it repaired in a garage in the city of Gao’an in Jiangxi on June 1.

Wu Bin, a 48-year-old bus driver from the provincial capital of Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, was fatally injured after a large chunk of metal flew through the windshield of the bus he was driving from Wuxi to Hangzhou on May 29.

Wu stopped the bus, turned on the hazard lights, applied the parking brake, opened the bus door and advised the passengers to remain seated before collapsing, a surveillance video showed.

Wu died from his injuries on June 1. He was lauded by Chinese netizens as “most beautiful” Good Samaritans for sacrificing his own life to save 24 of his passengers. The Zhejiang provincial government has conferred the honorary title of “revolutionary martyr” to commemorate his acts of selflessness. <Xinhua>

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