A Sydney bus driver has been found guilty of two charges of dangerous driving occasioning death after his bus ploughed into two men on a scooter.
Over a four-day trial, the Crown argued Luis Rojas, 50, was so distracted and in breach of proper management and control of his vehicle that it was "an accident waiting to happen".
The District Court jury returned its verdict on Thursday, after retiring to deliberate on Wednesday afternoon.
In the three-and-a-half minutes leading up to the crash, Rojas can be seen on CCTV footage attempting to put his seatbelt on numerous occasions, donning his reading glasses to inspect a piece of paper, checking his mobile phone three times, pushing buttons on the ticket machine and plugging a cord into the vehicle's sound system.
Chen Guan Wei, 32, ended up folded under the tyre of a car while his passenger, Su-Po Hsu, 44, was found lying about 50 metres away after the bus crashed into them in Kingsgove on January 28, 2019.
The scooter had been stopped with its indicator and brake light on, and with both men in high visibility jackets, as Rojas attempted to veer left before "it was too late," he told police soon after.
Defence lawyer Varinder Pawar said his divided attention was not the same as inattention.
He described issues with the mirrors having to be readjusted after going over bumps on the road, the inclination of the street and blinding headlights from oncoming cars among conditions that affected Rojas' ability to identify hazards.
Australian Associated Press
