Update as father of Hunter Valley bus crash victim sues Transport for NSW for alleged breaches in duty of care

The father of one of the victims of the Hunter Valley bus crash that killed another nine and injured 25 is suing Transport for NSW, claiming the agency breached its duty of care. Ten people died and more than two-dozen others suffered injuries when the bus flipped on Wine Country Drive near Greta on the way back from a wedding reception. The bus driver, Brett Button, was last year sentenced to 32 years behind bars with a non-parole period of 24 years for his role in the crash. He pleaded guilty to 10 counts of dangerous driving occasioning death and nine of dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm. A court was previously told Button had taken “significantly more” than his prescribed dosage of the opioid-based painkiller Tramadol on the day of the crash. He had been stood down by a previous employer just a year prior after a pain specialist found he was addicted to Tramadol — which he’d been taking since the 1990s — and he did not tell operator Linq Buslines he was using the painkiller. Among the victims of the tragedy was 29-year-old Zach Bray. His father Adam Bray is now suing Transport for NSW (TfNSW) in the Supreme Court over an alleged breach in duty of care by the agency. A substantive statement of claim was filed on Mr Bray’s behalf last year, arguing TfNSW breached its duty of care in a number of instances, including having inadequate road warning signage along Wine Country Drive. It further alleged signs incorrectly described the stretch of road as a roundabout, claiming it was instead an “elliptically shaped interchange feature” to which different considerations and dynamics applied. The matter was briefly heard in the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday morning. Representing TfNSW, Moray and Agnew’s Brian Moroney told the court a cross-claim was in draft form. It is as yet unclear who this will be filed against. Justice Peter Garling ordered the defence file and serve all cross-claims by May 1, with the case to return to court on May 16. The lawsuit is seeking damages and costs for both Mr Bray as well as on behalf of those directly injured physically and/or psychologically and psychiatrically in the crash, as well as those suffering “pure mental harm”. The statement of claim filed last year argued TfNSW owed the public using Wine Country Drive a duty of care, and listed a comprehensive list of alleged breaches. It argued a circular interchange on Wine Country Drive would have been safer “and was therefore desirable if space permitted”, and that there was inadequate road warning signage in place regarding hazards in the interchange, including the “tightening radius”. Not having specific signage that the interchange could potentially be dangerous to commercial buses, including by way of a tilting truck symbol or equivalent, as well as a lack of appropriate advisory signage related to reduced speed for commercial buses, was also outlined in the claim. It suggested a run-off area may have offered a “more forgiving roadside area” in cases of vehicles running off the road, as opposed to safety barriers, and also claimed construction and post construction audits were “inadequate to identify the unsafe design and construction of the interchange”. The breaches “gave rise to a real and significant risk” that a driver of a heavy vehicle, including a passenger bus, with a raised centre of gravity “could nonetheless lose control of the vehicle, trip the vehicle causing it to fall onto its side and come into collision with the adjacent guard rails”, the statement of claim alleged. This included where drivers were exercising reasonable care “having regard to what the driver reasonably considered was a reasonable speed to travel in the interchange”. Vegetation in the island of the interchange was also cited as limiting the line of sight of drivers, which could deprive drivers of the ability to see a “visually subtle but nonetheless critical change in road alignment” in reference to the tightening curve of the road. Mr Bray has also launched a class action against TfNSW for anyone who suffered damages or loss as a result of the crash, which included those directly injured, suffering mental harm, and insurers who have paid out claims for injured or deceased victims.