The driver of a Greyhound bus involved in a fatal four-vehicle crash has been fined $2,000.
Colin Lucas Dunlop was issued the penalty Thursday in Prince George provincial court after pleading guilty to driving without due care and attention under the Motor Vehicle Act.
It's the maximum fine that can be levied for the offence and carries six demerit points.
One person was killed and seven injured in the April 21, 2017 chain-reaction crash on Highway 97 south of Kersley. It involved the bus, a car, a pickup truck and a tractor pulling a piece of farm equipment.
The tractor's driver, Mike Bailey, was killed when he was thrown from the machine.
His common-law wife, Katina London, was behind him in the pickup truck. She was knocked unconscious when the car struck her vehicle, and for a time was put into a medically-induced coma. About a month later she was stable enough to be flown back to Quesnel but, according to a civil lawsuit filed against Dunlop and Greyhound Canada in April 2018, is now confined to a wheelchair as a result a a severe brain injury.
A trial in B.C. Supreme Court on the matter is scheduled to begin June 1, 2020.
Dunlop and Greyhound Canada have also been named in four additional civil lawsuits - two from people who were passengers in the bus and two from people who were in the car the bus had struck, all claiming varying degrees of injury. Trials on two of them are scheduled to begin Feb. 3, 2020 and Feb. 16, 2021 respectively.
The two people who were in the car are from Idaho. The passenger suffered extensive and serious injuries, according to his claim, including traumatic brain injury and injuries to his spine. Previously a firefighter, he is no longer able to work and is suing for general, special, aggravated and punitive damages.
The car was stationary when it was struck by the bus, according to the claim.
The car's driver as well as the two bus passengers - a Vernon man and a Kelowna woman - are claiming damages for a range of injuries they say have caused ongoing pain and suffering.
In responses to three of the actions, the defendants are denying the claims and have not yet responded to the fourth.
