A BUS driver has been banned from driving for two years following a crash with a school bus. 

Emergency services raced to a three-car crash at 10am on July 14 last year in Walton, finding two cars and a coach carrying school pupils involved in a crash in Kirby Road. 

Witnesses described how a Punto, in an attempt to overtake, clipped a Discovery car with such momentum that the Fiat left contact with the road and “flew” into the front of the oncoming coach travelling in the opposite direction.

Roadside enquiries established that the driver of the Fiat Punto, Leo Stevens, was only a provisional licence holder.

The 27-year-old from the Avenue, Clacton, was summonsed to answer three charges - driving without due care and attention, no insurance and driving not in accordance with his license. 

Stevens appeared at Basildon Magistrates’ Court on Monday when he was banned from driving for 24 months and fined £452.

He had admitted all three offences at an earlier hearing.

PC Cubberley of Essex Police’s roads policing unit said: “Road safety is everyone’s responsibility and making poor driving decisions threatens the safety of everyone around you.

“Leo Stevens was a provisional licence holder and should not have been driving on his own.

"His inexperience didn’t take into account the road conditions and short window of opportunity to safely overtake a vehicle.

“Carrying out the manoeuvre with little regard to other vehicles could have resulted in a very serious collision, but thankfully, no one was seriously injured.”