'You've hit a human being', bus passenger tells driver

STV

A passenger told STV News how he told a bus driver he had struck a human being as they travelled along the M74 near Glasgow - only to be ignored.

John Thompson was travelling on the Megabus which hit a woman who is believed to have jumped off a bridge onto the path of the bus on Saturday night.

He said: "It was just 20 to 30 minutes after we left Glasgow, we were on a very dark stretch of the M74 and the driver hit something. And we felt the rumbling which seemed to go on for a very long time and a dragging sound.

"But he kept on going and the woman who was sitting next to me said 'oh my god we've hit a fox' and I said that wasn't a fox that was a person'."

Mr Thompson, who was sitting right behind the driver, said: I told the driver, 'you've hit a human being' and he just kept on driving and he didn't answer me.

"I was deeply shocked by it and still am and I've cried frequently since then. And now that I know it was someone it has played on my mind even more."

He told how at Preston a number of bus officials began searching under their bus with torches but could not find anything. The bus then travelled on from Preston to Birmingham.

Mr Thompson added: "I heard a radio exchange between the driver and the police where they wanted him to stop in Birmingham but he actually drove on to Rugby another 30 miles away."

In Rugby the passengers were told for the first time about the body.

He said: "We were told "you're Megabus hit a woman and the driver didn't stop because you would have been stuck at the side of the motorway all night'.

Passenger were then transferred to two other buses while the bus was impounded by police for forensics.

He added: "Everyone was very shocked. I am gutted that I was ignored, it has played on my mind. I was in a cold sweat all night thinking that was someone underneath the bus. You could feel it through your feet on the bus floor.

Mr Thompson said there was no doubt in his mind that the bus had hit a human being.

He said: "If it was an animal, a bus that size, there would never have been such a jerking reaction. You actually felt the wheels jarring. And god bless that woman's family."