A SCHOOL bus driver who injured everybody on board when he crashed into a heavy goods vehicle has admitted dangerous driving.

Anthony Waner’s excessive speed had frightened other road users and passers-by before the smash on the A685 between Kendal and Tebay at Lowgill on September 23.

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Dereck Evans, prosecuting, told Carlisle Crown Court on Friday that ‘every passenger on board was injured to a greater or lesser degree’.

Among them, a schoolboy suffered a broken nose, another broke several ribs, and an elderly woman needed 22 stitches.

The court heard how Waner drove at ‘excessive speed’ even though he knew there were no seatbelts on the Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire vehicle.

His driving was so aggressive he forced a vehicle in front of him to pull over and let him pass.

A mother of one of the children on board told police she watched the coach pass her house every day to make sure her children were on board but was scared by the speed Waner was driving that day.

Andrew Nuttall, defending, said: “Mr Waner has been a bus driver all his life and up until last year he had a faultless and blameless record and career.”

But in the weeks before the accident, Waner, 45, of Acre Moss Lane in Morecambe, notched-up nine points on his licence by getting caught by the same speed camera three times.

Judge Batty QC said: “This offence of careless driving is at the top of the scale because your driving fell below the standard of a prudent driver.

"You were driving a school bus on a dangerous country road; your speed was excessive and it wasn’t a case of you driving excessively for just a moment or two.

“A school bus driver is entrusted with the safety of children. Parents put children on a bus in the hope and expectation that they will come home safe but your driving was so bad that all passengers on the bus were injured. For the children it must have been a terrifying event.”

Waner was disqualified from driving for nine months and fined £500.