A Midttrafik bus overtook a car at high speed on Vejlevej in Horsens on August 14 and continued across a marked no-driving area. Midttrafik has now asked the bus company behind the route for an explanation.
DR reports that the incident took place early in the morning on Friday, August 14, on Vejlevej in Horsens. A blue Midttrafik bus passed motorist Ionut Putinica in the overtaking lane. It then continued across a spærreflade, an area marked with solid diagonal lines, before pulling back into the lane.
Putinica told DR that he first noticed the bus in his rearview mirror, as it overtook another car behind him. He said he was surprised, and then shocked, when the bus passed him as well.
A second bus was approaching from the opposite direction at the same time. Putinica said he had to pull out onto the cycle path to make room. Otherwise, according to his account, the bus would have pushed him off the road.
Putinica drives with a dashcam, so the overtaking was recorded on video. He uploaded the footage to the internet, where it drew a large number of comments. Some commenters wrote that he had been driving too slowly.
He rejects that description. Per DR, he says the speed limit on the stretch was 60 kilometers per hour, and that he was driving at that speed.
Midttrafik asks the operator for an explanation
The video was sent to Midttrafik, the public transport company that plans bus services in the Central Denmark Region. Christina Meiner Tästensen, team leader for contracts at Midttrafik, says the company takes the case very seriously. As she noted, this is not the kind of driving Midttrafik expects, and its drivers must follow the traffic rules like everyone else.
Midttrafik does not run the buses itself. The routes are operated by bus companies under contract, and Tästensen has asked the company behind this bus for an explanation of the manoeuvre.
According to DR, it is up to the operator to decide whether the overtaking should have consequences for the driver. Midttrafik itself has the option to act if the same driver is the subject of several complaints.
Tästensen states that the contract allows Midttrafik to exclude a driver from operating its services if there are complaints about repeated or serious violations. She says that assessment is now being made.
Neither Midttrafik nor DR has named the bus company operating the route, and no police case has been reported in connection with the overtaking. The video remains online, where Putinica has responded to the criticism of his own driving.
