Footage of a horror crash which killed three people was shown during a trial yesterday.
Marin Rachev is on trial at the High Court in Aberdeen accused of causing the death of three people by driving dangerously on March 12 last year.
It is alleged the 35-year-old pulled out onto the A90 Aberdeen to Dundee road from its junction with Drumlithie without giving way, and into the path of a bus.
The court has heard that when his red Renault Scenic was struck by the bus, two of his passengers were thrown onto the road and hit by another vehicle.
Rachev, of Sandilands Drive, Aberdeen, denies the dangerous driving charge.
Yesterday, advocate depute Murdoch MacTaggart showed the jury of 10 women and five men CCTV footage from the bus the moment the double-decker and Rachev’s car collided.
Three videos, from three separate cameras, showed the bus travelling along the A90 before smashing into the red car.
Jurors were then showed images of the internal and external damages that Rachev’s vehicle sustained.
Mr MacTaggart put it to PC Andrew Ramsey, one of a team of collisions investigators, that the car was “heavily damaged”.
He then asked Mr Ramsey to describe what he saw in the images.
Mr Ramsey said: “It has crushed the rear seats from the offside – squeezing them together.”
The court heard the conclusions of the crash investigation report which said the three people who died in the crash were not wearing their seat belts.
Mr Ramsay added: “It is the collision investigators’ opinion that none of the deceased were wearing their seat belts at the time of the collision.
“Had they been wearing seat belts it is likely that all of them would have remained in the vehicle and, in doing so, may have increased their chances of survival, although may have been seriously injured.”
Mr Ramsay said that the driver of the other car involved, which struck Silyan Stefanov subsequent to the initial collision, had “insufficient time” and “could do nothing to avoid colliding into him”.
The trial, before Lord Kinclaven, continues.