A SCOTTISH bus driver crashed into a low bridge as he forgot he was driving a double-decker, a court has heard.

Keith Ryves, 60, was at the wheel of a bus driving from Glasgow to Overton, Lanarkshire, when the collision happened.

He told Hamilton Sheriff Court that there had been a clear warning on the low bridge, but that a single decker bus would have safely passed under it.

According to the Daily Record, Ryves said: “Unfortunately, it was a double decker. It was a momentary lapse in concentration.

"I didn’t normally drive double deckers.

“I had been furloughed due to the coronavirus situation. When I went back to work, single deckers were being replaced by double deckers due to passenger capacity.”

One passenger on the First Bus got a bloodied nose, reports say, but no-one else was harmed.

Sheriff James Spy cleared Ryves of the more serious charge of dangerous driving, but he was fined for driving carelessly on August 17, 2020. He was also given eight points on his licence.

Solicitor Philip Cohen said Ryves, of Hareshaw, Motherwell, had been driving buses without incident for 29 years but that the accident had impacted him so much that he “doesn’t intend to resume his driving career”.