A Harold Hill man has said he feels like he is “spinning a roulette wheel” every time he parks his car after suffering three scrapes from buses.
Reece Manning, who lives in Tees Drive, first contacted Stagecoach after he said one of its London buses damaged his car in February 2021.
The car had been parked outside his house in the road and needed an expensive repair, the cost of which the bus operator eventually covered.
But since then, two more cars – one belonging to his mum and another belonging to Reece – have been scraped by buses.
The second incident happened in June 2023 and resulted in his mum’s car being written off, Reece said.
Last Friday (May 31), Reece’s car was scraped again, and he has now contacted Stagecoach and Transport for London (TfL) demanding that they compensate him for the latest damage.
Reece said: “On Friday, the bus driver hit the car and just drove off.
“You can see from my neighbour’s camera footage, it’s quite an impact.
“The car shakes a lot. It’s not a minor scrape, so the driver would know that he’s hit something.”
Each incident has happened from buses travelling in the same direction, on either bus route 256 or 294.
Reece said that although he had successfully received compensation after the two previous incidents, the “stress” of waiting for the pay out has been tough.
He explained: “A repair is always just a repair at the end of the day.
“Even then, you’ve still got two weeks of waiting for them to get back to you.
“It’s the stress of knowing you can’t really park on the road. You spin the roulette wheel every time you park outside your house that a bus could just hit your car.
“You can see from the video how clear the road is, it’s not like the driver has to navigate between two parked cars – it’s just one parked car on the side.”
He has now urged Stagecoach and TfL to properly investigate all three of the incidents to ensure that there are no further scrapes on the road.
When contacted by the Recorder, Stagecoach referred us to TfL.
Rosie Trew, TfL’s head of bus service delivery, said: “We're very sorry for the distress caused to Mr Manning and the damage to his vehicle.
“We are investigating with Stagecoach, the bus operator, to establish what happened.”
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