Drivers who arrived on the scene after a fatal crash have described the moment a car and bus collided and how they found bodies.
Three passengers in a car driven by Marin Rachev, 35, died after a collision with a double-decker bus on the A90 near Stonehaven.
Dimitar Georgiev, 32, Zaharina Hristova, 37, and Silyan Stefanov, 42, all from Bulgaria, were in the rear seats and not wearing seatbelts, a court heard.
Two of them were thrown from the vehicle and struck by another car.
Rachev, a Bulgarian national, is on trial at the High Court in Aberdeen accused of causing death by dangerous driving, which he denies.
The collision happened on March 12 last year when the red Renault was trying to cross the Drumlithie junction.
Van driver Stuart Kerr, 50, told the court he saw a red car coming down the hill towards the junction.
He said it didn’t stop and came straight out, travelling about 10mph.
A Citylink bus, which was travelling between Glasgow and Aberdeen, couldn’t have avoided the collision, Mr Kerr said.
The trial also heard from two students, both driving separate cars.
Niamh Cameron, 20, said she saw a red or burgundy car and expected it to stop but it just kept going. She said she began to think: “Oh no.”
She needed comforting as she described seeing bodies lying on the road.
Thomas Connon, 19, was one of the first on the scene and tried to comfort Rachev, who was standing by his car with an elderly lady.
He said Rachev spoke little English but kept saying “phone phone” and “boy boy”.
When Mr Connon went to the car he found a man dead in the back seat behind the driver and two bodies on the road.
He found the phone, which he said was open on Google or Apple Maps, and gave it to Rachev.
The trial continues.
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