£1,000 fine and 12-month ban for DPD delivery driver who left cyclist with broken neck after cutting across cycle lane

A delivery driver has been fined just under £1,000 and banned from driving for 12 months after pleading guilty to causing serious injury by careless driving, following a collision in a bike lane which left a female cyclist with a broken neck.

DPD employee Florin Varga was driving on Tadcaster Road in York, in the direction of the city centre, on 23 April 2024, when he attempted to turn right into Middlethorpe Drive, after an oncoming motorist flashed their lights to indicate that it was safe for Varga to turn.

However, as the delivery driver made the turn, he crashed into a female cyclist, who was travelling in the opposite direction to Varga, in the road’s painted cycle lane. The collision left the cyclist with rib injuries and broken bones in her neck, requiring her to undergo surgery to repair the bones with metal plates.

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In court this week, Varga’s defence barrister Harriet Eglinton said that the delivery driver stayed at the scene of the crash and had called the emergency services, the York Press reports.

However, district judge Adrian Lower criticised the van driver’s decision to make the right turn solely on the basis of another motorist’s flashing lights.

“What you didn’t know, and I am sure the other motorist didn’t know, is that [the cyclist] was on a push bike on the other side of that vehicle,” he told Varga.

“Instead of waiting to make sure that the road was clear, you committed yourself to turn into the road to your right.”

Varga pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by careless driving, and was fined £650. The judge also banned him from driving for a year and ordered him to pay a £260 statutory surcharge and £85 prosecution costs.

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According to Eglinton, the driving ban has led to Varga losing his job with DPD. She also noted that he was the main driver for his household and that his wife, a nurse who doesn’t drive, now has trouble making her way to work at a hospital due to poor public transport links at night.

The defence barrister added that Varga is currently without any income as he is yet to claim benefits. She said that he is looking for work in a warehouse and if he didn’t succeed, he would have to claim universal credit. Letters from Varga and his wife also detailed the effect his driving ban and sacking have had on their finances.

The judge accepted that Varga was “remorseful” and that he regretted the crash, for which the driver accepted full responsibility.

This isn’t the first time we have reported on dangerous driving from DPD’s delivery staff.

> "Please train your drivers better" cyclist tells DPD after tailgating delivery driver traps bike under van

In September 2022, we reported on the live blog that a cyclist in Oxford told the company to “please train your drivers better” after a tailgating member of staff trapped the rider’s bike under their van, after the cyclist stopped to warn the driver about the dangers of driving too closely to people on bikes.

And in February 2021, a cyclist reported a van driver to DPD after they cut right across their path before immediately tuning right at a junction, but said they received “no reply” from the company.