A Belgian bus and its 50 passengers stoned on the A9 motorway, near Béziers

C’est depuis ce pont, non loin de l’aire d’autoroute Lespignan sud, que le projectile aurait été lancé. Google Streetview/Mars 2023

Un bus belge a été pris pour cible sur l’A9, près de Béziers, dans la nuit du jeudi 16 au vendredi 17 mai.

A tragedy narrowly avoided… The facts date back to the night of Thursday 16th to Friday 17th May. That evening, shortly after midnight, a bus driver, Glenn Meuris, 34, brought back 49 Flemish vacationers, as well as a second driver, from Salou, a seaside resort on the Costa Daurada, Spain.

As he has just got behind the wheel, between Aude and Hérault, on the A9 motorway, the thirty-year-old hears a violent impact resound. : "Luckily I was able to park quickly. People were shouting upstairs and I quickly went to see what was happening,” he explained to our colleagues from the Belgian media, 7sur7.

"A stone had gone through the window"

The truck stops at the Lespignan Sud area, not far from Béziers. He then noticed a hole in the upper windshield of his coach: "A stone had passed through the window to find itself seven rows further !", he confided . Although the stone did not hit any passengers, four people, sitting in the front seats of this double-decker bus, received shards of glass during the impact. Without being injured, still indicates 7sur7.

But the consequences of this act could have been much worse: "Imagine if this stone had landed a little lower, on my windshield. I would have lost control of the bus, with 51 people on board, comments the driver. Glenn Meuris immediately contacted the authorities and the police.< /p>

Other vehicles affected?

The Narbonne motorized platoon (PMO) and the Poussan motorway platoon (PA) arrived on site to carry out the first observations because around ten vehicles had been hit by stone throwing, according to a source close to the investigation. It is the PMO which is responsible for the investigation. The breakdown company Delvaux.S, from Aspiran, intervened to secure the holed windshield by wrapping it in plastic film and the bus was able to resume its journey.

This story obviously recalls that of Gheorghe Tibil, a Romanian driver killed by a manhole cover thrown from a bridge, on the night of May 10, on a Belgian highway, near Namur.