A bus driver who allegedly drove dangerously according to Hong Kong police was in fact driving below the road limit, data retrieved from the vehicle’s black box showed.

The driver, who plied route 970, was arrested on Sunday at Nathan Road for dangerous driving in the direction of the police and for possession of an offensive weapon — a spanner — as officers were searching people at the scene during a protest. The driver was bailed out the next day.

Black box data obtained by his employer, New World First Bus Company, showed that he was in fact driving at 30 kilometers per hour (18.6 miles per hour), lower than the speed limit of 50 kilometers per hour along that road, the company’s staff union chief Lam Kam-biu said.

“We now know the truth from the records,” Lam told a Commercial Radio morning show on Wednesday.

New World First Bus on Monday downloaded the black box data about the incident, and provided the driving records and footage to the police in accordance with a court order. Lam, who viewed the data, said the bus was moving slowly and not approaching officers at a high speed. It would be up to the police to prove if the officers had felt scared at the time in considering whether the dangerous driving claim was valid, he said.

The data showed the driver honked three times, respectively as people stepped onto the road and approached the bus, and as the bus switched from the middle lane to the fast lane to avoid hitting police officers. Lam said it was reasonable for the driver to sound his horn, and that there were no guidelines saying drivers could not do so in the presence of the police.

The bus company suggested the driver take two weeks off as the sight of police officers while he was driving might unsettle him, Lam said. It also offered to let him return to work when he felt fine, the union chief added.

Another labor organization, the Bus Industry Union, said the police had yet to offer a reasonable explanation as to why they made the arrest, angering many drivers. It criticized the police as arrogant and abusive of their powers, citing cases of the police firing tear gas and rubber bullets into buses multiple times during protests last year, threatening the safety of drivers and passengers.

The union demanded that the police and the government respond to its requests by Friday afternoon, including by making an apology and promising fair and open treatment on the case, or its members and non-franchised bus drivers would launch an industrial action.

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