(25 Jan 2023, 9:47 pm)ALavery wrote I wouldn’t be surprised, some of the streets they have to go down look like killers, I’m surprised more 60s don’t get into accidents.

Well, 5371 seemed to have a quite big collision a few months ago where all the panels from its doors down to its back wheel were replaced and now is off awaiting an engine replacement.
5373 had the whole back of it replaced after being off for months, then when it came back for a while it kept breaking down on the first return journey back or just a trip or two after its first trip of the day but it has been a lot more reliable and has had fewer break downs. 
5369 had panels after the back wheel on the door side all of which had been replaced as well as the panel just above the wheel on the other side. (Decals on the back are in terrible condition).
While this isn't related to accidents I was on 5374 and the driver got off at Seaham Costa and called the Depot complaining the bus was freezing and was shocked how no one had reported it, then he had to wait at Sunderland for like 20 mins for a Versa to come even though he had called at Seaham Costa.

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(25 Jan 2023, 10:06 pm)nova347 wrote But now the 65 is on the rota for the newer drivers, compared to the 60s which have more senior drivers. I've been on the 65 a lot and the route is tight in a lot of places, not to mention especially before the 65 went back to hourly the timing were always tight. 

One common incident I hear about with the 65s is at Durham where drivers miscalculate the road, whether that's knocking their mirror off or when pulling into the stand they crash into a bus already parked.
Below are just a few incidents that I photos of which my friend had sent me, with no doubt many more occurred. I will say the 65s do get a lot of bricks/rocks thrown through their windows, not as much so lately but in the past, it has happened really often.

The first one occurred at the turning in Murton onto Lukes Cresent, there are normally cars parked there but clearly, the driver misjudged the turn and turned too early and hit a car but judging by how far past the car the bus was, he could have taken that at some speed probably due to it being late, due to the nature of the turning being tight and with the car park just before the junction the turning would have been tight and the driver would have had to go on the curb to get round but clearly the driver didn't realise how close the car was and therefore the bus hit it and this has happened multiple times in this location.  But I know the second photo's driver has had small incidents a few times and as it pulled into Hetton Le Hole it was the island in the middle and just had that driver the other day on the 60. I'm not quite sure what happened on the third one but whatever happened it had all the panels highlighted in the photo below replaced* And the final photo of when the driver misjudged pulling into the stand, colliding the side into a parked Gateshead Centre Taxis Enviro 200MMC where the driver-side mirror of the Enviro smashed the glass of the Streetlite. 

*This photo is just an example of an East Durham Explorer fully decalled. 

My friend who works in Durham gets the 65 practically every day and she said she has been in multiple crashes, there was one at Hetton where there was a delivery truck parked and the 65 couldn't get past and it scrapped along the side of the island in the bus station and you can see where the rocks had been destroyed, PS this was a corporate streetlite. 

I've personally seen a 65 sat at a stand in Durham missing the door-side mirror with a senior Deptford driver waiting for mechanics to bring another mirror. Ive also seen an X20 at Durham go flying down North Street and knock its mirror off.