What Is a Bus Accident Personal Injury?
Rather than an auto accident, you were involved in a bus accident. While you can sustain the same injuries in a crash with a larger vehicle as with a personal vehicle, you must approach bus accidents differently. Know the factors and various parties involved in bus accidents. This can help you secure the compensation you need for your resulting medical bills, lost wages, and mental anguish. Enlist the help of a reputable bus accident attorney to help make sense of your situation and safeguard your rights.
What Are Risks Unique to Buses?
Buses aren’t inherently dangerous, but their height and size create unique risks. Like large trucks, buses require more space to accelerate and stop, increasing the risk of certain collisions. In crashes, buses are also more prone to rollovers, and loose items inside can turn into hazardous projectiles, endangering passengers.
Unlike typical cars, buses often carry multiple passengers, which means a single accident can lead to numerous injuries and higher overall damages. Passengers boarding or exiting, as well as pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers nearby, can all be at risk in a bus accident. With so many lives impacted and complexities involved, managing a bus accident claim alone can quickly become overwhelming.
What Are the Common Causes of Bus Accidents?
Understanding the cause of a bus accident is crucial when building a case and pursuing compensation. Speeding is a common issue; bus drivers often face pressure to keep up with strict schedules, which can lead them to drive too fast when slowed down by traffic or bad weather. Even with speed monitors in place, they may not work reliably within city limits.
Fatigue is another major factor. Like truck drivers, bus drivers sometimes push through long hours to make a living, but fatigue impairs reaction time. While some buses have fatigue monitors, these can be costly and aren’t always used. Distractions from disruptive passengers, such as fighting children or emergencies on board, can also divert a driver’s attention and increase accident risk.
In some cases, drivers operate under the influence of drugs or alcohol, severely affecting their response times—an especially dangerous scenario around schools or areas with children who may run into the street unexpectedly.
What Is Negligence in a Bus Accident?
As the person injured in a bus crash, it falls on you to prove negligence on the part of the person who injured you. To be successful, you must show evidence of causation, duty, breach, and harm. Depending on the factors behind the accident, proving negligence may be as easy as proving the bus driver broke traffic laws, which is why the accident happened. On the other hand, you may have to show the driver displayed unreasonable conduct.
You may also have a case that goes beyond standard negligence, such as when recklessness enters the equation. Examples of reckless driving behavior include driving at high speed to evade law enforcement and driving well over the speed limit. Essentially, recklessness involves a blatant disregard for others’ safety.
Bus accident victims must also consider comparative negligence and shared fault while building a case. Any automobile drivers involved in the accident may share fault for the crash. On the other hand, poor road maintenance or design could be the reason the unfortunate event happened. Bus manufacturers could share liability for design or manufacturing defects. Even bus passengers may share fault and negligence in the mishap.
These are just a few examples of why you should hire an experienced bus accident attorney to help in your case.
How Do You Handle Lawsuits in Bus Accidents?
Because many parties may share fault in a bus accident, victims must tread carefully when filing a lawsuit. The local government may bear responsibility for poor road maintenance or road design. This fact often complicates legal matters because of the different rules involved with taking legal action against a government entity. You can file an insurance claim with the government, but you may receive a denial. At that point, you can sue, but doing so comes with restrictions.
If the accident was because of faulty bus design, maintenance, or manufacturing, that falls under product liability law. After consulting with a bus accident attorney, you may learn that you are better off expanding your suit to include multiple defendants. Even if you contributed to the event, you may still receive damages. Although, it will be for a lesser amount than you would receive if you were free of fault.
What Are the Different Damages for Bus Accidents?
Do you know the full extent of your injuries and damages? You may be able to collect non-economic or economic damages, or perhaps both. Examples of non-economic damages include pain, suffering, and emotional anguish. Economic damages consist of medical expenses, lost wages, and lost or reduced earning capacity. There are also punitive damages, which punish to prevent similar actions from others. So, what damages do you qualify for? That depends on the nature of your incident and your legal advocate’s abilities. Connect with a bus accident attorney to discuss your best course of action to get you the compensation you deserve.
Work With an Experienced Local Lawyer
Do not take unnecessary chances dealing with insurance companies, negligent individuals, and government entities to close your bus accident case on your own. You should focus on recovering, tending to your financial health, providing for your family and loved ones and getting back to your day-to-day life. Leave the legal heavy lifting to a legal professional.
Submit a request online or call us today at (866) 345-6784 to get in touch with an experienced bus accident attorney in your area!
About the Author
Aaron is a professional legal writer with a B.S. in English Education from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale. He has written, published, and edited thousands of legal articles for RequestLegalHelp, which has connected over 5 million people to legal help in the United States.
With over five years of experience writing thousands of legal articles for law firms across the U.S. and Canada, Aaron specializes in covering federal, state, and city-level legal issues ranging from auto accidents to wrongful terminations. Contact Aaron at [email protected] for article suggestions, collaborations, or inquiries.
