Bus Accident Lawyer

The family members of the cyclist that was killed in a collision with a media bus outside the Olympic Park in London last week have paid tribute to him, and asked for campaigners for cycle safety to stop using his death to score points for their cause.

Dan Harris, a 28 year old IT expert, was cycling In East London on Wednesday near the Olympic park when he was struck by a bus carrying media members to the Olympic venues. He died on the scene. Since his death, cycle campaigners have been lobbying for increased safety for cyclists on London’s roads.

Star British cyclist Bradley Wiggins also commented on the incident, recommending that helmets be made compulsory for all cyclists on London’s roads. Harris was however wearing a helmet at the time of the incident.

Harris’s family have called for an end to the blame game surrounding their son’s death, and asked for his name to not be associated with any further protests or lobbying groups. In a statement released by the family through the Metropolitan police, they said that the did not want Daniel’s name ‘used for any political point-scoring whatsoever by pro-cycling lobbyists or similar factions’.

The family also paid tribute to Daniel in their statement, saying that ‘everyone who knew Dan loved him for his sense of humor, fun and adventure.’

Harris’s girlfriend Cecilia Dominici described him as the love of her life, and took to Twitter to pay tribute to him together with other friends and relatives.

A memorial cycle in honor of his life is being held in London on August 10.

Harris was on his way to work at the time that the incident happened. He was a keen cyclist, and has in the past cycled his way across the South-East Asian countries of Cambodia, Vietnam and Cambodia.

A post-mortem was conducted on Mr. Harris’s body on Thursday, and concluded that the cause of his death was multiple traumatic injuries. The driver of the bus, a 65 year old unnamed gentleman, was arrested at the scene of the accident on suspicion of dangerous driving. Currently he has been released on bail, but is expected to return to an East London court later this month.

If he is found to be guilty, the bus driver may be held liable for Mr. Harris’s death, and his family could therefore have grounds to seek compensation from the driver in court.

A cyclist was killed after being hit by a double decker bus outside the entrance to the Olympic Games Main Press Center in London on Wednesday. The accident, which occurred just outside the Olympic Park, caused major traffic delays in the Olympic Games host city.

The collision, which occurred at the intersection between East Cross Road and Ruckholt Road in Hackney, caused chaos around the Olympic hockey center and velodrome.

The 28 year old cyclist, who has not yet been identified, was announced dead at the scene about half an hour after the accident occurred. Authorities responded promptly to the scene, as policemen, fire and rescue personnel and members of the military were already in the Olympic Park area. Several entrances near the bus entry into the media center and the Olympic Park were closed. Following the accident, no buses were able to enter or leave the Media Transport area’s multi-level car park. The Olympic Park internal shuttle, however, remained operational to transport media officials to the events.

Although the victim’s name has yet to be released to the media, Olympic organizers have confirmed that he was not a competitor in the Olympics.

The cyclist was pronounced dead by medical officials on the scene at 8.14pm, and his body was shielded from view of the crowd of onlookers with mesh fencing until the coroner arrived to remove it.

The London Olympic organizing committee have sent their condolences to the man’s family, and are working together with the police to investigate the cause of the incident.

Olympic cyclist Bradley Wiggins, who won a gold medal for Britain in the time trial earlier on Wednesday morning, has emphasized the dangers of cycling in urban areas in the UK following the tragic incident. Wiggins, who won the Tour de France earlier this month, has asked motorists to be considerate to cyclists. “At the end of the day we’ve all got to co-exist on the roads,” he said.

Following investigation into the incident, police have arrested the bus driver, a man in his mid-60s, after it appears that his dangerous driving may have caused the accident. The man was held in an East London police station but has now been released on bail pending his trial later in August.

The identity of the cyclist is expected to be released later today, with a postmortem examination scheduled for the weeks that follow. If the bus driver is found to be at fault in this incident, the cyclist’s family may be able to claim compensation with the help of an experienced bus accident lawyer.

A double-decker bus owned by tour bus company Megabus has collided with a concrete pillar while en route to Kansas City, killing one passenger and wounding close to forty others. The bus was headed to Kansas City from Chicago when the driver appeared to lose control, smashing head on into a bridge support pillar in Litchfield, Illinois.

It is as yet unclear as to exactly what caused the accident, but there is speculation that a tire blow out caused the bus to swerve out of control. Eye witnesses at the scene of the accident described a horrific scene with the entire front section of the bus completely destroyed.

Megabus is a popular low fare bus company which offers travel on a number of national routes across the country. Tickets for trips to any one of the 80 or so large cities that Megabus travels to can be bought only with prices starting at only $1. Many would say that this deal sounds too good to be true, and perhaps it is. Low fare bus companies often have to cut corners in terms of safety regulations in order to make a profit, which can lead to dangerous accidents such as this one.

The problem with cheap bus operators is that they tend to pick up passengers anywhere along the route, stopping wherever they see an opportunity to gain another passenger, even if it is not at a designated bus terminal. The results of a study conducted in 2011 by the National Transportation Safety Board have shown that low cost carriers that ignore road safety regulations are more likely to be involved in accidents.

At the time of the Megabus accident, there were more than 80 passengers onboard the double-decker bus. According to passenger reports, the bus swerved off the road and into the pillar suddenly, after it appeared to hit into something on the road. The bus was not equipped with seat belts and many of the passengers were ejected from their seats.

Medical and rescue teams responded promptly to the accident, and the injured were rushed to nearby hospitals via ambulance and helicopters.

Currently Litchfield officials are investigating the cause of the accident, and it remains to be seen whether any individual or the Megabus company will be held liable for the death and injuries of the passengers. This is the 8^th serious accident that a Megabus bus has been involved in in the last two years, raising serious questions as to whether this company should still be operating bus services.

A family who were traveling back from a Brad Paisley concert in Watsonville on Friday evening have described the events surrounding the tragic party bus accident that left a 25 year old woman dead. The accident, which occurred on Highway 17 near Los Gatos, killed Santa Cruz resident Natasha Noland instantly when she fell from the top deck of the party bus.

According to eye witness Roberta Dallimonti, who was driving home from the Paisley concert with a friend, her daughter Christina and her husband Richard, the accident scene was chaotic, with crowds rapidly forming and fighting between onlookers and the police.

The Dallimonti family were on the way home when they noticed a man frantically waving his hands in the air in the left most lane on the southbound Highway 17 near Los Gatos. Roberta Dallimonti, who was driving, pulled over to the shoulder to assess the scene.

When moving closer to the accident scene, Dallimonti noticed the body of Natasha Noland lying next to the man. She had apparently fallen off the bus on her way back from the same Brad Paisley concert. The man was later discovered to be Noland’s boyfriend. While Roberta and her daughter assisted the man and called 911, while Richard Dallimonti offered blankets from their car to a woman who was lying on the side of the road, apparently injured.

According to local police authorities, the incident occurred on a bus operated by the Party Bus of Santa Crus company, and there were around 15 passengers on the bus at the time of the accident. The passengers were en route back from a concert that was held at Shoreline Amphitheatre on Friday evening.

The official report states that Noland got into a physical altercation with another woman on the bus. At approximately 11.50pm, the bus door flew open and both women were thrown from the moving bus onto the road. The bus, which was travelling at 45 mph, was unable to stop and ran over Noland, killing her instantly. The other woman, a 20 year old from Felton, sustained only minor injuries.

It is not clear as to the exact circumstances surrounding the incident, and what initiated the fight between the two women. As yet, no charges have been filed. The California Highway Patrol is currently investigating the incident and will report if the bus company in question or the surviving woman are found to be liable to Noland’s death.

Recent Update: In Chicago, a Megabus accident in Chicago has left 1 dead and dozens injured. Contact Zehl & Associates at 1 (888) 854-8989 for more details and assistance.

30 passengers have been injured, one critically, after a bus crashed off a flyover in the Indian city of Chennai. The number 17-M bus, operated by Indian bus company the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC), fell off the Anna Gemini flyover in the center of the city after the driver appeared to lose control while turning around a bend.

Of the 60 passengers on the bus, 30 were injured with no casualties. One of the passengers is currently in a critical condition in hospital after fracturing several ribs. The majority of the remaining injured patients have been discharged from local hospitals after being treated for minor injuries. It is fortunate that there were not more serious injuries caused by the crash, as the seat belt did not have seat belts for the passengers. Seat belts are not legally required on passenger buses in India.

The Chennai police department is conducting an investigation into the cause of the accident. According to eye witness reports, the bus appeared to be speeding when it entered a bend on the flyover, at which point the driver lost control and sailed through the side barrier. Some passengers on the bus allege that the driver was using a cellular telephone at the time of the accident, an allegation that is being investigated by officials who are looking into the driver’s phone records.

The MTC bus was in transit from Broadway Street to Vada Palani at the time of the incident. After crashing through the side barrier on the flyover, the bus fell close to 14 feet down onto the adjacent stretch of the highway and came to rest on its side.

The South Chennai Police Force responded promptly to the accident, reaching the scene within minutes and contacting the Fire and Rescue services as well as ambulances to transport the injured passengers to local hospitals. According to the Police Commissioner, JK Tripathy, many of the injured were treated on the scene.

Efforts to remove the wreckage of the bus from the scene were hampered by large crowds of passers by who stopped to view the crushed remains of the bus. Diesel was drained from the site to decrease the risk of a dangerous explosion, and the police force were able to disperse the crowd and remove the wreck within hours of the incident.

If negligence on the part of the bus driver is found to be a contributing cause to the accident, then legal action may be taken against him by the injured passengers or the bus company that he works for.

The federal investigations into the March 2011 St. Lucie school bus accident that left a 9 year old boy dead and 16 other schoolchildren injured are drawing to a close, with only the report of a federal inquiry still pending. Government officials have declared that after the completion of the investigation, no criminal charges will be filed against the driver of the bus.

Although the government investigation into the incident has officially ended, the National Transportation Safety Board will continue to use this accident as impetus to establish whether any changes are required in government bus regulations to prevent accidents like this one from occurring in the future.

According to government spokesperson Terry Williams, it is still too early to predict what the outcome of the investigation into the St Lucie incident will be. However he can confirm that no criminal charges will be filed against the bus driver, and any repercussions of the investigation findings will affect only safety regulations and legislation.

Although bus driver Albert Hazen of Port St Lucie was found to be liable for the accident, the only charge that he will face is a $160 fine from the traffic department for failure to yield to an oncoming vehicle at the intersection where the accident occurred.

After rigorous investigation, the FHP concluded in their report that criminal charges against Hazen were unnecessary, and that he was ‘just inattentive’ and not negligent when he did not yield before making a left turn in front of an oncoming sod truck at the intersection of Midway and Okeechobee roads in Port St Lucie.

The FHP report claims that the bus was fitted with seatbelts, however it is unclear as to how many of the 30 passengers, all between the ages of 5 and 10, were actually wearing them at the time of the incident. Aaron Beauchamp, the 9 year old boy who was killed in the accident, was wearing a seatbelt. The FHP reports, however, that the seatbelt was not suitable for use in a small child such as Aaron.

Although there will be no federal charges laid against Hazen, Aaron Beauchamp’s family has filed a lawsuit against the St Lucie County School District, who hired the driver. They are also suing the driver of the truck, Charles Cooper, after he was found to be guilty of a number of state traffic regulations.

Apart from Hazen’s ‘inattention’, there were no other contributing factors to the accident.

New evidence released by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) reveals a shockingly high rate of bus collisions in the Canadian city, with an average of eight accidents per day over the last year.

In the year between April 2011 and April 2012, more than 3000 bus collisions have occurred on Toronto’s streets, an astounding average of 8 collisions per day. The data, which was released by the TTC on Monday, includes accidents involving buses colliding with other vehicles, street signs, stationary objects and even bikers.

According to the data, TTC buses collided with stationary objects, such as buildings and road signs, 431 times during the year of data collection. 1589 other vehicles were involved in collisions with buses or streetcars, 55 pedestrians were injured by bus related accidents and 33 cyclists were hit. The data also reported 55 ‘other’ objects that were hit. As of January 2012, the TTC operates close to 250 streetcars and 1819 buses.

Most commonly, collisions occurred between buses and other vehicles. However streetcars were less likely to be involved in an accident, most likely because there are fewer of them on the road and they travel along specified tracks at slower speeds than the buses.

All collisions in the city, including those involving TTC vehicles, are investigated by the Toronto Police traffic service.

The latest TTC incident occurred on Sunday, when a bus smashed into a commercial building on the corner of Richmond and Queen streets while the bus was travelling northward on Peter Street at 10 am. Three passengers and the driver sustained minor injuries. The cause of the accident is unknown, but it is expected that the driver involved will not return to duty at TTC.

As well as colliding with the building, the bus also smashed into a taxi carrying two passengers. The taxi passengers escaped unscathed and no charges have been laid.

Peter Street does not normally form part of the regular TTC bus route, but the company has been operating buses along this road while street car tracks are being repaired on the nearby Spadina Avenue.

Spadine Avenue was re-opened to traffic after this incident, and streetcars are running in a single lane. Peter Street bus services will continue until all the new streetcar tracks have been completed. The new tracks have been installed in order to accommodate the new generation streetcars, and the project is due to be completed by November.

A horrific bus accident near Cradock in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa has left 18 people dead and more than 30 injured. The accident occurred on the morning of the 21^st July when two passenger buses collided on the R61 highway between Cradock and Graaf-Reinet.

The South African Deputy Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga has said that the accident was shocking and upsetting in her statement to the press issued on Saturday. “We are terribly shocked and saddened at the news of this horrific incident,” said Chikunga. She stressed the importance of road safety in her statement, and emphasized that the loss of innocent lives in an accident such as this one is unnecessary and could be avoided by safe driving practices. Chikunga also offered condolences on behalf of the South African government to the bereaved families and a rapid recovery to those injured in the accident.

Among the 18 people killed were two school children, according to South African road safety authority Arrive Alive. 30 bus passengers were injured, 14 seriously. The injured were transported to local hospitals where they are receiving treatment. There have as yet been no reports as to the condition of the injured from the hospitals.

One of the buses involved in the accident was carrying a group of schoolchildren to a school event in Graaf-Reniet before it collided with a long distance passenger bus driving from Mthatha to Cape Town. The circumstances of the incident are unclear, and it is yet to be determined whether it was a head on collision or a side-swipe.

Deputy Minister Chikunga will be visiting the injured survivors and the scene of the accident this weekend. She has encouraged law enforcement officials to investigate the incidents surrounding the collision thoroughly, and make recommendations to prevent such tragic accidents from happening in the future.

This incident has brought the death toll on South African roads in the last three weeks to more than 50. Most fatalities occurred in accidents involving passenger carrying vehicles such as minibus taxis and buses.

The Road Traffic Management Corporation will be investigating the accident, and has dispatched a team of experts to the collision site as part of the investigation process. The surviving passengers will be interviewed to determine the exact circumstances prior to the accident, and to see whether any parties can be held liable for the incident.

Arrive Alive has urged all motorists to exercise caution when travelling on South African roads this Winter.

A tragic bus accident on Pawley’s Island in Georgetown County, South Carolina, has left one person dead and another fighting for his life in a local hospital. The accident occurred on Highway 17 on Tuesday night.

According to Bob Beebe, the official spokesperson for Midway Fire Rescue who responded to the accident, a Williamsburg County Transit bus carrying 30 passengers collided with a 1997 Dodge pickup truck at a busy intersection between Highway 17 and Beaumont road shortly before 7 pm on Tuesday. The accident claimed the life of the pickup truck driver, who has been identified as Craig Smith, a 47 year old resident of Pawley’s Island. His official cause of death was reported as head trauma after he flew through the windscreen of his truck during the collision. One passenger on the bus was seriously injured and remains in a critical condition in a local hospital on Pawley’s Island.

Local officials report that the bus driver, identified as Mr. Joshua McCrea from Kingstree, South Carolina, was driving in a southbound direction when the pickup truck crossed the intersection between Highway 17 and Beaumont Road, causing the bus to smash into the driver’s side of the pickup truck. The cause of the accident is still being investigated by the South Carolina Highway Patrol, and it is as yet unclear whether Mr. McCrea will be held liable for Mr. Smith’s death. There was a surveillance camera on board the bus, and footage from this camera will be used to determine who was at fault in the incident.

Mr. Alfonzo Allen, a friend of Mr. Smith’s, witnessed the accident. According to Allen, Smith was easing into the lane to turn at the intersection, and didn’t appear to see the bus coming. The bus attempted to avoid him, but hit the driver’s side.

The coroner attending to the case, Kenny Johnson, told the media that an autopsy will be conducted on Smith at the Grand Strand Regional Medical Center later this week.

Beebe reports that 19 people in total were injured in the accident, with 12 of them being transported to hospital and the others being treated for minor injuries on the scene. Three of the injured patients were transferred to Grand Strand Regional Hospital, two were admitted to Waccamaw Community Hospital and the remaining seven were treated at the Georgetown Memorial Hospital. All but one of the injured passengers has been discharged. As well as the Midway Fire Rescue, first responders from Horry County, Georgetown City and Murrells Inlet assisted with the rescue operation.

Due to the recent increase in bus accident fatalities globally, Canadian firefighters are using bus accident simulations to train new recruits and other rescue workers.

Picture the scene – a school bus lying on its side, with three smashed vehicles and frantic bystanders surrounding the accident. Dozens of children are trapped inside the bus, some of which are seriously injured, and several fatalities have already occurred. This is the simulated scenario which faced Canadian firefighters and ambulance personnel in a Comox Valley training exercise conducted at Oyster River Fire Hall, Black Creek on Saturday morning.

Firefighters from several different fire and rescue departments in the Comox Valley area participated in the exercise, and had to work together to free dozens of volunteer children who were playing the role of trapped accident victims. The school bus used in the exercise was an old school bus donated by Campbell River Christian School.

As well as the children, other volunteers acted as drivers, passengers, family members and curious bystanders to make the exercise as realistic as possible.

The rescue team personnel rehearsed calming of the frantic crowd and lead the family members away from the accident scene so that the emergency services could continue with the rescue operation.

As well as crowd calming, the team members had to tend to the children’s injuries which were realistically portrayed with fake blood and makeup. The simulation also allowed practice of emergency triage operations, where those who were more seriously injured had to be taken to a separate area for transfer by ambulance to local hospitals. Simulated fatalities also had to be dealt with, and were covered with sheets and referred to the coroner.

The training exercise took most of the day, and the participants were given constant feedback and opportunities to review their actions during the simulation. According to Niels Holbek, the Oyster River Fire and Rescue chief, the drill was an excellent learning opportunity which should assist in making real life rescue situations run more smoothly.

Holbek said the exercise was also a good opportunity to assess how different fire and rescue departments would work together and how long it would take for rescue services to arrive from the different departments across the valley. Experienced firefighters and vehicle extrication experts were on site at the training exercise to evaluate how effectively the participants rescued the volunteers, and their feedback will be used to design further training exercises for the future.