Bus Accident Lawyer

The tour buses carrying the Washington Redskins to their game versus the Minnesota Vikings was involved in what is being described as a “minor collision” on the morning of Sunday, Nov. 2, 2014. The buses were traveling on an interstate off-ramp en route to their afternoon game when an escort vehicle—a police car—crashed into a guardrail in front of them. The driver of the first bus hit the brakes in an attempt to avoided colliding with the police vehicle, however, the second bus was not able to brake in time to avoid hitting the bus in front of it, and resulted in its rear-ending the other vehicle.

Although several players on board both buses complained of minor injuries—mostly cuts and bruises—the game went on as scheduled, resulting in a Redskins loss. One player (Silas Redd, running back for the Redskins) was unable to join his teammates on the field due to severe back spasms, but he is reported as being otherwise in good health and should be ready to play again soon. The police officer in the squad car that crashed into the guardrail, setting off the chain-reaction multiple-vehicle collision, is reported as having sustained a non-life threatening injury as a result of the crash.

Photos released to the media following the collision show the squad car with moderate front-end damage, the bumper having detached after the collision with the guardrail. One of the buses had to be towed away, and a photo taken by Redskins player Pierre Garcon shows a smashed windshield on the bus he was riding in at the time of the crash.

Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III has publicly praised the driver of the first bus for his swift reaction time, citing the driver’s quick action as the reason that the collision was not more serious. The coach of the team, Jay Gruden, reported that he and the players were uninjured save for a sore neck on his part, and minor scrapes and bruises on the parts of the players.

There is no word at this time as to what caused the police car collision with the guardrail that led to the subsequent bus crash.

A “party bus” carrying 13 passengers collided with a pickup truck late in the afternoon of Saturday, Oct. 25, 2014 in Edgard, Louisiana, leaving nine people injured. One of the injured parties was a 14-year-old boy who had to be taken to the trauma center at Louisiana State University Medical Center via helicopter due to the severity of his injuries. He is currently reported as being in critical condition.

The truck was traveling westward on Highway 18 when it made a turn directly in front of the path of the party bus (which was traveling eastward), leading to a T-bone collision. The bus veered after being hit by the truck, causing it to collide with two parked cars on the side of the roadway. The truck was reportedly attempting to turn into a driveway at the time of the crash. Highway 18 is a stretch of road that runs alongside the Mississippi River through multiple towns in Saint John Parish.

Three people in the truck—including the teenaged boy with life-threatening injuries—were injured in the crash and are being treated at a local hospital for their injuries. There is no word yet on the condition of the two other passengers in the truck.

Investigation as to the cause of the crash and what factors came into play remains ongoing at this time. Drivers of both the truck and the bus have consented to voluntary tests for drugs and alcohol, and the results of these tests may help state police to determine if drugs or alcohol played a role in the collision.

According to traffic accident reports made available by Louisiana State University, although only 0.5 percent of all injurious traffic accidents in the state in the year 2014 involved buses, 44 percent of those accidents involved pickup trucks. Also, 48 percent of all traffic accidents in Louisiana in 2014 took place on state roads, while 14 percent of them happened on parish roads. There were a total of more than 43,000 traffic accidents reported in Louisiana thus far in 2014.

A school bus collided with a car on the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 17, 2014, leaving six people hurt. The bus was packed full of 50 elementary-school students en route back home to Okawville, IL from the Butterfly House in Chesterfield, MO, where they had traveled for a school field trip. Most of the students on board the bus at the time of the crash were between seven and eight years of age and in the second grade.

The bus driver declined offers of medical treatment by paramedics on scene, but five of the six injured students were taken to area hospitals following the collision. One student was reportedly collected by a parent following the accident, and it is not known whether the parent took the student to the hospital or back home. There is no word as to whether the driver of the car that hit the bus was injured in the collision.

The bus driver claims that the vehicle which hit the bus crossed over the line into the bus’ lane, smashing into the front fender of the bus on the left-hand side. The bus was traveling along Interstate 64 near Compton Avenue when the car allegedly attempted to merge onto the freeway and hit the bus.

All injuries sustained in the crash were reported to be minor, and all injured students are expected to be released from the hospital to their parents’ care in short order. It is unclear how extensive the property damage was to either the bus or the vehicle that hit it. There is no word yet as to whether charges will be filed as a result of this collision.

According to statistics released by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, 918 traffic accidents involved a school bus in the year of 2011, with 320 people being injured in those crashes, and one fatality. Although rare—comprising only .7 percent of all traffic accidents in 2011—school bus accidents are particularly troubling because of the number of passengers usually on board, as well as the young ages of those passengers. Some citizens feel that making the wearing of seat belts mandatory on school buses may reduce the number of people who are injured in traffic accidents involving a school bus.

A bus became trapped between two freeway support structures following a collision with a sport utility vehicle in Miami, Fla. On the afternoon of Saturday, Oct. 12, 2014, resulting in nine injuries. The Miami-Dade Transit Bus was allegedly traveling westbound on NW Sixth Street in the Overtown neighborhood of downtown Miami when it was struck by an SUV which was moving northward along Third Avenue. The crash took place right at the intersection of NW Sixth Street and Third Avenue.

The impact of the collision sent both vehicles skidding out of control, resulting in the SUV landing along the fence line of the Miami Police Department’s auto impound yard, and the commuter bus becoming wedged between two support structures beneath a bridge portion of the I-95. Both vehicles sustained major damage in the crash. The driver of the transit bus attempted to keep passengers calm and in order until paramedics arrived on the scene.

Nine people, including both drivers and a pregnant bus passenger, are reported to have sustained injuries as a result of the crash, and two victims were taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital to be treated for possible head injury and spinal pain. Other injured parties were treated on scene by first responders who arrived shortly after the crash. None of the injuries are reported to have been life-threatening, and all other uninjured bus passengers were diverted to another bus in order to continue on their journeys.

The cause of the crash is not known at this time, and no fault has yet been established. The Miami Police Department is conducting an investigation in the hopes of uncovering the reason for the collision. At this time, it is unclear whether alcohol or other drugs played a role in the accident, and which vehicle had right-of-way at the time of the accident has yet to be determined.

According to statistic released by the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles, nearly 50,000 auto accidents occurred in Miami-Dade in 2005 alone, with the vast majority of those crashes resulting in some type of injury. However, fewer than 350 of these accidents resulted in loss of life.

A bus in northern Liverpool collided with a building late in the morning of Friday, Oct. 3, 2014, leaving nine people injured—eight passengers and the driver. The accident took place at the intersection of Walton Breck Road and Bagnall Street, near Liverpool Football Club’s Anfield stadium. The driver of the bus, a man in his 60s, is said to have suffered some type of medical incident behind the wheel, causing him to lose control over the vehicle in the moments prior to the crash.

The building, an unoccupied apartment structure, was empty at the time of the incident and has been partially demolished in the wake of the accident. Firefighters who rushed to the scene of the accident discovered a marijuana farm in a nearby residence while investigating the cause of the crash. The accident continues to be under investigation at this time.

Extensive damage was incurred by both the bus and the building it crashed into, including at least two gas line leaks that workers had to seal before the demolition of the building could be completed. The injured parties were taken to a local hospital for treatment following the crash, but none of their injuries are suspected of being life-threatening.

Wreckage from the crash, from both building and bus alike, blocked the roadway for hours following the accident, causing traffic congestion as detours were put into place during the clean-up effort. The bus in question was new, having only recently been commissioned into service. Officials from Stagecoach—the company that owns and operates the bus line—have stated that they, too, are investigating the cause of the crash at this time. There is no word as to whether charges will be filed.

Although statistics from Public Health England show that traffic accidents are on the decline in Great Britain overall—with over 40 percent fewer fatal and serious accidents in 2008 than in the 1990s—road accidents in Liverpool are a cause for alarm among local citizens and police alike. Area police have stated that drivers who are of senior age (over the age of 55) and drivers participating in street racing are the two main causes of traffic accidents in the Liverpool area.

A fatal collision that took place between a double-decker city bus and a train in Ottawa last year has led both citizens and officials alike to call for transit policy reform. The crash, which took place on Sept. 18,^, 2013, caused six people—including the driver of the bus, a man by the name of Dave Woodward—to lose their lives, and left dozens more of the 83 other passengers on board the bus with injuries.

The bus, which was determined to be at fault in the collision, was owned and operated by OC Transpo, a transit company that serves commuters in Canada’s capital city. The train involved in the incident was run by VIA Rail, a cross-country rail service operated by the Canadian government. Investigators have determined that the driver of the bus was likely distracted in the moments leading up to the crash, having his attention focused on a video screen which monitored distant areas of the two-deck bus. It is thought that the driver may have had his attention focused on a passenger on the upper deck of the bus standing up while the bus was in motion, and that this may have posed a sufficient distraction to the driver to cause him to fail to see the flashing lights and signs warning of the train crossing ahead.

The bus was also driving over the speed limit—approximately 68 kph in a 60 kph zone—and this may have played a role in the driver’s inability to bring the bus to a complete stop in time to avoid colliding with the train. The investigation into the factors that played a role in this crash continue, but transit and city officials are considering which measures could be taken to prevent a similar accident from occurring in the future.

One suggestion from crash investigators was to make video monitoring on the buses selective in their functionality, such that video screens would automatically turn off while the bus was in motion so as to reduce the likelihood of their posing a distraction to bus drivers. The city has already reduced the speed limit near the train crossing by 10 kph in the hope that managing vehicle speed will help reduce the number of collisions between motor vehicles and trains. The city has also created what it calls “speed enforcement teams,” which have been deployed to random locations along the various transit routes in order to keep speeding buses in check.

A tour bus overturned on a grassy area next to a northern Delaware roadway late in the afternoon on Sunday, Sept 21, 2014, leaving several dozen people injured and one woman dead at the scene. At least three of the injured parties were said to have sustained life-threatening injuries and are in critical condition at this time. Other reported injuries range from minor to serious, and all injured persons have been transported to several area hospitals where they are currently being treated.

The bus did not collide with another vehicle, and at this time it is uncertain what caused the bus to overturn. Investigators have stated that the bus was on a curving off ramp at the time it tipped over and landed on the driver’s side in the grass next to the roadway. The accident took place on Red Lion Road in Bear, a town within Delaware’s New Castle County.

Witnesses stated that there was a communication barrier due to many of the bus passengers being tourists who spoke languages other than English as their primary language. Injured passengers were clearly in distress, but not all were able to convey the nature of their injuries when inquired due to the language barrier. One witness was reported to have rushed to the scene of the accident with a first aid kit in order to help the injured people until first responders arrived on the scene.

People who observed the aftermath of the crash said that the scene was one of total chaos, with people bleeding from their injuries and shouting for help. Many were unable to exit the bus of their own volition, remaining trapped until help arrived. The woman who lost her life in the crash has not been identified, but she is said to have become stuck on the bus after it overturned. A total of 49 people sustained injuries in the accident. There has been no word as to how many passengers total were on board at the time of the accident.

It is unclear where the bus was en route to at the time of the accident, nor is it known where the bus was traveling from. The exact cause of the crash remains under investigation by Delaware State Police and the National Transportation Safety Board.

A fatal bus accident in southern Haiti has left 23 people dead, with 32 injuries reported thus far. The crash, which took place on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2014, allegedly happened when the driver of the bus lost control on a coastal road in the town of Petit-Goave, causing the bus to veer off the roadway and into a ravine below. Petit-Goave is located in the Ouest Department region of Haiti, some  40 miles southwest of the nation’s capital of Port-au-Prince.

Officials from Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency report that the bus was en route to the city of Jeremie when the crash took place. The injured parties were transported to local hospitals via ambulance and helicopter. There are some reports of the hospitals becoming overloaded due to the large influx of new emergency patients that the crash has caused, and having difficulty with rendering the treatment the injured parties need due to being ill-equipped to deal with such a large-scale incident and severely understaffed. The gravity of the injuries sustained by those who were hurt in the crash is not clear at this time.

Haitian prime minister Laurent Lamothe has expressed “deep sadness” over the accident, and has stated that investigation into the cause of the crash will remain ongoing. Road traffic safety is a significant concern in the country of Haiti, where the integrity of the roadways is often questionable at best. After the devastating earthquake that hit the nation in 2010 and killed nearly 300,000 of its denizens, the quality of many roadways in Haiti has suffered and—lacking funds for proper repair and maintenance—the roads have yet to be repaired to a standard that ensures traffic safety.

The desperate need for road repair and maintenance in Haiti is one that is nationwide, and although there are some projects currently underway to initiate these much-needed repairs, most of the country’s roadways remain treacherous and due to the unstable political climate within the nation at this time, it is unclear whether these road-repair projects will continue—or if they do, for how long. There are few guardrails on Haitian roads, road paving may be cracked and diminished, and flooding of the roadways is common in this island nation. When you add buses that are filled well beyond capacity to this mix, the results can be tragic, leading to loss of life and serious injury.

A crash between a school bus and a motorcycle in Harrisburg, South Dakota on the evening of Friday, Sept. 5^th, 2014 had a deadly outcome. The driver of the motorcycle—an unidentified male, aged 49—was killed in the collision, and the motorcyclist’s 45-year-old female passenger is currently being treated for severe injuries sustained in the crash at a local hospital. The driver of the bus, a 59-year-old veteran driver with several years of professional driving experience, was uninjured in the crash. The bus had no passengers on it at the time of the crash.

The bus was traveling eastbound on 57^th Street near Western Avenue en route to collect children from a cross-country track activity they had participated in that evening at Yankton Trail Park. The motorcycle was traveling west when the bus allegedly made a left-hand turn into the driveway for the park in the motorcyclist’s path. The bus sustained severe front-end damage as a result of the collision. Neither the driver nor the passenger of the motorcycle appeared to have been wearing any protective gear such as helmets at the time of the accident.

The intersection where the collision occurred is not controlled by traffic signals, and investigators have not yet established fault in the crash, but they do not believe that drugs or alcohol were a factor in this accident. There is no word as this time as to whether or not charges will be filed, or whether the driver of the bus will face disciplinary action from the local school district that employs her.

According to report data from the South Dakota Department of Public Safety, more than 16,000 traffic accidents took place in South Dakota in 2013, leading to a total of 135 fatalities. Nearly 4,000 of 2013 traffic accidents within the state led to injuries. The same survey shows that 12 percent of fatal traffic accidents in 2013 had a motorcycle involved in them, while only 1.6 percent of those accidents involved a bus. The majority of these fatal crashes occurred on rural roadways, with only 10 percent of them taking place on city streets.

Early on the morning of Wednesday, August 27, 2014 a school bus en route to East Duplin High School in the eastern part of North Carolina collided with an 18-wheeler logging truck, leaving three people—the two students who were on board at the time of the crash and the woman who was driving the bus—injured. One of the students and the bus driver are currently recovering from their injuries in Vidant Duplin Hospital, and their injuries are reported to have been relatively minor and non-life threatening. The driver of the logging truck did not sustain any injuries in the collision.

The logging truck was allegedly attempting to pass the school bus on the left while the school bus was simultaneously attempting to make a left turn, causing both vehicles to veer off the roadway and into a small ravine. The driver of the bus, Susan Chesnutt, who is said to have had nearly 18 years of bus-driving experience under her belt at the time of the crash, has been charged with a moving violation in the wake of the accident. The collision took place in Jones County, in an area of State Highway 41 West just across from the Duplin County Line, and state troopers have been called in to investigate the accident. Their preliminary findings indicate that the fault for the accident lay with the bus driver, Susan Chesnutt.

The school district is conducting its own investigation, and in the meantime another driver has taken over Chesnutt’s usual route while the investigation is being performed. School officials have stated that the bus was given the go-ahead to take its route over county lines before turning around and heading back into Duplin County to East Duplin High in order to complete its circuit. District officials have said that this route was determined to be the safest way to get local students from their pickup locations to their destination when the bus routes and schedules were being planned before the beginning of the school year. They have also said that they have taken measures to ensure that their drivers are properly trained in safety protocol. There has been no word yet as to what, if any, disciplinary action the district will take against Chesnutt.

There is no word at this time as to whether charges will be filed by anyone involved in the crash.