Bus Accident Lawyer

At least 33 people have been confirmed dead after a bus crash in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The accident occurred when two buses crashed into one another, colliding head-on in what is being called the worst traffic accident in the country in almost two years. The accident left one bus a burnt-out shell and the other one lying on its side in the middle of the roadway. There are conflicting reports at this time as to whether the buses were transit lines or tourist lines.

The lethal crash also left many injuries in its wake, with 41 people reporting being hurt during the accident, some of them in critical condition with severe head injuries, while others sustained relatively minor, non-life threatening injuries. Among the injured were vacationers from Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine. Those with injuries were rushed by ambulance to area hospitals, and 22 people are said to still be recovering from their wounds at nearby Sharm el-Sheikh International Hospital, four of whom are being treated in intensive care.

The identities of at least 19 of those who were killed in the crash have yet to be determined, with only 14 of the deceased having been identified thus far. Two of the 19 unidentified bodies appear to be those of small children. All of those who were killed in the crash and later identified by family members were Egyptian nationals.

Although the cause of the crash has yet to be determined and no one can yet say who was at fault for the accident, Egyptian officials have made a statement indicating that they do not suspect foul play at this time, and that further investigation will be needed before more details can be released.

Egypt is a country noted for its road dangers and frequent, devastating traffic accidents. In 2013, more than 50,000 traffic accidents are reported to have taken place on its roadways, with roughly 13,000 deaths resulting from those accidents. Both the number of accidents and the number of deaths that result from those accidents continue to climb in Egypt from year to year. Egyptian officials have yet to state whether they intend to take any measures to ensure better traffic safety in the future.

A school bus carrying several passengers home from school was reportedly run off the road on U.S. Highway 80 in Hinds County, a region in western Mississippi on Wednesday, August 13, 2014. The accident led to several instances of minor injury as well as a critical injury to one of the people inside of the bus at the time of the crash. Of the nine passengers aboard the bus, seven were injured, including the driver and six of his young passengers. Only two individuals—both students—managed to escape the accident seemingly unscathed.

Mississippi Highway Patrol officers are still investigating the cause of the crash, but were able to determine that the bus may have been run off the road by a white-or-grey-colored van which was allegedly en route to nearby Bolton Mississippi when it crossed the center division line in the road, causing it to nearly collide with the bus full of children. The bus then swerved off road and into a ravine, where it struck a tree and came to a stop. No one in the van has reported any injuries at this time, and no other vehicles were involved in the crash.

Both the driver of the bus and several children were transported via ambulance to local hospitals near the site of the accident, and as of this writing all children are reported to have been released to their parents’ care at home. One critical injury was also reported, and although the name of the party with life-threatening injuries has not been released, it is possible that the injured party who is still fighting for his or her life is indeed the driver of the school bus. This individual is currently being treated at University of Mississippi Medical Center.

The investigating Mississippi Highway Patrol officers have stated that although the van failed to make direct physical contact with the bus, because the van swerved out of its own lane and into the oncoming lane that the bus was traveling in, the accident is to be treated as a hit-and-run crash. The driver of the light-colored van in question is still being sought for questioning by authorities at this time.

A 55-person tour bus that was filled nearly to capacity has crashed in Tibet, striking two other vehicles as it took a nosedive off of a cliff, landing on its roof in the valley below. Xinhua (China’s main news agency) has reported a death toll of 44, with 11 others injured in the accident. All injured parties are said to be in a hospital in Lhasa at this time, with no critical injuries sustained.

The accident occurred late in the afternoon of August 9, 2014 in a rural area in Nyemo County. Nyemo County is located some 100 kilometers west of the nation’s capital of Lhasa, within the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). The TAR is a portion of the country which is under the rule of the Chinese government.

The upper management of the tour bus company and travel agency responsible for the bus in question’s maintenance and operation have been taken into custody by Chinese police for questioning. It has also been reported that an emergency governmental meeting was held immediately after the crash, in order to address the issue of transportation safety in the region and answer the question of how to keep fatal crashes such as this one from happening again in the future.

Most of the bus passengers were tourists hailing from eastern China. In recent years, China has sought to boost its economy by encouraging tourism, both within the country itself and in areas under its jurisdiction such as the TAR. It is hoped that tourism within Tibet would help the country to grow economically, thus putting an end to local opposition to the Chinese government that is currently in place in the region.

Although China’s ministry of transport reports a distinctive drop in fatal auto accidents between 2003 and 2012—with numbers of fatalities nearly cut in half—there are conflicting reports from independent researchers showing that such road accidents are as big a problem as ever within China, and may have even increased over the past 10 years.

Auto accidents, and bus accidents in particular, are a growing problem within China and surrounding areas. Tour buses such as this one are often crowded beyond capacity, and long-distance drives can take their toll on bus operators, leading to fatigue and exhaustion which can yield deadly consequences when traveling on the winding, rural roadways that typify much of China’s topography.

Donna, Texas was the scene of a fiery crash when a Valley Metro Bus rear-ended a pickup truck on Expressway 83, killing the truck’s passenger and causing a multi-vehicle accident.

The accident sent three people who were onboard the bus to the hospital and had emergency crews scrambling to contain the situation on Salinas Boulevard on Wednesday afternoon.

According to witnesses, the pickup truck had been eastbound on the highway when it had slowed down to maneuver around another accident. The bus approached the pickup from behind but never slowed down. It rammed into the truck, causing it to burst into flames. Though the pickup truck’s driver was able to be pulled from his vehicle, the passenger that was riding with him was not able to be extracted and perished inside.

The bus was not carrying any passengers at the time of the accident, but it is normally used as a shuttle between the McAllen and Weslaco campuses of South Texas College, which contracts with Valley Metro for that service.  The bus was carrying the driver and three other people who have not been identified. They were taken to a local hospital and released shortly afterward.

The Donna, Texas police are investigating the accident and have not yet been able to arrive at an explanation for what happened. A blood sample was taken from the driver, whose name was not released. He suffered minor injuries in the incident.  According to Tom Logan, a Valley Metro spokesman, the bus had been on its way to Weslaco as part of its route when the crash occurred. After striking the pickup truck, the bus continued and crashed into a sign outside of a pool and patio store. It did cause damage to the sign, as well as some merchandise that was being displayed outside.

Abe Robledo was a witness to the accident as he drove eastbound on the expressway. “I noticed the truck slow down because of the accident in front of him and then I saw the bus slam right into the back of it. The bus just kept going like it didn’t have brakes.” Robledo and other witnesses quickly ran to the pickup truck to try to help. “It was chaos. I saw at least two other guys get out of their cars and run towards the truck as other cars on the road were still driving past us.”

A 70-year old woman from Ephrata Township in Pennsylvania was killed in a bus crash last week. The accident took place on a tour of Canada that the woman was taking with her husband. Joyce Bowers was a former food service worker in the Ephrata Area School District. She had worked there for 27 years before retiring. She and her husband Dave would have been married for 52 years this coming December.

The Bowers were traveling with 19 other people on board an Executive Coach bus, travelling on a ten-day tour that took them from their local area in Pennsylvania north to the state of Maine, then up to Canada for a tour of Saint John, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. The group was touring Cape Breton on the day of the accident, which is still under investigation.

According to 51-year old Tracey Smay, a resident of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania who was on the trip with her mother, “It went from being really enjoyable to just chaos. Those of us who were sitting behind the driver were catapulted to the other side.” Smay explained that the bus had run off of the road and then rolled onto its side. She went on to praise rescue workers, who arrived and began helping within a matter of minutes.  All of the people riding the bus, most of whom were from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, were taken to four local hospitals. Six of them required overnight stays, with two in serious but stable condition.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were investigating to determine what might have caused the accident. According to Police Corporal Scott MacRae, the bus had already been subjected to a mechanical inspection and the weather did not appear to have been a factor. He also indicated that the stretch of road where the accident occurred was completely straight.

67-year old Stanley Szalak, for whom this trip was his third with Westlake Tours, is anxious to hear what the results of the investigation are. He points out that it was the owner of Westlake Tours who was behind the wheel of the Executive Coach tour bus when the accident occurred. Dale McMichael, the vice president of Executive Coach, says this is the first accident that the firm has ever had that involved a fatality. “I talked to a few passengers but none of them had an explanation for what could have caused the accident,” he said. “The process is going forward to get people the help they need regardless of whether we know the cause.”

A church bus that malfunctioned and was unable to stop at a traffic light crashed into several vehicles, resulting in the death of the passenger of one of those cars and multiple injuries.  The accident occurred in the early evening in Knoxville, Tennessee.

A bus belonging to the Berea Christian Church of Brazil Indiana at just left Lost Sheep ministries, where students from the church had been handing out food to those in need. Moments after leaving the charitable organization, the bus left to drive to East Tennessee for a conference at Johnson University.  The bus malfunctioned at the intersection of North Broadway and Oglewood Avenue and was unable to stop at a red light. It drove into a Kia Rio on Broadway and a Chevy pickup truck before finally coming to a stop in the parking lot of a CVS drug store. The driver of the Kia was killed and the driver and passenger of the Chevy pickup truck were injured and sent to the hospital. Another pickup truck was also involved in the accident but only received minor damage, and fie people who had been onboard the bus were also taken to the hospital. The bus driver, James Williams was taken for mandatory blood tests.

Police on the scene indicated that the Knoxville woman who had been driving the Kia died because she was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident. Police stated that the driver had latched her seat belt in order to disarm the “seat belt reminder alarm” and was sitting on the buckled belt, leaving herself completely unrestrained. According to Darrell DeBusk of the Knoxville Police Department, the damage to the car was largely on the passenger side of her vehicle and she likely would have avoided any injuries had she been properly belted. Similarly, the passenger of the Chevy pickup was also not wearing a belt and remained hospitalized, while the driver of the truck – who was belted in – was released.

The Knoxville Police Department will be conducting an investigation and submitting its results to the district attorney’s office in order to determine whether any charges should be filed. “Whether it was an accident or not we will forward it to the DA’s office for their review. They will take the investigative file and review it and determine if there will be any charges filed at this time,” said Debusk.

A 15-year old employee of Tubby Tubes rafting company was killed in a bus accident that occurred earlier this month. Hunter Scofield was traveling on the bus, standing in the vehicle’s aisle as it transported passengers for tubing trips on Lake Luzerne, when the vehicle suddenly tumbled onto its side. According to passengers on the bus, the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed when the accident took place.  Gerard Hirschfield was traveling with his sister Amelia, and said of the driver, “He was going really fast down this road, and he went to go take a sharp turn, and I’m not sure if the brakes cut or anything like that, but the bus turned very sharply and flipped on its side.” His sister added, “We tried to make the turn I guess, and he couldn’t do it, and we slid and we fell and we hit this one tree, this one tiny tree held us from going down the cliff and the water was right there.” Six passengers, including Gerard, sustained injuries – he suffered a sprained arm. Gerard went on to say, “I blinked my eyes and I was just laying down on the floor. I was like standing up, I saw the whole bus sideways.”

In the course of the accident- 15-year old Scofield was thrown through the bus’ open doorway, and was killed.  According to fire crews who responded to the scene, most of the bus passengers were in shock. Though the bus driver indicated that the brakes of the vehicle had failed, an investigation revealed that there were no mechanical problems found with the 25-year old retired school bus. The investigation is continuing. The driver of the bus was 77-year old Daniel Shippey, who has not been charged.

Because the tubing buses do not charge their passengers for their rides to and from the rafting location, they do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation; instead they fall under state motor vehicle laws.  These laws require only annual inspections, where the Department of Transportation’s rules require inspections a minimum of two times per year. Still, there was no known maintenance problem with the bus.

Shenandoah, a popular country band that came to fame in the 1980s and 1990s with such hits as “Next to You, Next to Me,” and “The Church on Cumberland Road,” narrowly escaped serious injury in early June when the tour bus that they were traveling on was involved in a serious accident and fire in Beaumont Texas.

The band had just performed in Stafford, a town near Houston, and was driving east on Interstate 10 on their way back to Nashville when the incident occurred.  The bus was in the process of crossing the Naches River Bridge when a vehicle that they were riding behind rammed into the back of another vehicle that had passed them. The driver of the closest vehicle was apparently intoxicated, and the vehicle that was rammed had been carrying a fuel tank, which exploded upon impact. The tour bus drove directly through the fireball and then swerved to avoid the accident itself, nearly rolling the bus in the process.

According to Shenandoah drummer Mike McGuire, “The tank exploded and we drove thru a fireball as big as a house. It was dark and I was up in front of the bus so I saw it. A big bang where we were side-swiped and all the sudden we were engulfed in a huge fireball. Witnesses behind us told authorities that the flames totally engulfed our bus at one point and you could not see it. Our driver swerved to miss them as they were just in front of us and on fire. We almost rolled the bus over on it’s side swerving to miss and if we had’ve would’ve likely rolled off the bridge.”Nobody on board the tour bus was injured.

The tour bus driver pulled over on the other side of the bridge, fearing that the vehicle, which was badly damaged by the flames and having been side-swiped, might catch on fire. There they found a police car, and they quickly reported the accident. A man and woman who had been in the vehicle carrying the fuel tank were taken to the hospital and the intoxicated driver and his passengers, who were travelling in a pick-up truck, were uninjured. The driver of the pick-up will be charged for drunk driving and other violations.

The recent accident that seriously injured comedian Tracy Morgan has called renewed attention to the dangers of being a passenger onboard buses. Morgan was traveling in a Mercedes Sprinter bus at the time of his accident, which occurred at 1:00 in the morning on the New Jersey Turnpike following a comedy show that he had performed in the state of Delaware. In addition to injuring Morgan and several others on board, the accident killed comedian James McNair. Initial reports indicate that the vehicle was struck from behind by a tractor trailer and then overturned.

In many cases, the specific design of buses can lead to them turning over easily, and passengers frequently ride without benefit of seatbelts, making injuries more likely. Celebrities often travel in these vehicles because of the comfort and amenities that they offer while allowing others the responsibility for driving. There have been a number of celebrities and their associates who have ended up being seriously injured or even killed while driving in buses.

In September of 1986, the heavy metal band Metallica was traveling on a tour bus in Sweden when the driver lost control of the vehicle and it ran off of the road. Bassist Cliff Burton was thrown out of the bunk that he was sleeping in when the bus crashed, and was killed as a result of the incident. Burton was the only person who sustained serious injuries in that incident.

Renowned singer Gloria Estafan was traveling on a tour bus on a highway near Scranton, Pennsylvania in March of 1990 when, like Tracy Morgan, her bus was struck by a tractor trailer. The singer was seriously injured, suffering a fractured spine that required the implantation of two titanium rods in order to stabilize her vertebral column. At the time of the accident Estafan was traveling with her husband and son, but neither was injured.

On two separate occasions, tour buses associated with the singer Miley Cyrus have been in serious accidents. In one case in November of 2009 the bus carrying the singer’s crew ran off the road, killing the driver and injuring nine people on board, while in March of this year another bus carrying her mother and sister burst into flames. Neither was injured.

In November of 2013, a tour bus that was transporting country music legend Willie Nelson’s band crashed into the pillar of a bridge outside of Sulphur Springs, Texas. The singer was not on board at the time.

Horror struck the streets of New York City this week as an elderly woman was struck by a double-decker tour bus carrying tourists through the city. The incident took place in the West Village, and left the victim covered with blood as passengers onboard the popular tourist vehicle stunned and staring.

The 74-year old woman had been crossing from the east side to the west side of Seventh Avenue at approximately 5 p.m. when the incident occurred. She was taken by ambulance to Bellevue Hospital, where she was listed in serious condition.

Police on the scene at the time were unable to determine the cause of the accident or whether the woman may have been jaywalking, but witnesses to the incident thought that the problem was that the bus driver simply hadn’t seen the woman in the crosswalk, and based upon a statement later made to the police by the driver, that was the case – he simply had not seen the woman as she crossed. The police issued a citation for failure to yield. According to Richard Taylor of Jackson Heights, “I arrived here just as it was happening. This old woman was in the crosswalk on Seventh Avenue. The bus driver just didn’t see her. She got clipped by the front tires and went under the bus. Then she rolled under the back tires. She looked pretty bad. She was screaming. Her head was fractured. Her legs looked broken and ripped up. There’s blood puddling on the rear tire. The people at the top of the bus were freaking out and in shock. Everyone was calling 911. These people’s are going to remember this vacation for sure.”

A study conducted in the year 2005 found that buses have nearly a twelve times greater likelihood of striking and killing a child under the age of 14 than is the case for motorists driving passenger cars, and that number increases to over 16 times greater chance for killing adults over the age of 85.

The bus was operated by CitySights NY. The tour agency issued a statement expressing their concern, saying, “Our thoughts are with the injured woman and her family and we are cooperating fully with the NYPD. Safety is of paramount concern to CitySights and we have an exemplary record in

that regard.”