Dallas Bus Accident Attorney

Attorney Michael Grossman Discusses Why Bus Accidents Are So Disastrous and Challenging to Litigate

With an increasing emphasis on the use of mass transit being stressed for the Dallas area and its surrounding cities, there are more city buses on the roads of North Texas than ever. DART is expanding, there are more schools growing in the suburbs, and the economy is putting pressure on more organizations to provide charter buses rather than individual transport for church groups, corporate outings, and private adventures.

That all adds up to more buses on the roads, and more opportunities for you to be a passenger on a bus when it may crash or be struck by another vehicle. However, bus accidents can result in severe personal injury and assigning liability can be maddeningly complicated. In 2002, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, more than 19,000 people were injured in bus accidents. That’s why you’ll need someone like Dallas bus accident attorney Michael Grossman if you’ve suffered an injury or have lost a loved one due to a bus accident in DFW.

With that increase in complexity also comes the increased likelihood you could be injured either as a passenger on the bus or as a driver who gets hit by a bus. That’s one of the many areas in which it can get tricky in seeking compensation for injuries. Buses run by city entities, such as a DART bus or a school bus, that are involved in injury bus accidents can quickly become massively complicated due to the immunities and latitude given to government agencies when they are involved in lawsuits. When privately held buses chartered by private organizations are involved in an injury bus wreck in the Metroplex, there comes into play the challenge of making a case against a powerful insurance company determined to fight your claim. Commercial buses are leased by churches, clubs, extra-curricular school groups, and other groups when they need to travel long distances. These buses may be in poor mechanical condition, particularly in terms of tire problems. Over the past 20 years of practice, the bus accident attorneys at Grossman Law Offices have seen this time and again in the cases we’ve successfully litigated for injured clients.

Are Passenger Buses Safe?

Although these massive machines have a curb weight of approximately 30,000 pounds or more, their size does not necessarily translate into occupant safety. When two vehicles collide, the more massive vehicle generally wins and such accidents tend to favor buses, but in accidents where buses roll over or strike a solid object, their mass works against them in that the passenger compartment is generally structurally inadequate to maintain its integrity under the bus’ own weight. This is owed largely to the fact that buses typically use a body-on-frame configuration.

Modern passenger cars almost universally use uni-body construction, whereby there is no distinction between a car's frame and body, as uni-body construction essentially results in a one-piece car structure that is made from numerous stamped steel pieces which are welded together. The result is a structure whose mass-to-rigidity is quite favorable. This advancement has made most production cars remarkably safe. On the contrary, buses generally use a ladder frame which itself is quite massive and reasonably durable, with a simple body mounted on the ladder frame chassis. The body is generally quite flimsy and will often crush under the weight of the bus.

Then there are issues with proximate cause and third party liability issues, because there may be others besides the bus driver or the bus owner that are liable for your injury.

The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter if you’re a passenger on the bus or a driver who is hit by a bus. It doesn’t matter if it’s a city bus, a school bus, a privately chartered bus, or a commercial bus – you will need to discover compelling evidence, create an effective strategy, and make a case for recovering your damages. The compounding nature of most bus accidents is just that the sheer size and speed of the vehicle along with the number of occupants can mean complex and serious injuries, such as spinal cord damage, whiplash or even loss of life.

If you have suffered injury or have lost a loved one due to a city bus accident, consider contacting our Dallas bus accident attorneys at 1-855-326-0000, toll-free. As noted, bus accidents are complicated and require the specialized work of bus accident attorneys to attain maximum recovery for you and your loved ones.

Seeking Legal Action Against a Bus Company

It is not uncommon for bus accidents to result in incredible personal injuries, medical expenses, or death. There are a wide number of elements and factors that can cause a bus accident and they are often not the fault of the personal injury victim. These causative factors can include negligent driving, an unsafe or poorly managed bus environment, damaged streets and road hazards, improper or careless maintenance of the bus itself, broken bus components (seats, windows, stairs), over-driving in inclement weather, or poorly mapped routes.

Regardless of whether you were injured as a passenger, a charter bus operator, an innocent pedestrian, or the third-party operator of a separate vehicle that was involved in a bus accident, you may be entitled to recovery for your personal injury. It may be critical for you to contact Grossman law Offices, as we have represented many plaintiffs involved in bus accidents throughout Texas. Action can be brought against either public or private companies that were responsible for the bus accident and our attorneys have 20 years experience in handling bus accidents. These operators owe you a legal duty for public safety. When a bus driver causes an injury accident or a fatal bus wreck, that legal duty has been violated, giving the injured victim or a bereaved family member cause to seek legal action in order to recover their incurred financial losses. While the issues involving public bus operators can be complex, bus accidents bear many similarities regardless of the company that may be at fault. Consequently, your injuries will be actionable in court, so long as you incurred damages, no matter if it is a public or private entity that caused you harm.

There are many important differences between public and private bus entities. Bus entities run by public organizations can often be shielded from some forms of legal action due to laws that grant a governmental entity basic immunity from private lawsuits. However, that doesn’t necessarily rule out your claim. You can still make a claim against the public entities who injured you if the circumstances are right, but assessing such liability often requires the thorough work of an independent investigation.

Bus accidents can wreak terrible damage. They will often result in horrible injuries for passengers as well as nearby pedestrians and riders in other vehicles. The kinds of injuries range from simple to devastating, from brain and spinal cord injuries to sprains, bone fractures, external abrasions, internal and soft tissue injuries, horrifying burn injuries and even death. The victims of these kinds of bus accidents, as well as their surviving families, often may face enormous medical bills. Some victims may suffer a disability that will prevent them from being able to return to work. The Dallas bus accident lawyers at Grossman Law Offices will do everything possible to ensure that our clients have access to the resources they need to rebuild their health and their lives.

What Causes Bus Accidents?

Buses are unwieldy, large and heavy. They can be difficult to drive even under the best conditions. When you have an inexperienced or poorly trained driver behind the wheel, as we have sometimes seen, it can be a recipe for disaster. Even experienced drivers can get overly tired or distracted and can cause bus accidents. Unfortunately, we have also seen driver intoxication or drug use as a causative factor in Dallas bus accidents.

The maintenance and the overall condition of the bus can be a factor in many accidents. Braking systems on a bus must be well-maintained because buses are so massive and generate such great momentum when they are in motion. Maintenance means downtime and taking the bus off the road. However, a bus company can only make money when their buses are on the road. Sometimes, bus companies skip maintenance and opt to let an issue slide until the issue results in a severe bus wreck.

Poor road conditions, poorly planned bus routes, overloaded buses in terms of people or cargo, and even the absence of safety equipment on board the bus can cause, or at least contribute to, bus accident injuries. You can be assured that our bus accident attorneys will thoroughly investigate the scene of the incident and the bus itself to ensure that all responsible parties are held to account for a bus accident that injures you.

Identifying the right liable parties for your injuries is not always a simple proposition in your typical bus accident litigation. This is because so many individuals play a role. Sometimes bus drivers are merely careless, reckless or incompetent. They may speed, roll through stop signs, ignore traffic warnings, ignore traffic conditions, or make illegal turns. We will help identify all the parties and bring them to trial if necessary.

While public bus accidents are more challenging, liability for bus accidents is usually easier to establish when the bus is privately owned. States consider the owner or owners of a bus to be "common carriers” when the company is private. Under the law, common carriers have what we call a higher level of responsibility when on the road. They must take the utmost care in operation and protect their own passengers and the other vehicles sharing the road. Legally speaking, it is often straightforward to establish that there is liability on the part of the common carrier. This same liability is harder to establish in cases where the bus that injured you is owned or operated by a government authority. Governmental immunity makes it harder even when it’s clear the bus operator or driver was at fault. This is why it is important to have an experienced bus accident like Dallas bus accident attorney Michael Grossman on your side to protect your rights.

Investigation and Evidence

You need to have someone examine the evidence in your bus accident to see if you have a case. Conducting an investigation after the accident serves two important purposes. An investigation will allow you to determine who caused your accident and if there are more than one party. Initial evidence or news reports seldom show who was at fault for causing a bus accident. Many individuals on the road at the time of your accident, including other passenger car drivers and pedestrians, may have played a role in causing the crash and they, too, may be partially liable. In other cases that we’ve seen, the mistake which ultimately leads to an accident occurs behind the scenes, such as how the bus may have been serviced or maintained. There’s no sure way to know who should be named as a defendant in your lawsuit prior to conducting a thorough investigation into the DFW bus accident. A professional investigation allows accident victims to gather the evidence that they need to prove the defendant’s liability in court. That’s how court cases often work best for the plaintiff.

Grossman Law Offices will pull together photographs, 911 call recordings, gather physical evidence, examine the driver’s employment and drug test results, and otherwise evaluate and categorize all the evidence to make your case. Evidence isn’t a luxury or a bonus, it’s what you’ll need to bring to court if you want to win you case and get compensated for your losses. We look for the evidence you’ll need to win your case or to make the other party offer you a settlement commensurate with your losses and damages. We have experience in getting what is needed to convince a jury. There is no out of pocket charge to our clients for this – we’re in this to represent their best interest.

Defense attorneys will often be just as experienced, especially as the amount of damages incurred by a plaintiff increases. What’s more, most defense attorneys are dispatched to the scene of an accident mere moments after a wreck occurs, so they have a chance to see the evidence before time has hidden key elements or a clean up has erased evidence you may need. It’s likely that the defense attorneys involved in your case have already conducted their investigations. Defense attorneys know that the best evidence is usually only available when the accident scene is still active and hasn’t been cleaned up. They know it will take you time to decide to hire someone like Dallas bus accident attorney Michael Grossman who knows how to find what they don’t want you to find. The longer you delay, the more it can hurt your case.

Make Your Case – The Four Elements

You have to prove four basic legal elements to make your case before a: duty, breach, causation, and damages. In court, duty of care is what is known as the reasonable "duty of care" to protect others from certain basic types of harm. That is, a duty to not expose others to certain types of harm inherent in the actions you’re taking. Examples of a "duty of care" in your bus accident injury case would be the duty of the bus driver to obey traffic laws, drive the speed limit, follow basic rules for operating a bus, and to not drive while distracted, under the influence, or fatigued.

The next element, the breach of duty of care, is when a defendant does not abide by a reasonable standard of behavior that would cause others harm. For example, a breach of duty occurs whenever a bus driver’s negligent behavior results in injury or loss of life. Such negligence can happen in a number of ways, from distracted driving to drowsy driving to drunk driving. When a liable party’s reckless behavior causes harm to another person, it can be said that they’ve breached the duty of care they owed to the injured person.

Now you’ll need to prove the element of causation. Proving causation means proving that the defendant’s negligence was the cause of your injuries. If you don’t have enough evidence to prove that it was the defendant you’ve named in your case who caused your accident, you won’t win your lawsuit against a Dallas bus company.

At the end, you have to prove damages, which means the money that the defendant will pay you if you prove your case before the jury and judge and the judgment is in your favor. It isn’t enough to simply ask for reimbursement; you’ll need to prove what damages you’re entitled to. This involves the careful and deliberate action of calculating the total amount of your losses and putting a reasonable price tag on them. It means bringing evidence of your injuries to court to support your calculations. The defendant will assert that your demand is an inflated sum and essentially amounts to a request for a handout. You will need evidence and a compelling argument to support your demands for damages. Figuring out how to put a dollar amount on your damages is usually no simple task for non-attorneys and it can be difficult for even inexperienced lawyers.

You may be entitled to collect damages for injuries such as pain and suffering, medical bills, loss of earning capacity, various repair bills, lost wages, and other losses you may have suffered as a result of your accident – but you won’t if you don’t have the evidence and the reasons for these losses being recoverable laid out in a compelling argument.

Out-of-Court Settlements vs. The Trial Process

Sometimes you have to take your lawsuit against a liable Dallas bus company all the way to court and win before a jury. Sometimes, though, you can elicit a fair offer of a settlement with the help of a capable bus accident lawyer. In a normal settlement, the insurance company agrees to pay you an amount of money up front, even though no judge or jury has compelled the insurance company or bus company to do so. They do it because they’re afraid it will be more costly to go to court. Often, in return, you give up your legal right to sue the insurance company for more money. Since you’ll be relinquishing your legal rights if you accept a settlement, it’s very important that you don’t accept any offer that’s less than fair compensation for your injuries.

Less than scrupulous insurers might offer you a quick and dirty settlement worth less than your injuries and damages are worth, hoping that since plaintiffs often face harsh financial losses as a result of a bus crash. They reason that you could benefit from extra income, even when it’s not a fair amount, to make up for medical bills, repair bills, and lost wages – that you’ll take it. An insurance company will often offer you a quick sum up front that’s way less than what you’re likely entitled to. They will sometimes ask you to accept what seems like a generous check and to sign some documents so that you can receive quick compensation. More often than not, such an unmediated settlement is not in the victim’s best interests to accept. Do not consider any settlement until you’ve spoken to an experienced attorney who will know the true valuation of your possible case. Never accept any payment or sign any statement from an insurance company without a knowledgeable attorney assisting you in looking over such paperwork. It's never a good idea to be even discussing the details of your case without a lawyer protecting your interests.

Call the office of Dallas bus accident attorney Michael Grossman as soon you can after your Dallas bus accident. It may be critical in protecting your rights. Our team of litigators is standing by. Call us at 1-855-326-0000 (toll-free) for a free consultation.