Florida Bus Accident Attorney

1. Call 911 and gather as much evidence of the 'crime scene' as possible.
2. File an official police report without accepting a percentage of the blame.
3. Visit your doctor (this should be your first priority depending on your injuries)
4. Record whatever you can recollect about the incident in a journal/diary.
5. Schedule a free consultation with a personal injury attorney in Florida.
   

Every time we board a school bus, shuttle, tour, city transit etc., we trust our lives on the driver of the vehicle. We are at the mercy of the driver and the safety laws that protect us.

Typically, the law doesn't require airbags or seat belts because travelling via a bus is considered safe. Unfortunately, when accidents occur, commuters are seriously injured and may involve more victims or multiple parties responsible for the incident. Accordingly, your next step will be to contact an attorney with enough experience to help you with your claim.

Bus accident claims are, more often than not, likely to be complex and therefore you need an experienced attorney to help maximize your recovery. Our lawyers do not charge their clients any upfront fee and instead only charge a fixed percentage of the recovery. So if we are unable to help you, we don't get anything.

If you happen to get involved in a bus accident, the first thing you should do is call 911 to seek medical attention. Next, you need to report the incident to law enforcement. This report will document all the important details of the bus accident.

In Florida, for example, accident victims are required to seek medical attention within the first two weeks of the accident; otherwise, their claims could be denied.

If you think it is easily possible, try to get contact information (email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, etc.) from the driver, other passengers or anyone else who may have been involved in the accident.

Alternatively, you can also try to capture as much as possible around the collision area. For example, you could include images of skid marks, traffic signs, stop lights or anything else you consider evidence.

You can also try to get statements or any other evidence from all the victims and eyewitnesses. You must keep all the damages related to the accident safe and organized. Document all the resultant bills, receipts and records that can act as proof of the financial damages incurred after the crash.

This evidence includes repairs for your vehicle, gas bills for driving to and from your medical facility for physical therapy sessions or your doctor. Your attorney will need each record of extra costs incurred after the crash to aid the investigation of your accident claim.

Of course, in case of physical injury, depending on severity, daily life can become an issue. Oftentimes, some victim's mobility is impaired permanently, whereas others will support to get back on their feet.

The expenses that are associated with live-in care assistance, special needs, rehabilitation needs and other extensive medical practices should also be compensable.

Some of the people who have been through a traumatic experience of a bus accident may require psychiatric treatment to erase their mental picture of all that they saw. These therapeutic sessions usually require multiple appointments. However, the prescription of medication only works in conjunction with multiple psychoanalysis sessions that ensure that their psychological issues have been alleviated.

In either case, extensive periods of time might be required to resolve the psychological issues completely. For this reason, the expenses related to mental anguish and distress may also be compensable.

After all the relevant documentation is secured, police officials have secured their statements from witnesses and injuries have been temporarily tended to, you must get the right to consult with a bus accident lawyer.

You should seek experienced lawyers for consultation sessions about compensation and litigation. Compensation could potentially cover suffering, pain, disfigurement, future lost income, present lost income, disability and medical expenses.

School buses are also considered to be among the safest modes of transportation. So much so that at least 500,000 buses are dispatched annually to transport children locally. In the last five years, only 20 fatalities were reported per year, and most of these injured children were attributed to:

• The driver falling asleep behind the wheel
• Children getting on or off the bus
• Dangerous driving conditions
• Improper maintenance
• Driver's negligence or distractions (texting, speeding, etc.)
  

Personal injury cases usually tend to be lengthy, which is why it is especially necessary to find the right bus accident lawyer. These lawyers should be experienced enough to provide exceptional personal service while also having a strategy for handling tough accident cases.

We make it a habit to hand-pick each of our cases to contribute our vast resources for your case in detail. We offer equal parts of integrity and tenacity, and this is what sets us apart from our competitors, and we take great pride in this fact.

Long-distance bus commutes are generally very comfortable and safe. Still, they could lead to injuries if the manufacturer or the company responsible doesn't manufacture protective measures or proper maintenance to safeguard passengers.

Depending on each scenario, passengers could experience injuries that might be severe enough to warrant compensation. Other commuters may also face circumstances where they wouldn't be alive to tell the tale. In such situations, the victim's family will be responsible for determining who is to blame and how much compensation will be required for the family to become whole again.

How much compensation is due for the family usually depends on the company's degree of negligence or the driver leading up to the incident. If the driver of another vehicle was responsible for the problem, this liability could be shifted on to them.

To present a case and to help gather evidence, the injured party or their family will need to hire a competent bus accident lawyer who is motivated to fight for your rights to win you the best compensation possible.

Among the top causes of the most serious bus accidents in Florida (and in different parts of the country) is company negligence. Each transportation authority or bus company has rules for hiring drivers, and most of them seem to be ignoring these rules.

The motor-coach industry transports close to 700,000 passengers annually while the Airline industry caters to about the same number of passengers. Of course, bus inspection and record-keeping protocols are nearly not as strict for motor-coaches as they are for airlines.

In other words, bus operator companies don't adhere to federal regulations and hence lack driver training or scheduled maintenance. In a nutshell, these bus operator companies completely ignore public safety guidelines for a bigger bottom line.

Additionally, older motor coaches that have faulty, if not missing, seat belts and other safety equipment, tend to increase the risk of death or injuries after a bus accident. Bus accidents could also be the result of defective parts not inspected due to lack of bus maintenance and hence were not replaced by the company.

Since negligent companies hire drivers improperly and continue to provide inadequate training to their employees, this counts as our second major reason for bus accidents. Some laws exist in each state that helps maintain bus speeds, passing and turning.

Alternatively, drivers can also be termed negligent when they were busy talking over the phone or were texting while driving. In some cases, the driver may be tired or fatigued, which in turn drastically increases the chances of an accident.

Finally, a bus driver's medications or medical conditions can also impair their ability to drive alertly, often becoming the major contributor to an accident.

Accidents are also caused by poor road conditions or inclement weather. Unsuitable speed and bad weather combine with the bus's weight to contribute to the inability of a bus to maneuver and avoid collisions quickly.

A bus crash could also be caused due to the negligence of another driver on the road. Since there are many vehicles on the road and possibly because of the bus driver's distracted driving, another vehicle could fail to observe traffic regulations. Again, as a result of this, we could witness a serious bus wreck.

Fatigue caused due to sleep apnea or the various other forms of bus driver fatigue are among the top highway killers in the United States because they greatly increase the risk of bus accidents. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention officially classified the lack of sleep as a public health crisis.

You see, the link between car accidents and sleep apnea is very clear. Since one of the main symptoms of sleep apnea is daytime drowsiness, it is logical that the individual's driving will be affected.

A 2015 study found that drivers with untreated sleep apnea were 2.5 times more likely to cause highway accidents as opposed to drivers without this condition. Both the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society have published papers that label sleep apnea as the health condition that causes drivers to experience fatigue.