Were You Injured In A Bus Accident?

Buses. They’re large and heavy and New York City residents depend on them. Social commentators suggest that buses may be an answer to New York City’s transportation woes. They are cheaper to operate than subways, and they don’t need construction of a tunnel or special train track laid down.

Because buses are big and lumbering and sometimes crowded, they are prone to accidents. Buses offer limited visibility to their drivers, are hard to steer, slow to accelerate, and difficult to turn. Therefore, bus accidents can injure the residents of Brooklyn, Queens and Bronx who depend on those buses to get from here to there.

Because buses offer their drivers a limited field of vision, bus versus pedestrian accidents are not uncommon. A Queens woman was killed in a pedestrian-knockdown bus accident while crossing the street. A 92 year-old woman was struck and injured by a bus in Chinatown; she lost both legs (both legs amputated).

As a bus passenger, you can suffer a bus accident injury from the negligence of your own bus driver, or the carelessness of the operator of another car, truck or bus, or by some combination of both. Personal injury from a bus accident may also be caused by the mechanical condition of the bus or the condition of the roadway and, again, some combination of those factors with buds driver negligence.

Most buses do not have seat belts to protect passengers from being bounced around the inside of the bus in case of a bus crash accident. By law, the driver’s seat must have seat, lap and/or shoulder belts, but government regulation don’t require passenger protection by way of seat belts. So buses owners don’t spend the money to purchase buses equipped with seat belts, even though seat belt restraints would prevent personal injury and lessen the severity of the injuries from bus crash accidents, and save lives and prevent wrongful deaths.

Three kinds of buses concern us here – municipal buses, school buses and tour buses.

Tour buses for tourists and commuter buses such as Greyhound buses can present particular problems because passengers tend to be from areas outside of New York City. Police reports and obtaining witness information are especially important. Accident scene photographs can be an especial help, as we as obtaining medical care locally, and not waiting until you travel home to see a doctor for the first time.

Tourist buses are especially popular in Manhattan.  Companies such as CitySights and Gray Line operate double decker buses and take tourists around to various New York City attractions. With an easy on-easy off policy, out-of-town visitors find it easy to take in the sights.  However, there are no seatbelts, the drivers are subject to distractions from the passengers, and the passengers tend to move around the bus while it’s in operation to see a landmark on one side of the bus or the other.  Tour guides, sometimes talking to passengers in a foreign language, add to the confusion. In the event of a bus accident, a passenger’s body can act as a projectile, injuring the unsecured passenger, or driving that passenger into another occupant of the bus.

These tour buses know that if they’re involved in a bus accident, it’s likely the injured passenger will be going home to another country, their native country.  It’s likely that medical care and treatment for injuries will be administered in that foreign country.  Quite possibly medical records will be in a foreign language.  And it’s highly unlikely that a foreign doctor would travel to Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens or Bronx to testify at a personal injury trial because of the time and expenses this would entail.  Unless you hire a very experienced personal injury attorney, the tour bus company is unlikely to offer a fair settlement.

Not to be confused with local tour buses are buses that range between cities and states, the best example being Greyhound Lines, Inc., which is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.  Greyhound stops at thousands of bus stops and depots, across the USA. An out-of-state Greyhound bus accident may involve New York residents. But the problem exists: “How do New York residents proceed with a personal injury claim for a Greyhound bus accident in another part of the country?” Can a New York personal injury attorney help a resident of Brooklyn, Bronx or Queens that was injured when a Greyhound bus rolled over in California? Or Utah?

Sometimes the case can be handled here in New York City.  Sometimes a New York lawyer may believe that it is in the client’s best interests to affiliate with a lawyer or law firm in another state.  These are difficult questions with no single easy answer for the bus accident victim. Suffice it to say that, again, there is no substitute for the guiding hand of an experienced New York personal injury attorney. 

Municipal buses

Causes of Bus Accidents:

• Defective or improperly maintained brakes;


• Worn tires;


• Bus driver distraction or inattention;


• Driving while drunk or impaired by use of drugs;


• Poor roadway and/or adverse weather conditions;


• Collision with another bus or motor vehicle;


• Striking a pedestrian;


• Slip and fall incidents due to slippery areas on the bus floor;


• Dangerous or defective conditions involving the bus stairs;


• Injuries caused by sudden stops or starts of the bus;


• Discharge of passenger onto an unsafe or broken pavement, roadway or sidewalk;  


• Faulty emergency exits;


• Malfunctioning bus doors;


• Overworked drivers falling asleep at the wheel.

Determining who is responsible for your bus accident injury is dependent on the facts of circumstances of your particular accident.  A thorough and early investigation by an experienced bus accident attorney or lawyer is the key to successfully identifying the responsible parties in a bus injury case.  For a more detailed discussion about negligent behavior leading to bus accidents, see my blog post: Causes of Car, Truck, Bus and Motorcycle Accidents.

See my blog post to read about a Queens bus accident case where two friends smacked their car head-on into a bus, killing both men.

Too many times, clients have come to me and say they’ve been hurt in a bus accident, but the driver was unaware of the accident and they didn’t report the bus accident to the driver, but just got off the bus.  Also, they don’t know any of the other bus passengers, so they can’t identify any witnesses to the accident.

If you’re hurt on a bus, there are several things you should do:

• Report the accident to the driver. In some cases, like a short stop bus accident case, the driver may not realize you’re injured;


• Write down the driver’s badge number;


• Write down the bus number;


• Wait for police and ambulance;


• Wait for bus driver’s supervisor;


• Write down license plate number of bus;


• Write down information about any other vehicle(s) involved;


• Get the names, telephone numbers and addresses of witnesses, especially if you’re not riding the bus with a friend, family member or someone you know.

In a New York City bus accident – a Queens bus accident, Bronx bus accident or Brooklyn bus accident – local governments may own the bus and employ the bus driver, so that it bears responsibility for your bus crash injuries. Remember, also, that your New York bus driver has a legal obligation to discharge passengers in a safe place.  This means that if you’re let off a municipal bus where the pavement is broken up, or there’s a pothole, or perhaps a large snowdrift, the bus company may be held legally responsible if you fall and suffer an injury.

Brooklyn buses and Queens buses are operated by the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) and the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA).  Bronx buses are operated by the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority (MABSTOA).  If you are hurt in or by a NYCTA or MABSTOA bus, you must file a “notice of claim” with the agency that owns and operates the bus within 90 days.  Also, you have a shortened time period (called “statute of limitations”) to sue for your injuries.

Also, you may be entitled to New York State No-Fault insurance benefits if you were a bus passenger, or pedestrian or bicycle rider hurt by a bus.  There is a short, 30 day deadline to apply for No-Fault insurance benefits.  For more information, I recommend that you download my FREE special report on No-Fault insurance.

So if you want to recover for a bus crash or bus accident, you should hire a knowledgeable personal injury accident lawyer as soon as possible.  You may be entitled to have your medical and hospital expenses paid, receive lost wage money, physical therapy and rehabilitation, and recover money damages for your pain and suffering.

Possible injuries from bus crash accidents, include:

• Spinal injuries, including herniated disc and
• fractured vertebrae;


• Brain injuries, including brain bleeding and traumatic brain injury (TBI);


• Broken bones, fractures to arms, legs, feet, wrists, ankles and hands;


• Injury to soft tissue of shoulders and knees, maybe requiring arthroscopic surgery;


• Severed limbs or amputations, especially when a hand or arm is sticking out side a bus window;


• Wrongful death – can occur when a head is outside a bus window, or a bus rolls over, or in other types of bus accidents or bus crashes.

School buses

In addition to the factors discussed above, there are even more ways that our children can be injured in school bus accidents.  Most common causes of injury and death from school bus accidents are children being struck or run over by the bus, rollovers, and collisions. Especially frightening are bus injury and bus accident cases that occur at drop-off and pick-up points.

Read my blog post about about a Brooklyn bus accident case where elementary school students on a bus were hurt while on a school trip when the school bus rear-ended a car.

Negligent supervision on a school bus. Because school children can be energetic and even wild, they may have a tendency to roughhouse. We've all seen the videos on television. Bullies picking on other students in the back of a school bus, violence, even sexual assault going on while a school bus driver drives and ignores his or her passengers. This is not acceptable, and if your child has suffered from the bus operator’s or school’s failure to ensure the safety of your children, they can be held legally liable for negligence. Thus, the school has a duty to supervise students at pick up and drop off points; particularly since the school is held to the legal standard (in Latin) of parens patriae. This imposes a duty upon the school to act as a parent to the children in its care.

Take extra care driving near a school bus! Some New York City school buses have lights that flash when the bus is going to stop to pick up and discharge children. And when so stopped with flashing lights, a school bus may not be passed, and the other driver may not proceed until the school bus resumes motion, or until signaled by the school bus driver or a police officer to proceed. Also, the driver of such school bus, when receiving or discharging school children who must cross a public highway, street or private road, shall instruct the school children to cross in front of the bus and the driver shall keep the school bus stopped with red signal lights flashing until the children have reached the opposite side of such highway, street or private road. The bus driver also must keep the bus stopped with red signal lights flashing until the children are at least fifteen feet from the bus and either off the highway, street or private road or on a sidewalk.  This rule comes from New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law (VTL) Section 1174. VTL Section 1174 also says that violating this rule once means a fine of between $250 to $400 or up to 30 days in jail or both.  Second violation means a fine of between $600 to $750 and up to 6 months in jail or both. A third violation, where all violations were committed within a three-year period, means a fine of $750 and $1,000.

Single-vehicle bus crash accidents happen when a school bus loses control for any of the reasons listed above. Frequently, a school bus driver will be involved in a single-vehicle bus accident when he or she is in a hurry, running late, and/or not paying attention.

A multi-vehicle bus accident happens when two or more vehicles crash into each other as the result of one or more operator’s negligence.

These kind of New York City – Queens, Brooklyn or Bronx – school bus accidents can occur when another driver crosses the center line and hit a bus head-on, hits a bus from behind or fails to yield the right of way. In right-of-way cases, to prove a bus accident negligence case, it is vital to obtain statements from witnesses.

Child crossing accidents can be the most heart-breaking of any bus accident.  These types of accidents occur when a child is a pedestrian and is hit or run over by a school bus. Studies show that two of every three children killed outside a school bus are struck by the bus and not by another vehicle. This happens when a bus driver fails to account for all children boarding and exiting the bus, unexpectedly moves the bus, or simply fails to see a child in the roadway.

My blog discusses a four year-old Brooklyn boy who was waiting for his school bus when he slipped on ice and was sucked under the rear wheel of the bus, killing him.

School bus accident facts and figures:

1. In New York, 2,485 accidents were reported in 2007 as involving a school vehicle, injuring more than 10,000 and claiming 10 lives, according to the New York Department of Motor Vehicles;


2. More than 500 school vehicle accidents occurred in New York City;


3. School districts have an obligation to maintain bus safety and to provide safe and adequate transportation of the nation’s children;


4. Because of the size of a school bus, a motorist in an accident with a school bus can be seriously injured or suffer wrongful death killed and may be entitled to recover money damages if the school bus is at fault in the accident. Also, No-Fault insurance benefits may apply.

For your serious personal injury, you need legal representation from a qualified personal injury attorney.  Contact us for your free consultation.

Law Offices of Gary E. Rosenberg, P.C.

(718) 520-8787