Last week, 46 year old William Detore was killed when his bicycle became entangled beneath a Regional Transit bus in Sacramento, California. Detore was on his bicycle just before 2:00 p.m. last Saturday heading south when the Regional Transit bus collided with him as it approached traveling westbound on L Street. Last month, in Los Angeles, a Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) bus collided with a convertible sending three people to the hospital – including a baby. The impact was so strong that the convertible was pushed into a stoplight post. Officials are still investigating each of these accidents to determine exactly what caused them, but one thing is clear – accidents involving city or regional buses happen more often than most of us think. The injuries that are sustained as a result are also frequently serious or fatal. Who is responsible for injuries sustained in an accident with a city bus? What can the victims, or the families of the victims, do when they have been involved in one of these bus accidents?
Bus accidents, like all vehicle accidents, are governed by the laws of negligence. Negligence is basically a legal word meaning “fault”. The four basic elements of negligence are: Duty of care; breach of duty; causation; and damages. All four elements must be proved to prevail in a negligence claim, says California bus accident attorney Emery Ledger of Ledger & Associates. When the driver that was responsible for your accident happens to be driving a city bus, then he may not be the only person – or entity- that was negligent. In states such as California, a system known as comparative negligence is used. What this means is that more than one person – or entity – can share the blame for your accident. If, for instance, the bus that was involved in the collision had faulty brakes, then the bus company – in this case the city – may have been negligent. Another example may be if the city did not complete the proper background investigation on the driver or the driver was under the influence and the city had not administered a recent drug test.
These are just examples of possible ways that the city may be held liable along with the individual driver. Every accident scenario is different and the best way to determine who was responsible for any injuries that you have sustained as the result of a bus accident is to contact an experienced California bus accident attorney. Another thing that you want to keep in mind if you have been the victim of a city bus accident is that unlike other accident claims which usually have a two year statute of limitations, claims against municipalities must be filed within 180 days of the accident. This makes consulting with an experienced California bus accident attorney even more important. If you have been injured then you deserve to be compensated and it would be a shame to lose that right because you missed the deadline to notify the city of your claim.
If you would like an experienced California bus accident attorney to evaluate your case, feel free to contact the law offices of Emery Ledger at Ledger & Associates. He can be reached online at www.ledgerlaw.com or at 1-800-300-0001.
