Riding a bus should always be safe. Unfortunately, that isn’t the reality. If you’ve been injured in a bus accident, contact the Law Offices of www.needaninjuryattorneypennsylvania.com and speak to one of our expert bus accident attorneys about your legal rights.
Several bus accidents in Pennsylvania have made the headlines recently causing concern for bus riders, bus drivers, bus company owners, and safety and regulatory agencies. A study by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration carried out between 2005 and 2009 revealed that buses were involved 5.6% of all bus and truck fatalities nationwide. This may seem like a low figure but it’s not zero. Injuries are more common than fatalities in bus accidents and the aftermath of a bus accident can be very tragic.
If you or someone close to you has been injured in a bus accident in Pennsylvania recently, you’re within your rights to file a claim if you’re not at fault. This process isn’t easy and shouldn’t be done without the help of a dedicated Pennsylvania bus accident attorney. At the Law Offices of www.needaninjuryattorneypennsylvania.com, our attorneys are standing by to offer you their experience, knowledge, and resources to help you get the compensation you deserve.
Bus Accident Causes
In the same study mentioned above, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration found that of the nineteen bus accident cases they examined, bus drivers had been at fault in fifteen. Bus drivers who failed to see the events that led up to the accident in time to evade a crash caused the majority of these accidents. Oftentimes these drivers are not paying attention to the road or distracted by cell phones. If this is the case in your accident, our attorneys can help you get the compensation you need.
Another common factor in bus driver caused accidents is fatigue. There are regulations in place regarding service hours that drivers and the companies that employ them must abide by. Unfortunately, these regulations aren’t always followed. There are safety advocacy organizations that feel these rules aren’t strict enough, and they are fighting to lower the number of hours a driver is allowed to drive in a day.
Equipment failure is also another cause of bus accidents, the study found. These include electrical fires, door latch defects, and brake failure. In some cases, accidents could have been prevented by the practice of proper maintenance and inspection.
Speeding, traffic law violations, bicyclists or pedestrians entering the bus’s lane, and other vehicles stopping or cutting of buses are other bus accident causes documented in the study. One of our dedicated Pennsylvania bus accident attorneys can help you determine whose negligence caused your injuries.
The study also found that nine out of ten bus crashes were the caused by human factors, so it’s quite possible that someone is at fault in the accident that you were injured in, causing you pain, suffering, lost wages, and hefty medical bills. Contact the Law Offices of www.needaninjuryattorneypennsylvania.com for your free consultation today.