Bus and School Bus Accident Lawyers

Whenever a family suffers from a wrongful death or injury at the hands of another, it is a tragedy. But it seems that bus accidents and other mass transportation accidents, such as the recent school bus accident in Louisiana, appear to affect those families and the general public the worst. Clifford Law Offices is very familiar with tragedies involving negligent mass transit operators who have dragged passengers. In particular, the widely publicized case of Rachel Barton, an internationally acclaimed violinist, was the tragic story of a young woman whose violin and other bags were trapped in the closing doors of a Metra train. The conductor did not follow safety protocol and she was dragged for nearly 300 feet before she was able to free herself of her bags. Ms. Barton was swept under the moving train and her legs were amputated. She miraculously survived and doctors reattached one of her legs. The trial against the train company resulted in a $29.6 million verdict. Clifford Law Offices also represents a woman whose hair was caught in the bus doors and she was dragged for a distance before the bus stopped. The communities of these families and all of America mourn the disasters where dozens of people needlessly die.

This country has experienced a number of major tour bus accidents or chartered bus accidents in the last year. For example, in April, a bus tour group visiting California overturned in Soledad, California, 130 miles south of San Francisco on Highway 101, killing five people and injuring dozens more. Many from the group were French or French Canadians. Another California bus accident last October involved a casino-bound bus that flipped over north of San Francisco. Ten people were killed in that bus accident and nearly three dozen more were injured. And in Utah last year, a 56-passenger motorcoach flipped over and the roof of the bus separated from the body of the vehicle, killing nine people and injuring 43 more people. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) which investigates the causes of these crashes found in the Mexican Hat, Utah crash the cause was the "driver's diminished alertness due to inadequate sleep resulting from a combination of factors."

Given the increasing traffic on roads today in this country, the number of accidents also appears to be on the rise. In an average year, more than 360 million passenger trips in the United States are taken by inter-city buses, totaling some 28 billion passenger miles, according to the National Safety Council. For example, in Chicago, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has approximately 2,000 buses that operate on about 150 routes and 2,273 route miles. Chicago buses provide about one million passenger trips daily and stop at more than 12,000 posted bus stops.

Buses certainly are a convenient form of public transportation – whether they be commuter buses, tour buses, airport shuttles, ski shuttle buses, casino buses or, of course, school buses. As common carriers, bus drivers and bus companies owe their passengers a greater duty of care in protecting them from harm. Bus driving takes special training and that training must be adequate. Buses also need to be checked regularly for safe operation.

Actions against a common carrier can involve the negligent conduct of the driver or inadequate training, or the condition of the bus itself such as improper maintenance or defective parts.

If you or a loved one has been involved in a bus crash, certain time periods are required to be followed in filing a lawsuit. These deadlines are called statutes of limitations. They vary from state to state and certain common carriers that are owned by governmental entities such as federal, state, county or city governments may have special notices that must be given before filing a lawsuit. These time periods can be very short.

If you are involved in a bus accident, be sure to contact the police. If you are able, take down the driver’s name, address, date of birth, driver’s license number and expiration date. Get his or her phone number. Get their insurance company’s information. Get the make, year, model, license plate number, expiration date and vehicle identification (VIN) number of all vehicles involved in the accident. If the driver is not the owner of the vehicle, you will need all of this information of the owner of the vehicle. Be sure to get identification information of any passengers in any cars. Also, see if you can get the names, addresses and phone numbers of any witnesses to the accident. Even if the person will not offer the information, get that person’s license plate number. Note the road, weather and lighting conditions.

Clifford Law Offices currently is handling several bus accident cases. In 2005, the tragedy of a University of Illinois student killed by a bus driver made national headlines. The firm filed a lawsuit against the Mass Transit District and its driver on behalf of the family of a freshman student from Deerfield who was killed while she was walking to her dormitory. The firm’s bus accident attorneys also represent a 15-year-old honors student from the west side of Chicago who was severely injured when a bus driver struck her at the curb then drove away. Clifford Law Offices also represents the family of an 81-year-old woman killed when a semi-trailer rammed the back of a tour bus in which she was sitting with dozens of other elderly people.

Accolades for Clifford Law Offices

Clifford Law Offices received national first-tier rankings in Plaintiffs' Product Liability Litigation in the 2010 U.S. News-Best Lawyers "Best Law Firms" Guide. Thousands of clients and law firms were surveyed by U.S. News-Best Lawyers. This is the first time that a national ranking has been compiled and it was featured in the October print issue of U.S. News & World Report. Airplanes are considered a product and finding out what goes wrong with them is a complex issue. Robert Clifford, senior and name partner at the firm, was named the 2009 Best Lawyers' Top Personal Injury Attorney in Chicago. The firm also received Metropolitan First-Tier rankings in Plaintiffs' Personal Injury Litigation, Plaintiffs' Product Liability Litigation and Plaintiffs' Medical Malpractice Law in what some have called the most comprehensive view of the U.S. legal profession. Thousands of law firms and clients were surveyed. Robert Clifford has been named a Best Lawyer since the publication's inception in 1983. Kevin Durkin and Keith Hebeisen, partners at the firm, were named Best Lawyers in the 2011 edition. Robert A. Clifford was selected in 2004 as one of the "five most respected and feared plaintiffs' attorneys" in the country by Corporate Legal Times, calling him "the best of the bad." The National Law Journal named Mr. Clifford's firm on the "Plaintiffs' Hot List: 20 Go-To Teams" in 2004 and one of the top 25 firms in 2003. The publication also named Robert Clifford one of the Top Ten Litigators in Illinois as well as one of the nation's Top Ten Litigators. American Lawyer Media recognized Mr. Clifford as one of the Top Ten Most Influential Lawyers in Illinois in 2000. He has consistently been voted by his peers as one of the Best Lawyers in America , and he was named one of Chicago's "30 Toughest Lawyers" by Chicago Magazine in 2002. He was selected to be a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, an invitation-only group of 100 trial lawyers from around the country.

Chicago, Illinois bus accident attorneys with Clifford Law Offices have successfully handled many cases stemming from a bus crash and are available for consultations.