The Jacksonville Transportation Authority is responsible for public transportation in the city of Jacksonville. With approximately 180 vehicles in service, which may travel more than 8.5 million miles per year on the streets of Jacksonville, there are bound to be bus accidents every year. Other buses, including those from local school districts or carrying college students from Florida State College at Jacksonville, take to the roads throughout the school year.
A bus accident can cause serious injuries to passengers of the bus, occupants of other vehicles in an accident, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Some injuries may have lasting health impacts. If you suffer injuries in a Jacksonville bus accident, you may deserve compensation for your injuries. Contact Dolman Law Group today at (727) 451-9600 for a free case consultation.
Jacksonville Bus Accident Guide
1. Dolman Law Group: Here to Help Jacksonville Bus Accident Victims Pursue Compensation
2. How Do Jacksonville Bus Accidents Happen?
3. The Aftermath of Jacksonville Bus Accidents: Common Injuries
4. Who Bears Liability in Jacksonville Bus Accidents?
5. How Much Compensation You Can Expect After a Jacksonville Bus Accident
6. Contact Dolman Law Group for Help After Your Jacksonville Bus Accident
Dolman Law Group: Here to Help Jacksonville Bus Accident Victims Pursue Compensation
At Dolman Law Group, we have assisted victims in Jacksonville and throughout the state of Florida recover the compensation they deserve for their injuries caused by others' wrongdoings. Our attorneys pay personal attention to each of their clients while having the resources of a big firm to achieve favorable outcomes.
If you have suffered serious injuries in a Jacksonville bus accident, you need experienced legal representation to pursue the compensation you deserve while you recover from your injuries. Dolman Law Group has the experience you need. Clients can count on us to help them recover more compensation with our representation than they could obtain on their own. Some of the services and skills we offer to achieve this end include:
Listening to Your Story and Finding Out What Caused Your Bus Accident, the Injuries You Sustained, and the Compensation You May Deserve.
After your bus accident, you have a story to tell. By sharing with us what you observed, the moment of surprise when you realized that a collision could happen, and the aftermath of dealing with your injuries, we can start to develop a case strategy to show who was at fault and the compensation they owe you. We listen to your story and learn more about what occurred so that we can help you maximize your compensation.
We Pursue Evidence About What Caused the Accident and What Assistance You May Deserve.
Many factors can contribute to a bus accident. As a passenger on the bus, you might not have any idea what led to your bus accident and your injuries, particularly if you were focused on something else at the point of the collision or accident. If a bus hit you, you might not realize who all contributed to the accident. At Dolman Law Group, we have the resources to find the evidence that will show how the accident occurred and all of the parties that may be responsible.
We Pursue Maximum Compensation for Your Injuries.
The reality is that insurance companies rarely offer you the full compensation you deserve. Many insurance companies will try to push you to accept a lower compensation offer than you really deserve for your injuries. Their initial settlement offer may reflect only a fraction of the compensation you really deserve.
To combat this, you need to show them you have a strong case and can hold them accountable in court if they refuse to negotiate a reasonable settlement. At Dolman Law Group, we help our clients understand the compensation they really deserve, then aggressively pursue that compensation as we deal with insurance companies on their behalf.
We Know How to Deal with the Insurance Companies and Liable Parties.
As a part of representing our clients after a Jacksonville bus accident, we manage all communication with their insurance carrier, the at-fault party, their representatives, and their insurer. This not only takes the weight off our clients' shoulders so they can concentrate on treatment and physical recovery, but it also protects their rights.
We can prevent you from saying anything that could negatively affect your case by speaking on your behalf and ensuring the opposing party does not try to take advantage of you during this tough time. In many cases, they may offer a low-ball settlement very quickly after an accident because they want victims to sign an agreement before they have time to hand their case over to a firm like ours who puts their interests first.
How Do Jacksonville Bus Accidents Happen?
The vast majority of bus accidents in Jacksonville tend to involve some level of human error. Like most traffic accidents, a bus driver's carelessness or recklessness behind the wheel causes a collision. Legally, we refer to this as negligence. Negligence is the cause of a vast majority of crashes.
The following are some likely reasons for Jacksonville bus accidents:
Poor Maneuverability Through Construction Zones.
Jacksonville's road work has been described as an avalanche of projects. The city wants to alleviate some of the strain of tight streets. As Jacksonville's population continues to grow, road work continues to provide adequate space to support that growing population. Unfortunately, those construction zones can make maneuverability difficult for small passenger vehicles, and even more challenging for larger buses. Jacksonville bus drivers may also struggle with poor visibility in construction zones, due to debris and obstructions.
Pedestrians Outside Crosswalks.
Jacksonville has relatively poor pedestrian infrastructure, which can make it difficult for pedestrians to find safe ways to make their way through the streets. Unfortunately, bus drivers may have a very hard time seeing pedestrians or might fail to pay attention to pedestrian movements, which may increase the risk of particularly serious injuries that tend to befall pedestrians hit by the raw force of a large bus.
Poorly Maintained Buses.
Poorly maintained buses can cause accidents in several ways. First, the bus may malfunction, leaving the driver unable to brake or steer, leading to a collision with other vehicles or others on or near roads. Buses that are poorly maintained can also cause serious injury for people entering or exiting the bus, such as slip and fall accidents from stairs or handrails in disrepair.
Poor Weather Conditions.
Each year, Jacksonville sees around 50 inches of rain. While it has more sunny days than the rest of the United States, those rainy days can pose a particular hazard for bus drivers. Heavy rainfall can impair visibility, and a bus driver may have more trouble keeping the bus in control on roads made slick from heavy rain.
Driver Distraction.
Jacksonville bus drivers spend many hours behind the wheel every day. While those bus drivers have specific rules that govern how long they can spend on the road and what they can do behind the wheel, drivers who have spent a lot of time on the road may still become distracted. Distracted drivers can be unpredictable and cause many different kinds of accidents.
School bus drivers and others with particularly rowdy or loud passengers may be at an increased risk for distracted driving accidents. They must either maintain control of their passengers or be able to block out the noise and activity to stay focused on the road ahead.
Since buses weigh more and take up more space on the road than the average passenger vehicle, bus driver distraction can pose even greater dangers than a distracted passenger vehicle driver.
Speeding and Other Aggressive Driving Behaviors.
Bus drivers are under immense pressure to stay on schedule and get passengers from one stop to another efficiently. This can lead to taking chances and aggressive driving, such as speeding through a yellow light, trying to make a pass, or accelerating.
The Aftermath of Jacksonville Bus Accidents: Common Injuries
After a Jacksonville bus accident, many victims suffer from serious injuries. The kinds of injuries may depend on the accident scenario, which may include the following:
Slip and Fall Accident Injuries
Steep stairs onto a bus combined with slick or poorly maintained stairs can be a recipe for disaster. Handrails are generally provided, but could be broken, occupied, slick, or otherwise fail to prevent the fall.
Slips usually happen getting off the bus and cause the victim to fall backward onto their tailbone, although this is not always true. Trip accidents can also occur getting into the bus, causing the victim to fall forward and hit the stairs or floor in front of them.
When you trip or slip and fall, you may suffer injuries like:
- Traumatic brain injury
- Broken bones, including broken hips in the elderly
- Spinal cord injuries
Injuries As a Passenger on a Bus in a Jacksonville Bus Accident
Passengers on the bus at the time of an accident may sustain serious injury, especially those standing at the time of the incident. Buses often do not come equipped with seatbelts, which means passengers may get thrown around in a way passenger-vehicle occupants with seatbelts fastened would not.
Common injuries to bus passengers include:
- Broken bones
- Head injuries, including TBI
- Spinal cord injuries
- Severe lacerations
This may be especially scary to think about if your child rides to and from school on a bus, goes on field trips, or participates in athletics or other extracurriculars that require regular school bus trips. While the seats on a typical school bus are designed to be safer in an accident than your average city bus, severe and even catastrophic injuries still occur.
Injuries as a Passenger in Another Vehicle
When a bus driver commits an error that results in a collision with another vehicle, the passengers in the other vehicle may suffer serious injury. A bus weighs a great deal more than the average passenger vehicle and can, especially at high rates of speed, cause serious damage.
Passengers in other vehicles may suffer injuries like:
- Traumatic brain injury
- Spinal cord injuries
- Amputations
- Severe lacerations
- Broken bones
- Facial injuries, particularly from broken glass or twisted metal in the vehicle
Injuries as a Pedestrian Involved in a Bus Accident
When Jacksonville pedestrians are involved in bus accidents, they have virtually no protection from the bus and the damage it can do.
Pedestrians may suffer the most severe injuries, some of which can have lifelong consequences for the victim, including:
- Traumatic brain injury
- Spinal cord injuries
- Amputation
- Broken bones
- Severe lacerations
- Road rash
- Facial injuries
- Soft tissue injuries
No matter how your bus accident occurred, you may find yourself with serious injuries and high medical bills. An experienced Jacksonville bus accident attorney at Dolman Law Group can help you learn more about your right to compensation for all your expenses and impacts after a bus accident.
Who Bears Liability in Jacksonville Bus Accidents?
Following a Jacksonville bus accident, it is in your best interest to consult with an experienced bus accident attorney to help go over the circumstances of your accident to be able to determine who all may bear liability for your injuries.
For instance, while the bus driver may have been driving negligently, bus drivers are typically employees, and their employer may bear liability for your accident. A maintenance shop could bear liability if it performed faulty maintenance on the bus that caused the accident.
The parties potentially liable for a bus accident can include many hard-to-pin-down actors. Sometimes, the driver of another vehicle crashes into a bus and may bear liability for the accident. The police report from the accident can help establish immediate liability for the accident and provide you and your attorney a starting place as you track down all responsible parties. However, we gather other evidence to prove these cases that could include:
- Eyewitness statements
- Relevant medical records
- Accident reconstruction, if needed
- A survey of the accident scene
- Pictures and video if available
- Medical expert opinions as necessary
- Documentation of our client's damages
We want to file our client's insurance claim or go before the jury at trial with the strongest case possible to prove what happened, who is responsible, and how much money our client deserves based on their documented losses. We believe this is important for getting the financial recovery our client needs to pay their bills and cover their financial losses related to the crash today and in the future.
How Much Compensation You Can Expect After a Jacksonville Bus Accident
After a Jacksonville bus accident, how much compensation you can recover is likely high on your mind. You have high medical bills to worry about, and possibly a loss of income from being put out of work due to serious bus accident injuries.
How much compensation can you expect? No attorney can guarantee the compensation you will recover for your bus accident injuries. However, Dolman Law Group can help you take a look at the facts of your case and pursue the maximum compensation you deserve. The compensation you can recover may include the following:
Compensation for Medical Expenses
Medical expenses are often the biggest financial impact after a serious bus accident. An attorney can help you review your medical costs—making sure you account for all you have incurred and are likely to incur in the future—and include them as part of your Jacksonville bus accident claim.
Medical costs may include everything from emergency medical care immediately after the bus accident to the ongoing cost of durable medical equipment to aid in mobility and physical and occupational therapy to help you recover in the months after the accident. Make sure you keep track of all medical bills as they come in so that you can calculate and have proof of your full medical expenses.
Compensation for Lost Wages
Did you have to miss work due to your bus accident injuries? If so, that lost income can only compound the burden of your medical expenses. By losing your income while you recover from your bus accident injuries, you may struggle to keep up with your normal bills, let alone the astronomical new ones for medical care.
As part of your bus accident claim, you can demand compensation for the wages you lost after your accident. You may also have the right to include compensation for vacation time or sick leave you had to take while recovering from your injuries. An experienced Jacksonville bus accident lawyer can help you learn more about the compensation you deserve for missed time at work.
Did your bus accident injuries permanently prevent you from working in your former field, changing the course of your career? You may have the right to claim compensation for your lost earning potential, as well.
Compensation for Pain and Suffering and Other Life impacts
While impacts like pain and suffering do not have an objective financial cost, they are real harms for which you deserve compensation. Constant pain from an injury can drag you down and emotional anguish can erode your enjoyment of life. Dolman Law Group can help you learn more about how to calculate compensation for pain and suffering and other impacts on your life.
Contact Dolman Law Group for Help After Your Jacksonville Bus Accident
If you suffered serious injuries in a Jacksonville bus accident, do not try to handle your bus accident claim on your own. Instead, contact Dolman Law Group online or by calling (727) 451-9600. Call as soon after your accident as possible to learn more about your right to compensation and to start building your case. We will start with a free consultation to go over the facts of your case and give you a better idea of what to expect as you move forward with your claim.
Jacksonville Office
12574 Flagler Center Blvd.;
Suite 101
Jacksonville, FL 32258
Phone: (904) 441-6903
Client Testimonial
“AMAZING and understanding attorneys! Did great on my case and I highly recommend Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA for anyone that has been injured in an accident!"
Rating: 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Koralis R.
Jan 2020
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