Georgia Injury Law Blog

April has been a bad month for school bus accidents. We covered this subject in March when a Cherokee County school bus overturned and several students were taken to area hospitals. Since then, school bus accidents continue to be the subject of local news programs across the country. Many students suffered serious personal injuries as a result.

Monday morning of this week, two Pope High School students were injured when a car, driven by a teenage driver, ran up on the sidewalk and struck them. A fifteen-year-old girl was flown by helicopter to Children’s Hospital at Scottish Rite and is in critical condition. A seventeen-year-old boy was taken to Kennestone Hospital and treated and released.

The driver of the Jeep, Corey O’Connell, was driving northbound when a Nissan Maxima stopped in front of him to make a left-hand turn. He did not see the stopped car in time, swerved onto the sidewalk, and ran over a fire hydrant and an electrical box before striking the students with his vehicle. He has been charged with following too closely and failure to maintain his lane. 

Earlier this month in Cleveland, Ohio, several students were injured in a runaway bus accident. The children were students at the Arts Academy in Cleveland being chartered on a school field trip. The bus driver, Michael P. Weir, stopped the bus at a gasoline station, left the engine running, and proceeded to pump fuel. After fueling, he went inside the store to pay and use the restroom. While he was gone, the bus began to roll down the hill and pick up speed. Several students were injured when they jumped out of the runaway bus. A student inside the bus grabbed control of the steering wheel and swerved the bus away from a bridge piling and out of oncoming traffic. 

Weir violated many rules here: stopping to fuel a bus with children inside, leaving the bus engine running while pumping fuel, leaving his bus unattended with children inside, and (worst of all) leaving his bus unattended with the engine running with children inside. Weir had previous driving violations on this record, and had just had his suspended license reinstated when he was given the keys to drive these children on a field trip.    

In Clayton, North Carolina this month, state troopers are still searching for the hit-and-run driver who struck a schoolgirl crossing the street to board her school bus. She suffered a broken jaw and a broken leg.   

All of these cases represent a variety of different claims. In the case of the Pope High School students, the injured may have a claim against the driver of the car who struck them. When a driver has been charged with a vehicular violation, those charges if adjudicated against the driver, may be used to prove negligence per se – or negligence as a matter of law. Thus, the jury does not have to decide if the driver’s actions were negligent, the judge will instruct the jury that the actions were negligent as a matter of law. 

In the case of the runaway school bus, the students may have a claim against the school, the company who provided the charter bus service, and the negligent driver. The charter bus company may have negligently hired a driver with a bad driving record; the school may have failed to get the qualifications of the charter bus company; and the driver was clearly negligent.

In the case of a hit-and-run driver, uninsured motorist coverage (potentially carried by the parents of the victim) may be able to provide liability coverage for the unknown driver. Also the school bus uninsured motorist coverage may come into affect if she was boarding the school bus at the time of the accident.

These cases can be complicated. If you or someone you love has a claim, contact the law firm of Robert N. Katz for a free, private consultation.  

Posted By Lisa Siegel In Truck Accidents | 0 Comments Permalink

A school bus carrying 27 students overturned on March 3, 2008 in Canton, Georgia. Twenty-six students were taking to area hospitals, but none were seriously injured. The driver, Luis Monserrate, was charged with failure to maintain a lane.

According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the driver let the school bus dip off the roadway onto the shoulder. He then overcorrected, causing the bus to veer off the road. The bus clipped a utility pole and then overturned. 

Currently, there are 585,000 school buses in use in the nation. Over twenty-three million children travel on school buses each year. The Transportation Research Board reports that school buses are the safest mode of transportation for students.  School bus accidents account for 6000 injuries annually and 20 deaths. Compared to incidents caused by adult drivers transporting students in a private vehicle, these cause 51,000 injuries and 169 deaths annually. Most deaths occur from students boarding or exiting buses.   

However, the National Coalition for School Bus Safety advocates for re-designs to include seatbelts and to eliminate top-heavy design that causes rollovers. The American Academy of Pediatrics advocates having lap shoulder belts and adult monitors on all new school buses.

School buses are operated by drivers with a commercial drivers license (CDL) regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Most states require special driver training for school bus drivers as well as drug and alcohol screening and law enforcement background checks. 

Governmental authorities usually operate school buses. Schools may raise governmental immunity as a defense to any claims arising from a school bus accident. Thus, lawsuits involving a school bus injury have an unusual component of addressing immunity claims. Typically, in Georgia, counties will waive immunity to the extent of applicable insurance coverage. However, immunity statutes require specific notice provisions that if not followed bar the claim. The time periods for providing notice of a claim to a government tend to be shorter than standard statute of limitations on claim filing. 

If you believe that you may have a claim involving a school bus accident, contact the law firm of Robert N. Katz for a free private consultation.

Posted By Lisa Siegel In Truck Accidents | 0 Comments Permalink

November 11, 2007

Last week the Center for Disease Control (CDC) celebrated Drowsy Driver Prevention Week. Interestingly, in a poll conducted as part of their education campaign, 47 percent of commercial truck drivers admitted to having fallen asleep while driving a truck during some point in their career.

In a study conducted of the sleep patterns of long haul truck drivers and printed in the New England Journal of Medicine, drivers obtained between 4 and 5 hours of verifiable sleep during the course of driving ten-hour days in a five-day period. Most people need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night. Thus, fatigue and sleep deprivation constitute significant safety issues for long haul truck drivers. 

 Because long haul truck drivers often must sleep while on the road, they obtain less sleep than is required for alertness on the job. Late night or early morning route schedules are often the cause of sleep or sleeplike states while driving. During this study, two drivers had episodes of stage one sleep while driving. Stage one sleep occurs when the body’s systems move into a state of flaccid paralysis and no longer respond to motor messages from the brain. Despite this, no accidents or mishaps occurred during the study.

Drivers who sleep in their tractor-trailer often endure poor sleep conditions. They are often interrupted by noise, light, and extremes of heat and cold. Poor sleep conditions account for 62 percent of traffic related accidents. This problem is compounded by driver sleep disorders such as sleep apnea and snoring. Sleep apnea occurs when the body must wake itself up to resume breathing during the sleep stages.

Further, the human body is designed to sleep during periods of darkness and to be alert during light. The body produces a sleep hormone – melatonin – which is regulated by night and day cycles. This is also known as the body’s circadian rhythm. During darkness, melatonin stimulates sleep. Low levels during lightness stimulate wakefulness. Almost all long haul truck drivers begin their shifts between one a.m. and eight a.m. when melatonin levels are high. Coincidentally, most sleep related vehicle accidents occur between midnight and six a.m.

 
Truck driver fatigue is the subject of new U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations. Tractor-trailer truck drivers may only drive for eleven hours after ten hours off. The National Transportation Safety Board states that driver fatigue may account for one third of all large (semi, tractor-trailer) truck accidents. Further, driver fatigue was the likely cause in thirty percent of all fatal crashes. 

 Accidents involving sleeping drivers – and worse sleeping truck drivers – often yield tragic consequences. Sleeping drivers usually maintain their speed; thus, not braking or turning to avoid the accident.   For further information on truck related accidents, contact Robert N. Katz.  

Posted By Lisa Siegel In Truck Accidents | 0 Comments Permalink