If you or your children have been injured in a school bus or charter bus accident or who simply ride a school bus anywhere in California from San Diego, CA, to Orange County, from Santa Barbara to Ventura or Oxnard, from Santa Ana, Irvine or Anaheim to Fullerton, Fontana, or Yorba Linda, or from Rancho Cucamonga or Ontario to Palm Springs, Indio, Coachella or Palm Desert (though we expect the rides are much shorter than that) you probably wonder from time to time how well your children are being looked after with care and how bus drivers are hired. School bus drivers have a lot to do to ensure the safety of their passengers and one additional factor can result in an accident.
School bus accidents, because of their precious cargo, are no laughing matter. But as every parent knows, where kids are involved, despite a parent's best precautions, trouble often follows as certainly as dirt and grass stains.
Charter bus accidents have commonly been in the news in a different type of situation - many recent crashes have been promotional bus trips taking gamblers to casinos. In either situation, the results of a crash can be horrific.
Today, many parents lose time from work, and completely disrupt their schedules just to drive their children to and from school, rather than to allow them to risk the dangers of walking to school or being passengers in school busses. And yet, many adults will ride a casino bus with absolutely no knowledge of whether the bus driver has been vetted, and whether he or she is properly licensed to carry passengers.
Here's a sampling, taken to the extreme, of how bus accidents can happen.
Busses so overloaded they could make it into the Guiness Book of Records.
Bus drivers operating on no sleep due to staying up all night for their medical marijuana license exams.
Novice bus drivers or drivers more experienced in street racing than school bus driving.
Police chases of school or charter busses.
Busses equipped without properly maintained brakes in order to save cost.
Drag racing of busses.
Bus drivers racing to meetings with their parole officers.
Unlicensed or improperly licensed bus drivers.
Bus field trips gone awry with stops for beer.
Bus road rage.
In actuality, bus accidents do occur due to overloading, speed, the use of drugs or alcohol, aggressive driving, poor maintenance, sleepy drivers and drivers with police records that should never have been allowed behind the wheel.
But bus accidents of any kind can also occur without the driver being drunk or on drugs, when it later comes out in an investigation that the bus driver simply wasn't properly licensed and on parole, as in a recent casino bus crash that took the lives of nine people and injured many more.
If you have a child who has been injured in a school bus accident, or if you've been injured in a charter bus accident, speak with an experienced bus accident lawyer who can investigate if any of these factors were the result of your injuries or your child's accident..
News Note - On October 1, 2008, Governor Schwarzenegger banned motorists from texting, writing or reading messages on electronic devices. The law goes into effect January 1, 2009.
