Anaheim Bus Accident Attorney

All types of motor vehicle accidents can cause serious injuries, but bus accident injuries and damages can be especially severe. Whether you were injured as a bus passenger or you were outside of the bus as a pedestrian, bicyclist, or occupant of another vehicle, the bus driver or other liable party should be held accountable.

The bus accident attorney at Christopher Lee Law Firm, represent injured clients in all types of automobile accident cases, including bus accidents. If you have been injured or lost a loved one in a bus accident, contact our office for a free consultation and case evaluation. Our attorneys are committed to standing up for injured clients and helping them get the compensation that they deserve.

Our Bus Accident Practice

Not only do our attorneys offer free consultations and evaluations, we also take our cases on contingency. We do this so that our injured clients do not have to worry about paying any out-of-pocket attorneys’ fees. We don’t get paid until we have helped you successfully recover compensation for your losses.
We have experience representing clients in bus accident cases. Bus accidents are not like regular car accident cases. There are unique requirements and regulations that apply to bus operations, and only an attorney who knows the applicable laws should handle bus injury claims.
We understand how difficult the aftermath of a bus accident can be for injury victims and their families. Our attorneys have represented clients in devastating injury cases, and we know that nothing will help you more than advocating for your rights and maximizing your compensation.

Most Common Causes of Anaheim Bus Accidents

When working to understand how bus accidents occur in Anaheim, we have to look at various parties that could be held liable for these incidents. First, it is entirely possible for a bus accident to be caused by the careless or negligent actions of a passenger vehicle driver. Just like a traditional car versus car accident, regular vehicle drivers can cause a bus crash.

However, we know that bus accidents often occur due to the careless or negligent actions of a bus driver or bus company. When looking at bus driver actions that can cause accidents, we often find that these incidents occur due to drivers:

Failing to follow traffic laws
Operating too fast for conditions
Operating while impaired by alcohol or drugs
Operating while distracted by phones or other devices
Failing to yield the right of way
Not following hours of service requirements from the FMCSA (for charter buses)

Additionally, we can look to bus operators or companies when it comes to finding the causes of these accidents. For example, bus companies and operators could hold direct liability if they:

Failed to regularly inspect or maintain the bus
Did not conduct an adequate background check on drivers
Did not properly train drivers to operate the vehicles
Encourage drivers to operate recklessly or to disregard hours of service requirements

Bus Accident Injuries

The size and weight of buses significantly increase the chance that those involved in these accidents will sustain a severe injury or fatality. There are multiple parties that could be affected by a bus crash, including passengers on the bus, drivers and passengers in other vehicles, as well as pedestrians and bicyclists around the bus.

It is not uncommon for the attorney Christopher Lee to help clients who have sustained the following injuries as a result of these incidents:

Broken or dislocated bones
Internal organ damage
Internal bleeding
Severe lacerations or puncture wounds
Traumatic brain injuries
Concussions
Spinal cord injuries
Whiplash
Other severe back or neck injury

Bus Accident Liability

Bus accident liability can be complicated, depending on the facts and circumstances of each case and whether or not it is a private bus, school bus, or municipal bus. Liability issues can be further complicated when a school bus or municipal bus is rented out for another party’s private use and operation.

There are often multiple liable parties and defendants in bus accident injury claims. Our attorneys will thoroughly investigate your accident to look for regulation violations and to determine accident causation and fault. To pursue maximum compensation, we will ensure that your claim is made against all liable and potentially liable parties.

Bus Accident Compensation

To secure a financial recovery that compensates you for all of your losses, we will evaluate your past, ongoing, and future injuries and damages related to your accident. Depending on your case facts, recoverable compensation may include pain and suffering, lost income, loss of earning capacity, medical expenses, future medical expenses, and other losses. If the defendant’s conduct was egregious, you might be awarded punitive damages as well.

Bus accidents have the potential to cause catastrophic and fatal injuries. If you lost a loved one in an accident, surviving family members might have a wrongful death claim against the responsible parties. Wrongful death claims can be difficult and emotional for loved ones, but these claims can also help grieving families move forward after a fatal injury accident.

How Much is Your Anaheim Bus Accident Worth?

There is no set amount of money that gets paid out for a bus accident claim in Anaheim. The reality is that there are various factors that can affect these settlements, and no two bus accident cases are exactly alike. Some of the factors that can affect how much money is paid out to bus accident victims include the severity of the injuries, insurance carrier limits, how long it takes for a victim to recover, the amount of time a victim misses from work, and the level of pain and suffering associated with the injuries.

For relatively minor injuries or property damage, a bus accident claim may result in a few thousand dollars going to a client. However, catastrophic injury victims will likely be entitled to much more money, perhaps amounts reaching into the hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.

What if You Were Partially At Fault for the Bus Accidents?

If you think that you were partially responsible for causing a bus crash, you may still be able to recover compensation for your losses. California operates under a “pure comparative negligence” system. This means that injury victims can still recover compensation even if they are up to 99% at fault for causing the incident. This is different than how other states handle comparative negligence, where a person is typically unable to recover compensation if they are 50% or more responsible for the incident.

If a bus crash victim is partially responsible for causing the incident, the total amount of compensation they receive will be reduced based on their percentage of fault. For example, if you sustain $100,000 worth of injury and property damage expenses as a result of a bus crash, but it is determined that you were 30% responsible for the incident, then you would receive $70,000 instead of the full $100,000.

However, it is important to understand that insurance carriers often try to place as much blame as possible on the injury victim in order to limit how much money they pay in compensation. That is why it is crucial for bus crash victims to have an attorney on their side who can push back against these allegations of fault. An attorney will be able to uncover the evidence necessary to help show how the bus driver or bus company was responsible for the incident.

Steps to Take After an Anaheim Bus Accidents

There are various steps that Anaheim bus accident victims can take to help ensure that they recover maximum compensation for their losses. As we go through this list of steps, please understand that no two bus accident cases are exactly alike, in the steps that we present here may not necessarily be taken in this order every single time.

Call 911. It is crucial for those involved in a bus accident to call 911 as soon as possible. Whether you are the passenger on a bus that has been involved in an accident or in another vehicle involved in the collision, you need to call and make sure that the police and other responders are on the way to the scene. Accident reports filled out by police officers are going to be necessary to ensure that you recover the compensation you need from insurance carriers.
Seek medical care. Every bus accident victim needs to seek medical care as soon as possible. Even if you do not feel much pain right after a crash occurs, please understand that the signs and symptoms of some Anaheim bus accident injuries do not appear until hours or even days after the incident occurs. By seeking immediate medical care, you are helping to establish a direct link between the crash and your injuries while also ensuring that you are properly cared for by a medical professional.
Gather evidence. You can begin gathering evidence at the scene of the crash, but only if it is safe to do so and if you do not have to seek emergency medical care. The evidence that could be incredibly valuable for insurance carriers or during a trial includes photographs taken of damage to vehicles, injuries, debris and skid marks, traffic and weather conditions, and more.
Speak eyewitnesses. If there are any eyewitnesses who saw what happened, you need to get their names and contact information as soon as possible. These witnesses can provide valuable testimony to the insurance carriers or during a trial. As soon as a scene has cleared, it will be nearly impossible to get the names and contact information of eyewitnesses unless the police include this information in the accident report.
Contact insurance carriers. You need to report the Anaheim bus accident to your insurance carrier as soon as possible. Even if you were not responsible for the incident in any way, your insurance carrier needs to know about what happened so that the claims process can begin. Keep your initial report very brief, and do not go into much detail. Just let the insurance carrier know that the incident occurred, where it happened, and who was involved.
Continue all medical care. You need to continue any medical treatment recommended by a doctor until you have reached maximum medical improvement. If you decide to discontinue care against medical advice, this could be taken as a sign by insurance carriers that you are not as injured as you say you are. This, in turn, could jeopardize how much compensation you receive.
Contact an Anaheim bus accident lawyer. A skilled Anaheim bus accident lawyer can get involved very early in these cases and help ensure that you recover maximum compensation for your losses.

Time Limit to File an Anaheim Bus Accident Claim

It is crucial for you to understand that there is a limited amount of time to file these claims. First, because most bus accident claims will be resolved through settlements with insurance carriers, you need to know that there are specific deadlines in place from these insurance providers. Whether we are talking about your personal auto insurance carrier or the insurance carriers of the bus company or driver, there are likely very short reporting deadlines in place. Most insurance carriers require that injuries be reported within a day or two after the incident occurs, or they will delay or deny the claim.

Additionally, the California personal injury statute of limitations is two years from the date an injury occurs. If a bus accident victim in Anaheim fails to file a lawsuit against the alleged negligent bus driver or bus company within this two-year timeframe, they will likely lose the ability to recover the compensation they are entitled to for their losses.

Contact Our Anaheim Bus Accident Lawyers

Bus accident attorneys at Christopher Lee Law Firm have spent more than two decades helping injured clients and their loved ones recover compensation after an accident, and we can help you do the same. Call our Anaheim personal injury lawyers today at 866-222-1255 for a no-obligation consultation.