Articles Tagged with bus

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Maryland Bus Accident.pngI’ve learned to not take things for granted at trial. I had a case once where a witness was going to testify about something, the defense lawyer objected, and the judge sustained (agreed with) that objection. I explained the the judge the objection was improper, that the evidence was allowed under Maryland law, and that my client should have been allowed to testify. He didn’t even spend a second reconsidering, but denied my request.

[It’s not important for the purpose of the story, but the judge ruled that the witness could not testify about what she heard an employee of the defendant corporation say immediately after an accident on company property. The judge ruled that the employee was not the corporation, so the statement did not qualify as an admission by party-opponent. Therefore, it was hearsay and forbidden. This is dead-wrong on the law].

So, I’ve learned that judges are people, too. They don’t always have all of the answers. It must be hard to be a judge–they have to know a little about the law for criminal cases, family/domestic cases, and civil cases. Of course they will get things wrong from time-to-time. I was caught off-guard because I thought the evidence rule was a basic one that everyone knew. I never made that mistake again.

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School Bus Accident Lawyers.jpgI’ve wondered this question ever since grade school. Back then, we didn’t have to wear seatbelts, but I remember dutifully doing so and chastising my parents when they didn’t (probably something we learned in school). In Maryland, we weren’t required to wear seatbelts until July 1986, and that was only for front seat passengers.

Buses were always an anomaly. School buses and commuter buses alike had no seatbelts. Even worse, you are allowed to stand up on commuter buses. There’s a bit of a bias against commuter bus accident victims (probably stemming from the stories we all hear about people rushing onto a bus after an accident to try to get a piece of the insurance pie); but common sense suggests that bus passengers, not tethered to their seats, may very well sustain more injuries. If not, then what are seatbelts for?

We’ve been told by our safety leaders that school buses are safe because of the design of the seats–they are well anchored, padded and high enough so that injuries are rare. Essentially, our children are compartmentalized to prevent injury. These improvements were a result of a UCLA study from about 35 years ago. However, that study also recommended the following that have never been implemented:

  1. Lap belts
  2. Aisle side panels

Why are lap belts and side panels important? The main reason is obvious–not all collisions are rear-enders. If a truck comes out of a side street and t-bones my child’s school bus, my child is going to move to the side, possibly fall into the aisle and onto the bus floor. If the bus rolls over on its side, my child will be propelled into the air. That’s not safety.

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