Injured by a City Bus or Other Public Transit? Take These Essential Actions to Protect Your Rights and Your Health

City buses (and school buses) are enormous vehicles – typically measuring 35-40 feet long, standing up to 12 feet tall, and weighing upwards of 40,000 pounds. By comparison, your family car is probably a tad under 15 feet long, and usually weighs in at less than 4,000 pounds. That’s why – in an encounter between any kind of mass transit bus and a passenger car – the bus almost always wins. And it’s substantially worse if you’re a motorcyclist or pedestrian.

But people who are hurt in bus-related accidents have yet another reason to feel the pain. Because generally speaking, if a governmental agency or department causes someone to be hurt, the innocent victims have had little legal recourse due to a legislative concept variously known as “governmental immunity,” “qualified immunity,” or “sovereign immunity,” depending on which experts you ask.

Whatever you choose to call it, this type of immunity can be frustrating for accident victims who have been hurt by government inaction (for example, when local cities fail to fix a pothole that later results in a crash), or when a government entity does something stupid (like hiring a bus driver who has a record of unsafe distracted driving). Fortunately, our team of personal injury attorneys has lots of experience dealing with these types of situations – overcoming so-called “immunity” laws and winning large legal settlements for our deserving clients in the process.

Achieve Justice with Our Help

As experts in all types of personal injury law, we’re well equipped to help you in circumstances of this nature. Consider, for example, the case of Jesus Moreno, a graphic designer and dedicated tri-athlete who was severely injured when a negligent Detroit city bus driver ran a red light and slammed into Moreno’s motorcycle. The resulting crash cost Moreno his right hand, and also left him with a lingering traumatic brain injury. Our team of attorneys fought for his rights through the legal system, and won the largest settlement against the Detroit Department of Transportation in years – $9.5 million – to help our client recover from his injuries and live his best life possible despite them.

Sadly, frightening mass transit accidents such as this aren’t limited only to city-owned buses in Michigan. In May, a Portage school bus rear-ended an SUV resulting in a multi-vehicle crash, shaking up a dozen children and injuring a 46-year-old Kalamazoo woman. Just a month earlier another school bus slammed into a Dearborn daycare operation; afterward the driver told witnesses that a water bottle had become lodged under the vehicle’s brake pedal. There have even been mass transit accidents involving the Detroit People Mover – including a scary derailment incident, and the horrifying death of a man who was dragged for nearly 15 minutes between its moving rail cars.

Why You Need a Personal Injury Attorney if You’re Hurt by a Bus

Accidents involving mass transportation are far more common than you might imagine. In 2023, city buses in Detroit were involved in more than one accident for every day of the year – ranging from minor fender-benders to a pedestrian downtown who was killed by the massive impact of a city bus. In that incident, the bus driver had a long record of infractions, and had already killed another pedestrian in 2015. Don’t think for even a moment that a tragedy like this couldn’t happen to you or someone you love. Which is why, to put it simply, if a city bus or other vehicle owned by the government crushes your car, rams into your bike, or knocks you off your feet while you’re walking beside the road, calling a dedicated personal injury attorney experienced with litigating these types of accidents and overcoming “governmental immunity” will be essential to your future well-being.

If you or someone you love are ever injured in an incident involving mass transit – be it a bus, a train, a taxi, an Uber/Lyft, even a tour boat to Mackinac Island or the fast ferry between Muskegon and Milwaukee – we urge you to contact us immediately. We’re intimately familiar with the limited timeframe in which you need to take legal action against the perpetrators. It’s a designated period of time called the statute of limitations – which is just three years for personal injury cases in Michigan. What’s more, we know how to investigate the root causes of your injuries – finding and interviewing eyewitnesses and expert witnesses, not to mention digging into the driving records of city transit employees, and checking their backgrounds to see if they have a history of distracted driving, drug offenses, or other incidents that might demonstrate a pattern of misbehavior that led to your pain and suffering.

And we do it all without taking a single penny out of your pocket. In short, if you’ve been hurt, it never hurts to get in touch with us. To get us on your side, call 855-MIKE-WINS (855-645-3946) or contact us online right away.

Content checked by Mike Morse, personal injury attorney with Mike Morse Injury Law Firm. Mike Morse is the founder of Mike Morse Law Firm, the largest personal injury law firm in Michigan. Since being founded in 1995, Mike Morse Law Firm has grown to over 200 employees, served 40,000 clients, and collected more than $1.5 billion for victims of auto, truck and motorcycle accidents. The main office is in Southfield, MI but you can also find us in Detroit, Sterling Heights and many other locations.