Fort Lauderdale, FL Bus Accidents Lawyers Providing Legal Services to Bus Accident Victims
If you were seriously injured while riding a bus or driving your own vehicle near one, it’s time to learn your legal options as you begin to heal from painful injuries. There’s no reason you should be left paying for your own medical bills and property repairs as you heal physically and emotionally from a tragic bus accident in Fort Lauderdale. Let local bus accident attorneys recover compensation for you so the at-fault party can pay those bills instead.
If you’re unsure of how this works, the skilled personal injury lawyers at Milano Legal Group, PLLC, encourage you to come in for a free consultation with our team. Over the years, our bus accident lawyers have taken on claims for victims who sustained injuries in crashes involving school buses, city buses, and private buses. If you’re looking for legal support after your bus accident, come to our law firm for a free consultation to discuss where to go from here.
What Types of Serious Injuries Do Bus Crashes Cause?
Considering the sheer size of the average school bus or city bus, the injuries sustained in bus accidents tend to be severe or even permanent, especially if you’re in a vehicle that’s hit by a bus. Of course, they can also be deadly for bus passengers. The following are some examples of bus accident injuries for which you should get immediate medical attention after a crash:
- Whiplash and other neck injuries
- Internal bleeding
- Soft tissue damage
- Spinal cord injuries
- Serious head and facial injuries
- Burns
- Fractured bones
- Limb loss
- Paralysis
These types of injuries call for a thorough exam, diagnostic testing, and treatment from medical professionals, as they can get worse if they’re not treated. This is just one reason it’s critical to see a doctor immediately after you’ve sustained injuries in a bus accident.
Another reason is that you have proof of personal injury when you file a claim against the at-fault party’s insurance company. After all, you’re entitled to have all your medical expenses covered, even if the injuries sustained were minor and you only needed one doctor visit. It’s important that your medical records show you got medical care so your settlement can reflect this, as you should be able to get reimbursed for any out-of-pocket costs related to the crash.
Whether you’re thinking of filing a personal injury lawsuit after being injured in a bus accident or a wrongful death lawsuit after losing a loved one, you deserve to seek compensation after the accident. Hiring a law firm that features trusted, experienced bus accident lawyers can help you get the legal guidance you need as you seek damages from the negligent party. Call Milano Legal Group, PLLC at (954) 833-1224 to schedule your free legal consultation with a bus accident attorney you can count on.
Who Is Responsible for the Bus Accident That Injured Me?
Most of us expect bus drivers to be trained well enough that we’re safe on the road with them, whether we’re bus passengers or drivers of nearby vehicles. But as you know by now, accidents happen, even to bus drivers who are considered to be experienced and careful on the road. Of course, tragic accidents happen more often to drivers who display negligent driving habits as they drive around Fort Lauderdale.
In fact, many bus accidents are caused by the bus driver’s negligence, leading to serious injuries or death for bus passengers and nearby motorists alike. For example, some drivers operate their school bus or private bus while fatigued or intoxicated, causing them to miss or ignore traffic signs and signals that may include red lights and stop signs. When they blow through these without stopping, they can collide with other vehicles, injuring numerous people at once.
Some drivers operate their buses while distracted, as they might be too busy talking to a passenger or looking at their phone to focus on driving carefully. In this situation, they might cause a serious car accident when they rear-end a vehicle in front of them. When a bus accident occurs in this way, the driver and passengers of the car in front of them could sustain severe injuries, as can the passengers inside the bus.
Sometimes a collision occurs because of a problem with the bus or road, not necessarily the driver’s negligence. For instance, the bus could have defective parts or maybe in bad condition due to poor maintenance. The road could also be hazardous to drive on due to rain, snow, potholes, or other issues that the bus driver did not anticipate before operating the vehicle that day.
This is why proving liability is not as simple as you might think. The bus driver is not always the only responsible party. In some bus accident cases, there is more than one liable party to pursue compensation from. For instance, the bus company that employs the bus driver could be partly to blame for pressuring drivers to operate their vehicles even when they’re tired or unable to focus on driving safely. The bus manufacturer could be to blame for a defective bus, and a local government entity could take partial blame for not properly maintaining the roads.
The complexity of most bus accidents is exactly why you need to hire a bus accident attorney for your case. You will need help determining who is liable, so you know whose insurance company to file a claim against, and you’ll also need to know how to prove negligence in your case. The right bus accident lawyer can do all this and more, so contact our law offices in Fort Lauderdale to get started with our legal team today.
What Kind of Financial Compensation Can I Seek?
After a serious bus accident occurs, your first objective should be to get medical attention for your injuries. You may be wondering who will pay your medical bills. The answer is that due to Florida’s no-fault laws, you will first use your Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage to pay for your immediate medical needs.
However, when bus or car accident victims have serious injuries that require ongoing care and possibly future medical expenses, it’s not uncommon to exceed the limits of the PIP policy. If this happens, you will need to turn to the insurance companies of the bus driver, bus company, or any other at-fault parties to get compensation. A personal injury lawyer will help you with this process, so you have a chance to get economic and noneconomic damages as you heal from your injuries.
What Economic Damages Can I Pursue?
Economic damages are meant to pay for any hard costs associated with a tragic accident. For instance, an experienced bus accident lawyer will pursue damages to pay for your medical costs that your PIP coverage did not pay for. This could include fees for surgery, medication, physical therapy, casts, crutches, and other medical needs.
Economic damages can also cover property damage. If you were driving a car when a bus driver caused a collision, compensation for property damage will pay to repair your vehicle. If the car is totaled, you should collect compensation that’s sufficient to buy a new car. If you were a bus passenger involved in a crash, property damage should pay for you to replace or repair any belongings that were destroyed, such as your phone, laptop, glasses, etc.
If you took time away from work while recovering from broken bones, neck injuries, and more, you likely missed out on earning your full income. This is why economic damages also usually pay for lost wages. If your paycheck is a lot smaller than usual or nonexistent after the car accident, pursuing lost wages from the insurance provider of the at-fault party should help you rest assured you can pay your bills as you did before the bus crash.
What Noneconomic Damages Can I Collect?
An experienced injury attorney in Faurt Lauderdale can also help you with recovering compensation that’s a little harder to calculate by yourself. Ensuring that noneconomic damages will be part of your settlement means that you will get compensated for the inconvenience and emotional trauma that the bus crash caused.
For example, if a school bus accident has left your child injured and experiencing flashbacks or anxiety about getting on a school bus again, noneconomic damages can help make up for the mental anguish and emotional distress they’re going through. This way, if you have to drive your children to school for a while after the school bus accident, your family will be compensated for the inconvenience of this. Other noneconomic damages may be available after a city or school bus accident, as well, depending on the details of the case.
Most victims can expect to get a fair settlement that includes a mix of economic and noneconomic compensation. If this appeals to you, it’s time to talk to Florida bus accident lawyers about your legal options. Contact Milano Legal Group, PLLC today to set up a free case evaluation at our law offices, where you can find out how to recover damages with the help of our caring personal injury lawyers.
How Will a Personal Injury Lawyer Help with My Bus Accident Claim?
The aftermath of car accidents can be difficult for injured victims and their families to deal with alone. Fortunately, you’re not alone when you hire a trusted lawyer to take on your personal injury case. At Milano Legal Group, PLLC, we take pride in helping clients attain settlements that give them the financial support they need as they heal from devastating injuries or the death of loved ones.
If you want to pursue compensation to pay for your medical bills, lost wages, and other expenses, you will need help proving that the driver of the bus involved in the crash was negligent and at fault for the accident. You will also need assistance proving the negligence of anyone else involved in the collision, so you know whose insurance provider to initiate a personal injury claim against.
At our law offices in Fort Lauderdale, we can take on these and other important tasks. We have the legal knowledge and experience to investigate the crash when drivers, bus companies, bus manufacturers, and government entities in charge of public transportation may all be partly to blame.
Once we determine who was at fault, we can start settlement negotiations with insurance companies to get you the compensation you deserve. If any insurance disputes come up, our lawyers can work on resolving them and will litigate your lawsuit when necessary. If you want to learn more about how we can help, contact our law firm today at 855-545-1777 for a free initial meeting with our team.