Gregory, TX — A shuttle overturned on Highway 181 between Gregory and Portland, Texas, on Thursday, September 25, 2014. The accident happened around 12:30 in the afternoon.
The shuttle involved was a modified Versa passenger van that’s usually used for people with special needs. There were two people inside at the time. One man was taken to a local hospital by ambulance. The second individual, a man in a wheelchair, was airlifted. There’s been no word on their exact injuries.
No names were released and the cause of the accident isn’t clear.
Scene of the Accident
Commentary
Going off what I’ve read of this accident, we likely have one of two possibilities here. The first is that the driver of the bus caused this accident. Obviously, a driver has a duty to protect his passengers while out on the road, so if the bus driver is to blame for the accident, then the passenger is going to have a liability claim against both the driver and the company that owns the bus. Now, this is where things get a little tricky. Buses are regulated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The FMCSA dictates several different parameters, one of which is how much insurance a bus is required to carry. Larger buses — city buses, Greyhound buses, etc. — are required to carry $5 million worth of insurance. The reason for this is pretty obvious. These buses carry a lot of people, and are capable of doing more damage. However, smaller buses, such as this one, fall into a grey area. The insurance requirements imposed on them are much more modest. This creates a scenario in which a passenger can sustain very serious injuries, but doesn’t have access to the same avenues of recovery as someone who suffers the exact same injury, only on a larger bus. If this accident was the fault of the bus driver, it’s possible that the bus’s relatively low amount of coverage will necessitate an entirely different legal strategy in order for the victim to have his expenses paid and be made whole again.
The second possibility is that the accident was caused by some outside factor. Another vehicle perhaps, or a blown out tire. If that’s the case, things could get complicated very quickly. For example, if the accident was the fault of another vehicle, well, the only other vehicle out there that’s going to have less insurance than the bus is going to be a regular passenger vehicle. That means that two people — in this case the bus driver and the passenger — are both going to be going after an even smaller amount of money, which means their road to recovery is going to be even harder.
Something to keep in mind regardless of what caused the accident is that the passenger inside the van was wheelchair bound. Texas law allows for an individual to seek compensation when they’re involved in an accident that makes a previous injury worse, or creates entirely new injuries. However, this gives the insurance company he’s arguing against a very good argument to make back. They’re going to say that it’s impossible to tell which injuries the victim sustained in the accident from the injuries he had before. Keep in mind that this is not an insurmountable problem. But it does need to be addressed appropriately.
— Grossman Law Offices
