Hayward, CA — There was an accident reported this past Wednesday afternoon (May 27, 2015) in Hayward that left a woman in her 60s with some serious injuries. Police said that the woman was trying to walk across Santa Clara Street that afternoon when a bus turned onto her street and struck her.
This was at about 12:10 p.m. on Wednesday, they said.
The woman was crossing Santa Clara at Elmhurst Street while a Hayward Unified School District bus was driving west on Elmhurst. As the woman was in the crosswalk, the bus turned onto Santa Clara and didn’t see the woman, hitting her.
She was taken to a nearby hospital with critical injuries and no updates have been issued about her condition since then.
The driver of the Hayward Unified School District bus was a woman in her 30s.
Map of the Accident
View from the Road
Commentary:
If what I’m reading in the news articles is correct, then it sounds like this bus should have yielded to the woman, not the other way around. That is, it appears as if the victim here had the right of way. Now, every state is a bit different, but in Texas, filing a claim against a school bus is a bit more complex than filing a claim against, say, GEICO. That’s because school districts technically fall under the category of “governmental entity,” which means they play by different rules when it comes to lawsuits and insurance claims. Usually, that means that there are different filing deadlines and there might be limits to how much liability the school district has to accept — regardless of how much at fault they were. It’s a system that’s obviously designed to benefit the government, not the person who was injured in the accident, which is unfortunate. With the right experience and finesse, you can navigate the waters, however, but it depends on the rules of that city or county.
— Grossman Law Offices