Bus drivers hold the safety of dozens of passengers in their hands every trip. When a driver's carelessness, recklessness, or incompetence causes an accident, injured passengers can pursue negligence claims against both the driver personally and the bus company that employed them.
Standard of Care for Bus Drivers
Bus drivers operating common carriers must exercise the highest degree of care toward passengers. This exceeds the ordinary reasonable person standard that applies to private drivers. Bus drivers must anticipate hazards, drive defensively, and prioritize passenger safety over schedule concerns.
The heightened duty applies to all aspects of operation: monitoring traffic and road conditions, maintaining safe speeds, making smooth stops and starts, ensuring passengers are safely situated before moving, and following all traffic laws.
Common Forms of Bus Driver Negligence
Distracted driving encompasses cell phone use, conversations with passengers, eating, adjusting controls, and any activity that diverts attention from driving. Bus drivers must maintain focus on the road at all times.
Speeding and aggressive driving puts passengers at risk. Drivers may speed to make up lost time or maintain schedules, but this violates their duty of care. Hard braking, quick acceleration, and aggressive lane changes can throw standing passengers.
Failure to ensure passenger safety before moving is common. Drivers should not start moving until passengers have found seats or secure handholds, and should allow adequate time for boarding and alighting.
Running traffic signals or stop signs violates traffic laws and breaches the duty of care. Improper turns and lane changes without checking blind spots causes collisions. Driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or medications creates extreme danger.
Fatigue and Hours of Service Violations
Driver fatigue contributes to many serious bus accidents. Commercial bus drivers must comply with federal hours-of-service regulations limiting driving time. Violations of these regulations establish negligence per se. Signs of fatigue include drifting between lanes, delayed reactions, and microsleeps where drivers briefly lose consciousness.
Bus companies that pressure drivers to exceed legal limits or ignore fatigue share liability for resulting accidents.
Direct Liability vs. Vicarious Liability
Injured passengers typically sue both the driver and the bus company. The driver faces direct liability for their negligent operation. The bus company faces vicarious liability under the doctrine of respondeat superior, which holds employers responsible for employees' negligent acts within the scope of employment.
Suing the bus company is usually more important than suing the driver personally. The company carries substantial insurance coverage, while the driver's personal assets are typically limited. However, naming both defendants preserves all recovery options.
Proving Driver Negligence
Evidence of driver negligence includes accident reports, traffic citations issued at the scene, witness statements from passengers and bystanders, surveillance video from the bus or nearby cameras, data from the bus's event data recorder, and expert accident reconstruction analysis.
The driver's employment records may reveal prior accidents, complaints, or disciplinary issues that support the claim. Training records can show whether the driver received adequate instruction on safety procedures.
Comparative Fault Considerations
Defendants may argue that passengers share fault for their injuries—for example, by standing when seats were available, not holding handrails, or moving about the bus while in motion. While passenger conduct may reduce damages in comparative fault jurisdictions, it rarely eliminates the driver's liability entirely.
Bus companies have a duty to warn passengers of hazards and cannot simply post signs to avoid responsibility. The common carrier duty of care places primary responsibility on the driver and company.
Damages Available
Injured passengers can recover compensation for all damages caused by driver negligence, including medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, emotional distress, and permanent disabilities. In cases of egregious misconduct like drunk driving or extreme recklessness, punitive damages may be available to punish the wrongdoer and deter similar conduct.
Document your injuries thoroughly, follow all medical treatment, and consult an experienced bus accident attorney to pursue full compensation for driver negligence.