It’s been a long journey home for one boy who was critically injured after the school bus he was riding in was struck by a semi truck on Okeechobee Road in western Fort Pierce on March 26. Ten students were taken to the hospital in serious or critical condition after the tragic school bus accident, and one student died in the impact.
This is the first time the honor roll student has been home since he was airlifted to St. Mary’s Medical Center. According to wptv.com, the 11-year-old was nearly brain dead after the Fl bus accident. Doctors had to remove part of his skull and he was placed in a medically-induced coma for three weeks while they worked to save his life.
A large group of parents, well-wishers, and classmates came out for the boy’s Port St. Lucie homecoming and some in the crowd couldn’t help but be amazed that he was retuning home at all.
One youngster, marveling at his classmate’s recovery, said, “It’s a very big miracle he’s okay … that he can walk, talk, eat.”
Although the injured boy has come a long way, he still has to have surgery to replace the front sides of his skull and he will require many hours of intense therapy before he can return to school.
The bus crash attorneys in Florida at Farah & Farah are happy to see this boy returned home to his family. If a loved one has been injured in a crash, medical bills and other expenses can pile up quickly. Call our experienced team at (800) 533-3555 to see if we can help your family.
By Eddie Farah on February 8, 2012 -
Florida state Senator Oscar Braynon, wants to install cameras on school buses to catch violators who fail to obey school bus safety laws and fine them $200. A First Coast News investigation from Jacksonville followed a school bus and caught six drivers who sped past a stopped school bus during just three stops. One irate mother told the news channel she has watched her developmentally delayed son nearly get hit several times. She has complained to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office but never heard back.
If the proposal passes, the individual school districts would have to pay for the cameras, but ticket proceeds would cover the installation. The bill is SB 250.
According to a 2011 National Stop Arm Violation Survey by the State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services, there are more than 20,000 school bus stop violations every day. In Duval County, there were more than 2,000 incidents of illegally passing a school bus. The data shows in Florida there were 12,967 buses that participated in the survey and there were 8,917 passing violations out of more than 20,000 vehicles passing the school bus.
School Bus Stop Law
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles reports the drivers who pass a school bus on the left when it is stopped with the stop sign down and lights flashing have committed a moving violation. The ticket for the first offense is $165 and passing on the right side of the bus will result in a $265 ticket. A second offense will result in another ticket and a license suspension of 180 days to one year, plus a hearing before a judge.
Farah and Farah’s Florida bus accident attorneys understand that a driver on the other side of a divided highway from the school bus when that median is at least five feet wide, has a physical barrier or a raised median, is not required to stop.
By Eddie Farah
A mother and her young child were injured and hospitalized after a wreck with a school bus early in the morning on January 5. It happened on the Eastside of Jacksonville when witnesses say the woman, driving a Dodge pickup truck, tried to pass the bus as it was stopped with flashing light to load students at the corner of Egner and 11th streets. When the bus began to pull forward, it collided with the pickup truck trying to pass on its left, which caused the pickup to overturn several times and come to a rest on its side in someone’s front yard.
The Jaws of Life were used to remove the mother and child through the roof. The students were on their way to Pinedale Elementary School and neither the students nor the bus driver were hurt, but the mother and child were hospitalized, though The Florida Times-Union says their injuries are not life-threatening. The child was reported to be in a child car seat.
According to News4jax.com, charges will likely be filed against the mother as a result of the collision. Let’s all pray that the mother and child are not seriously injured.
Florida School Bus Law
Florida Statute 316.172 says that a driver must bring his or her vehicle to a full stop when approaching a school bus with its stop signal and lights displayed. The vehicle may not pass the school bus until the signal has been withdrawn and the lights are off. To pass the bus with the stop signals on is a moving violation. The only exception is if you are coming from the opposite direction on a divided highway with a median of at least five feet. Bottom line – stop when you are in the vicinity of a school bus with its flashers on and let those behind you know you are preparing to stop by slowing down. It’s not only the law, but the Jacksonville bus accident lawyers at Farah & Farah remind drivers that you may save a young life.
Source: http://www.news4jax.com/news/2-injured-in-wreck-with-school-bus/-/475880/7647966/-/6macrz/-/index.html; http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2012-01-05/story/mother-child-injured-after-collision-jacksonville-school-bus
Eleven students from a Lakeland elementary school along with two adults had to be hospitalized Monday, October 3, after a car collided with their school bus on South Florida Avenue and Fitzgerald Road in Polk County. There were 45 children on the bus from Scott Lake Elementary School ranging from kindergartners to fifth graders and the children injured received minor injuries according to the Polk County Fire and Rescue. The Florida school bus accident happened around 2:45 p.m. after the bus left the school. Witnesses said it appeared the bus crashed into a vehicle which led to a chain reaction involving four vehicles in all. This is reportedly the first time the 60-year-old bus driver had had any problems with Polk County public schools since he began working as a driver two years ago. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office will begin an internal investigation.
Let’s hope the children are okay. This crash was unusual in that in the three other bus-related crashes, a vehicle has crashed into a school bus.
School Bus Safety
School buses are one of the safest forms of transportation on the road today with an average of seven passenger fatalities among the 23.5 million children transported in the U.S. every day.
Florida is one of the few states that have seat belts on about 14 percent of the 2,700 school buses in the state. Whether the children wear them is another story. And some critics argue that the two-point belts can actually cause injury to children. School buses also have something called seating compartmentalization designed to absorb the energy from those not restrained. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) believes school buses could be even safer if hard surfaces inside the bus such as the back of a seat, the sidewalls, window, and seat frames were constructed to absorb energy in a crash.
Source: http://www.theledger.com/article/20111003/NEWS/111009823/1410?Title=Accident-With-School-Bus-Blocks-South-Florida-Avenue;http://74.125.47.132/custom?q=cache:BizWXOfuAtkJ:www.flhsmv.gov/html/SchoolBusSafety.DOC+florida+school+buses+%26+seat+belts&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=google-coop-np
A special needs bus traveling west on Interstate 4 Friday, July 9, hydroplaned and flipped over a guardrail after hitting a puddle. The bus hydroplaned across the westbound lanes before it hit the guardrail at the Winter Park exit, west of the Lee Road exit and then collided with a highway exit sign and a light post before flipping over. The bus was carrying a six-year-old girl and her custodian, a school employee, as well as the bus driver. Fortunately, no one was injured but the three inside had to crawl out of the emergency exit before first responders arrived. The bus was heading back to Lake County from a class in Orange County.
The Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) tells WFTV-TV that the bus was hanging onto the guardrail by one tire and that getting caught on the guardrail may have kept the bus from sliding down an embankment. The westbound lanes of I-4 were shut down as a tow truck pulled the bus out. FHP will determine if the bus driver will face any changes.
Our well wishes go out to everyone involved in this near tragedy.
Florida has experienced the more typical June showers over the last few days and that means that oil on the roadway gets wet and causes cars to slide. You would be well-advised to slow down in a rain storm, even without much precipitation on the road to avoid having a repeat of what happened here.
The bus accident attorneys in Florida at Farah & Farah are just a phone call away if you or a loved one is involved in a traffic accident with injuries. We will help you with the paperwork necessary to determine the at-fault party while you concentrate on getting better. Call us anywhere in Florida and South Georgia at 1-800-533-3555.
Source: http://www.wftv.com/countybycounty/28490839/detail.html
A school bus driver in Osceola County could not stop in time and rear-ended three cars stopped ahead of her, causing minor injuries and a scare for the two students onboard the bus at 8:15 a.m. on Thursday, June 9. It happened on Boggy Creek Road at Bill Beck Boulevard where the first car tried to complete a turn but stopped and failed to fully exit the lane of traffic. The Orlando Sentinel reports that caused a Chrysler van behind the car to stop, then a four-door Acura. But instead of responding to road conditions, the school bus rear-ended the Acura which hit the van.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP), the Acura driver was trapped in her vehicle until she was rescued by first responders. She was taken to Osceola Regional Hospital but fortunately suffered only minor injuries. Meanwhile, the van’s driver was not hurt and two students aboard the bus were not injured. No one would have been injured if the bus driver had stopped as road conditions dictated. She received a citation for careless driving. Fortunately there were not more serious injuries involved in this multi-vehicle bus crash in Florida.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports school buses are some of the safest vehicles on the road. On average U.S. school buses carry more than 23 million children every day and an average of 7 passengers are killed every year. Florida statistics show that between 1998 and 2002, six children died in accidents involving school buses, with two killed inside the bus and four who died loading or unloading the bus. Often the crash is blamed on the driver of the other vehicle.
The bus accident lawyers in Jacksonville at Farah & Farah remind us to never ride too close to a school bus and remain stopped until the bus lowers its stop sign. After that, remain on the lookout for all kids around the school bus who may dart in front of traffic. And pay attention to school crossing areas and crossing guards. Drivers are required to stop at marked stop lines to avoid hitting a pedestrian or bicyclist leaving from or coming to school.
Sources: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/osceola/os-school-bus-crash-boggy-creek-20110609,0,7297468.story and http://www.flhsmv.gov/html/SchoolBusSafety.pdf
