Personal Injury Law

Chicago Accident Involving Several Vehicles Ends with Bus Crashing into School

By Kris Briggs

According to various media reports, on Monday afternoon a succession of events ended with a Chicago bus crashing into the side of the Rowe-Clark Math and Science Academy. Ten ambulances responded to the scene, and 12 people were transported to hospitals for treatment?two of them in serious to critical condition.

The Chicago Sun-Times cites the account of one person who witnessed the accident: An SUV was apparently following closely behind a car, then sped up and changed lanes, moving into the lane in which the bus was traveling. In an apparent effort to avoid hitting the SUV, the bus then crashed first into another car and then into the school building.
The article reports that police cited the driver of the SUV for following too closely.

People injured in car accidents may choose to sue in an attempt to get compensation for the harm they suffered. In order to succeed, the person suing, i.e. the plaintiff, would have to show that he or she was injured, and that the injury was caused by the negligence of another person (or several other people). However, most states today consider the relative negligence of all the various people involved, and assign the liability accordingly. This approach is called ?comparative negligence.?

Thus, in the case of an accident that involved a number of vehicles, the actions of all the drivers (or any other people involved) would be scrutinized for negligence. If injured plaintiffs were found to have been negligent, too, in a way that played a part in the injury they suffered, they would still receive compensation; however, the amount of money that they would recover would be reduced based on the percentage of fault that was assigned to them.

Full post as published by Illinois Injury Law Blog on May 11, 2010 (boomark / email).