Nassau County Bus Accident Attorney

We’ve represented people who have been hurt as passengers on buses in cases. We tell those clients the very first thing that they should be doing is getting medical care. Take care of your injuries. Even if you don’t think you’re hurt, go get medical care because many times you’re hurt and you don’t know it. Head injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and soft tissue injuries sometimes don’t show up right away. You don’t see the symptoms or the effects of them for days or weeks on end. If you don’t get treated, you lose a lot of your ability to maximize your recovery. Not only that, if you don’t get treated and these symptoms come up later, a lot of times the jury is not going to believe you’re hurt. It makes it difficult to maximize the value of your case. That’s the very first thing that you should do— go seek medical treatment.

The next thing is call a lawyer. Lawyers can help with preservation of evidence. They can help with directing you through the maze of questions that you have because many times it’s the first time you’ve been hurt in a situation like this and you don’t know what to do. We’ve handled cases like these for decades. We’ve represented passengers in bus cases many times. We know what to do and how to direct you so that you get your medical care and the value of your case is preserved as best we can. If you’ve been involved in a bus accident case as a passenger in Nassau County and Duval County and the areas surrounding that, call us. We’ll sit down. We’ll go over all of those things. We’ll figure out how best to help you.

In Jacksonville, we have a pretty thorough bus system. In Nassau County, we have a little less of a system. That’s been privatized up here with different kinds of buses. If you’ve been involved in a collision with a bus, the first thing you should do is get treated. The second thing to do is call a lawyer. Many times, you’ve not been involved in a situation like this before. You don’t know what to do. If you get a hold of a lawyer early on, we can direct you. There are insurance questions that might be missed. Ironically, you’re responsible for paying your medical bills through your PIP insurance, if you have it. There are also wage issues to consider. There are a multitude of issues that we deal with as attorneys every day that are complicated to someone who’s not been involved with them before. If you’ve been involved in a bus accident, call us so we can help you.

Eventually, we speak with our clients about the value of their cases. It comes later in the life of your case, however. We do not discuss it with clients at the beginning because we don’t know yet what the value of the case is at that point.

There are many variables in determining the value of your case when you’ve been hurt in a bus accident scenario. A lot of it is driven by the nature and the extent of your injuries, including whether your injuries are permanent and whether they impair your ability to do the normal things that you do. Whether you were employed outside the home or not impacts that, whether you were responsible or partly responsible and whether somebody else, separate apart from the bus operator or you, was responsible. These are things that get factored into the value of your case. These are things that we typically don’t know and don’t have in our hands until later on. Sooner or later, we get to the point where we have that discussion and then we discuss the value of your case. If you’ve been hurt in a bus accident case in Duval County, Nassau County, or the surrounding areas, call us. We’ll sit down and we’ll talk about that as well as a host of other issues related to your case.

People ask often if it’s a wise thing to talk to the insurance companies after they’ve been involved in a bus accident case in Nassau County, or Duval County, or any of the surrounding areas. With your own insurance company, yes, talk to them. You’re obligated to talk to them. You have a responsibility to put them on notice as soon as you can after the accident that you’ve been involved in an accident. That triggers their responsibilities. You have a duty to cooperate with them, give them a statement if they ask for it. They will ask for it. There’s a host of other things that you have to do with your own insurance company.

Now, however, with regards to the insurance company for the bus company, the answer is no. Do not talk to them. They are the experts in their field and you are not. You are no match for them. That’s why we recommend that you contact a lawyer early on so that they can guide you. One of the things we tell clients in the first conference is do not talk to the insurance company. Have them contact your attorney. They call us and the flow of information will go through our office, which is the way it should be. That’s how we do things with that kind of claim in Nassau County and Duval County. If you’ve been involved in a bus accident case, call us. We’ll sit down, go over things, and see how best we can help you.

Clients often make mistakes before they come to see us. One of the most common mistakes is they don’t get treated for their injuries. In a bus accident case, many times you don’t realize you’re hurt. You’re in the adrenaline of the moment and that will mask pain many times. The pain doesn’t surface for several days, maybe a week or two. If you’re not careful, if you don’t get treated, your recovery won’t be as good. Your primary responsibility is to take care of yourself. Go get treated. Get back on your feet.

Other mistakes we see clients make is that they don’t do what their doctor tells them to do. The doctor is the quarterback. Do what your doctor says. The worst thing that you could do to your case from a medical perspective is being noncompliant. If you are noncompliant that means you’re not doing what the doctor tells you to do. Do what the doctor tells you to do. That will enhance your chances of getting as well as you can be.

The other mistake we see people make is they don’t retain a lawyer early on for whatever reason. Getting a lawyer early on in the process allows a lawyer to collect evidence, including photographing damage to the bus, to your automobile, and to the accident scene. These things go away after time. If we don’t get involved early on, then we lose valuable evidence that will enhance the value of your case.

If you’ve been hurt in a busing case in Nassau County, Duval County, call us early on. We can help you through the process and maximize the value of the case.

People don’t know this but a claim against a busing company is different than a claim brought in an ordinary automobile collision case. Many times, buses are operated by private companies that have a relationship with a governmental entity. This impacts how you begin the case, which is different from a lot of regular auto cases. If, for example, you miss a notice requirement, then you have no case. Your case, if you file the lawsuit, will be dismissed. If you don’t have a lawyer who’s experienced in handling bus claims, then the lawyer might miss it. We’ve been handling cases like these for years. We know where to go and how to go about handling a bus claim because it is different from an ordinary auto claim. If you’ve been hurt in Jacksonville, in Yulee, in Callahan, Hilliard, Bryceville, Amelia Island, Fernandina Beach, or the beaches in Duval County, call us today. We’ll go over your case and do the things necessary to maximize your claim.

We had a client once who was involved in an accident on the bus. The bus was going to the girl’s school and she wanted to know if we could sue the school. Typically, that answer is no. Schools do not control the buses. Many times, buses are owned by what are independent contractors. They are responsible for their conduct. The schools are not. Oftentimes, too, the school board is brought in. It’s hard to keep them in these kinds of cases in Duval County particularly, Nassau County as well. We typically do not look at the school. We look at the school bus driver and the school bus owner for the recovery. They are required to maintain a good bit of insurance because they are contracted by the school board or the school. They are required to carry liability insurance that would protect that little girl under those circumstances. These are things that come with experience in handling school bus accident cases. If you have a situation like this, call us. We’ll sit down with you, go over things, and see how best we could help you.

Sooner or later, all clients ask about the value of a case. It usually comes up when we are dealing with settlement offers connected with the case. In bus accident cases, that will come up later on in the case, as it does in most cases. Typically, we tell people we’re not going to take the first offer. Insurance companies are like most companies that are in the negotiation business. They will try to get away for as little as possible. They will send out a minimal offer to see if you will bite. If you have a lawyer who’s not experienced in this kind of a case, they may not understand fully that they should turn that down.

We’ve been handling cases like these for decades. We know that the first offer is not the offer to take. If we’re trying to resolve the case, then we’ll get their best dollar on the table, which means going back several different times, maybe discontinuing conversations until we get a case postured in the stronger position. We don’t take the first offer typically because we know that there’s more money in their pockets. If you’ve got this kind of question in your bus accident case, call us if you’ve been hurt in Nassau County or Duval County, and we’ll see how best we can help you.

If you are looking for the right bus accident attorney, get an experienced lawyer, one who has handled bus accident cases in Duval County, Nassau County, or the surrounding areas. Bus accident cases are different from automobile accident cases where you have two automobiles colliding with one another. Frequently, these buses are operated by agencies of the municipality. You have to understand how that works— the agencies you can sue, the agencies you cannot sue, if you’re dealing with agencies. There are other requirements before you can even get to the point of filing a lawsuit. You need someone who’s been down that road before.

We have handled bus accident cases from almost the very beginning of our law firm. These cases are different and you need someone who knows how to handle them. If you’ve been involved in a bus accident case, call us right away. We’ll sit down. We’ll figure out how best to help you.