Montgomery Area Transit’s 14 bus routes take people all throughout Montgomery. With so many buses and routes, it is common for accidents and injuries to happen, but that by no means excuses these accidents. If you were hurt in a crash involving a Montgomery Area Transit bus, you need to take steps to get yourself to safety and gather evidence for any potential injury claims.
Your first step after a crash should be to get yourself to safety, whether you were injured as a pedestrian, a passenger on the bus, or a driver/passenger in another car. Get to the shoulder and call 911 for help. Police and EMTs should respond, and if you need to go to the hospital, do so. Then, do what you can to gather evidence about what happened, relying on the police report if you were unable to remain at the scene of the accident.
For help with your injury case, call the Montgomery, AL car accident lawyers at Howe Law today at (844) 876-4357.
First Steps After a Bus Crash Involving Montgomery Area Transit
Whether you are reading this so that you know what to do if you are ever involved in a crash or you are reading this after you have already been involved in an accident, it is important to understand what is going to happen after a crash and what steps you should take.
In the immediate aftermath of a bus accident, the police and the bus company are going to try to get the roads cleared, get traffic moving, and clear any debris and damaged vehicles from the area. Montgomery Area Transit will likely do what it can do to deny liability and shut down claims. This means being careful to take the best actions you can in the immediate aftermath of an accident.
Get to Safety
After an accident, your immediate first action should be to get to safety. Especially if there is a fire or obvious danger inside the bus, use the nearest exit or emergency exit to get out of the bus, get to the side of the road, and wait in a well-lit area off of the road. A secondary accident – where another car crashes into the stopped vehicles or passengers – can be devastating, so make sure to stay where it’s safe.
Call 911
Once you are safe, call 911. It should usually be the driver’s responsibility to call the police, but if the driver is incapacitated, you can call instead. Our Mobile, AL bus accident attorneys understand that, with a bus crash, there might be many people injured or at least involved in the accident, so you might hope that someone else will make the call. Feel free to coordinate with others and check that someone has indeed called for help, but do not assume that someone else will do so. If everyone assumes someone else will call, it could be that no one actually ends up calling for help.
When you call 911, request a police response and an ambulance. In the case that many people are injured, the dispatcher might ask how many people are injured, and any estimate you can give will be helpful in getting enough ambulances to the scene.
Let First Responders Do Their Work
When police and EMTs respond to the accident, follow all instructions about where to stand, when to go with them to the hospital, and what you should do next. Especially since many people might be clamoring for medical care or information, it is important to be patient.
At the same time, be assertive if you need medical attention, and come forward to ask for assistance if you need it.
Gather Information
As a victim in the crash, it is your right to get the information you need about what happened, who was involved, and how the vehicles were damaged. You should get the driver’s information and the information for any other drivers involved in the accident. Also get their insurance information and, if they are employed by a transportation company (such as the bus company), get their employer’s info as well.
Additionally, collect information about where the accident happened, when the crash took place, what vehicles were involved, what signs/signals control the intersection or street, and what the road, weather, and lighting conditions were like.
Get Medical Aid
This might come earlier in the steps of what to do if you were seriously injured. If you are not able to remain at the scene of the accident, go with EMTs in the ambulance and get the medical care you need at the hospital. If you were able to remain at the scene and gather information, that will be helpful later, but collecting evidence is not more important than your health and safety.
Call a Lawyer
Our attorneys are ready for your call whenever you are ready to make it. We can help very early on in your case to gather missing evidence, take photos, collect security camera footage from nearby cameras, and talk to witnesses and police officers to get further information about what happened. We can also help you collect your medical records and track your expenses related to the crash so that we know how much to claim in your injury case.
Get a Police Report
Our attorneys can also help with this, but getting a copy of the police report in your case will be essential. Whether you end up filing for damages through a lawsuit or an insurance claim, having a copy of the police report for your crash will help point us to other evidence we can use to prove your claim and ensure we are suing the correct parties.
Call Our Bus Accident Attorneys in Montgomery, AL Today
For a free case review, contact the Alabama personal injury attorneys at Howe Law by dialing (844) 876-4357.
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