Attwood Marshall Lawyers Legal Practice Director Jeff Garrett reflects upon bus and road safety in recent times and explains crash victims’ compensation rights, more than 30 years after Attwood Marshall Lawyers first launched its bus safety campaign for school children.
The dangers of a large vehicle, carrying many passengers
Bus crashes can be horrifically damaging for all involved, causing serious injuries and often, death. The vehicle’s mammoth size, frequent use by large numbers of passengers including school children, in populated areas, means they are at high-risk of having a catastrophic impact on many people’s lives should they be involved in a road traffic accident, injuring, or killing passengers and pedestrians.
Buses also often travel long distances, along Australia’s fatigue-inducing, and poorly designed inter-state roads. There are enough evident reasons for this mode of public transport to have a swathe of safety measures devoted to it, but unfortunately, there is plenty of evidence to show that transport companies and governments have not learned the lessons of the past – we keep seeing horrendous fatal bus crashes, along with a rising death toll on the roads.
Just this month, along Queensland’s tourism trail to the Whitsundays, a Greyhound bus allegedly drifted onto the wrong side of the highway and collided with a caravan, leaving three people dead and several critically injured. Initial police investigations into the Bruce Highway bus tragedy indicated the bus had been travelling north on the highway and then had veered into the southbound lane colliding with a four-wheel-drive towing a caravan.
Whilst police are investigating whether fatigue played a role in the crash, one passenger said the bus left more than an hour late, leading to suggestions the driver may have been speeding to catch up to schedule. Locals complain that the famous stretch of road, once north of southeast Queensland is poorly maintained and are unsurprised by the crash. That site of the crash has a road safety rating of just two to three stars.
Also this month on the Gold Coast, a school bus crash potentially endangering the lives of 25 children, was only narrowly avoided when a teenage schoolgirl, valiantly steered the vehicle away from oncoming traffic after the bus driver suffered a heart attack and lost consciousness.
And nobody can forget, the tragic wedding party bus crash in Hunter Valley which killed 10 people last year, when a coach carrying 35 passengers from a nearby wedding, overturned on a roundabout near Greta in June 2023. Earlier this year, the bus driver was charged with 89 offences over the crash
Safeguard for seatbelts and schools: Attwood Marshall Lawyers’ bus safety campaign 30 years on
The signs are clear: buses can kill and safety around them needs to paramount. This is a message Attwood Marshall Lawyers, first led by former Managing Partner, Rob Davis more than 30 years ago, has supported. As the former Queensland president of the Australian Plaintiff Lawyers Association (APLA), Rob, like all Attwood Marshall plaintiff lawyers, didn’t work for insurance companies, only for the victims of injury or malpractice.
He put Attwood Marshall Lawyers’ bus safety campaign on a national footing and achieved high profile results including introducing seat belts to school buses and a ban in Queensland to children standing on school buses travelling in 100k/ph zones.
Key highlights of the campaign:
- In 1990, Attwood Marshall Lawyers’ Rob Davis attends an inquest into the fatal Tambourine Mountain bus crash.
- Attwood Marshall Lawyers employed a media advisor and started a public campaign to lobby for support to ensure child safety on buses.
- The government subsequently introduces news safety measures for buses, specifically to improve school transport.
Attwood Marshall Lawyers were delighted to see the Queensland Government subsequently respond to bus safety concerns and commit $101 million dollars over 25 years to improve school transport safety – including the use of seatbelts on school buses.
“It was a major commitment for Attwood Marshall Lawyers to put money into a campaign like this and I have to say that it probably wouldn’t have occurred in just about any other law firm. We were lucky in that my partners all were concerned about the same issue, and they were happy to get on board.”
“People often suggest that it’s unusual for a law firm to get involved in a public campaign like this. It wasn’t the first campaign that we were involved in, and it wasn’t the first issue that we were concerned about.”
Rob Davis, Former Managing Partner, Attwood Marshall Lawyers 1997-2000
Current bus safety standards
Today, in buses fitted with seatbelts – which the Volvo coach involved in the Hunter Valley crash reportedly was – everyone on board is required to use them. However, it is not the driver’s responsibility to ensure compliance.
In the wake of the Hunter Valley bus tragedy, the NSW government ordered its Bus Industry Taskforce to urgently examine safety management, seatbelt use and regulation.
Attwood Marshall Lawyers welcomed the Bus Industry Taskforce subsequent report which supported our long-standing call for seatbelts on school buses and lowering the speed limit where standing is allowed on school buses.
The report recommended;
- Continue the implementation of the NSW Rural and Regional Seatbelts Program in outer metropolitan areas, prioritising the retrofitting of seatbelts on school buses.
- Implement a road safety campaign to promote seatbelt usage on buses, aiming to raise awareness, change behaviour and ensure compliance with seatbelt laws.
- Transport NSW to consider how bus operators can be best assisted to understand and comply with their obligations to take “reasonable steps” to inform passengers about the mandatory use of seatbelts.
- Transport NSW to examine the risks associated with standers on buses and explore potential risk mitigation approaches to address public perception and concerns.
- Transport NSW to consider whether the 80kph rule for dedicated school bus services with standing passengers could be rolled out across all services.
It is very disappointing to see governments still struggling to ensure school children on school buses are seated and wear seatbelts after all this time. Indeed, all buses should insist passengers are seated with seatbelts worn. It is particularly relevant to buses, given the dynamics of a bush crash and the potential to be thrown around in or out of the bus if you are not restrained. The figures don’t lie – seatbelts save lives!
How to navigate the legal system after being injured in a bus crash
Attwood Marshall Lawyers are strong advocates of the need to make people aware of their rights to claim compensation if they are injured in a motor vehicle accident as a driver, passenger, or a pedestrian.
As personal injury lawyers, we regularly see first-hand the devastating consequences of inattentive driving. Many victims involved in bus crashes suffer significant injuries and need hospitalisation, often carrying the burden of lifelong effects of those injuries.
All states and territories in Australia have a compulsory third party (CTP) insurance scheme to cover payments of compensation to people injured in road accidents. A component of each vehicle’s registration fee is used to fund this insurance scheme. Although the schemes are predominantly ‘at fault’ systems, if you are a passenger in any vehicle, you will always have a claim against the driver at fault, except in extraordinary circumstances where you are the cause of the accident. Likewise, pedestrians will nearly always have a claim no matter what the circumstances of the accident are – there is a very high duty of care on the part of drivers when it comes to pedestrians and cyclists.
Anyone involved in a bus crash should obtain legal advice as soon as possible so that they understand their legal rights and entitlements to compensation for any injuries sustained. There is usually a claim form that needs to be completed and served upon the CTP insurer of the vehicle – depending on which state or territory you are in, this claim form needs to be served within 6-9 months from the date of the accident. It is very important to get the claim form completed and served as soon as possible – this triggers the obligation of the CTP insurer to pay for any reasonable medical treatment and expenses incurred by the injured person. They must also participate in any reasonable rehabilitation that is required.
Often a Forensic Crash Unit will carry out an investigation to determine the cause of the crash and everyone’s involvement. Police investigators will obtain witness statements, dashcam footage, and electronic data from the damaged vehicles. They will also take photographs of the scene, examine tyre marks on the road, damage to nearby property and the extent of the damage to each vehicle. They will investigate whether drugs or alcohol played a part in the collision and whether any criminal charges should be brought.
If relevant, they can also obtain data from mobile phones to show at what time and for how long the driver was looking at, texting, or talking on their mobile phone. However, when you are a passenger in a bus crash, it is often irrelevant whose fault the accident is – it will simply be a matter of which insurance company is responsible for the claims made.
Types of compensation available
Victims involved in bus crashes may be eligible to claim compensation for costs related to the collision, including medical and hospital expenses, loss of income, pain and suffering, domestic assistance (paid and unpaid), and rehabilitation services for physical and psychological injuries.
If a bus crash has caused fatality, spouses or dependents of the deceased may be eligible for compensation, including for the loss of financial dependency and the loss of services provided by the deceased.
These claims would be for a one-off payment comprising their past and future losses from the head-on collision and, in some cases, a “nervous shock” claim for any psychological injury a person may sustain due to witnessing or hearing about their loved one’s death.
The earlier you obtain legal advice about your potential entitlement to claim compensation, the better your outcome will be as there are strict deadlines for lodging and pursuing a claim.
Our expert compensation law team can guide you through your motor vehicle accident claim to ensure you give yourself the best chance to achieve an optimal outcome, giving you access to the treatment you need and the financial security you deserve for the future.
Attwood Marshall Lawyers – helping injured motorists for over 75 years
Our personal injury lawyers have the state-specific knowledge and experience to help anyone who has suffered serious injuries on Queensland and New South Wales roads, as well as all other states and territories of Australia.
If you have been involved in a motor vehicle accident and need advice and support to obtain the treatment you need, contact our friendly team by calling our Compensation Law Department Manager, Tyra Hall, on direct line 07 5506 8261, emailing thall@attwoodmarshall.com.au, or free call our 24/7 phone line on 1800 621 071.
