Not at [your] fault accident. Should the other driver get a ticket? Does it even matter?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Videos/pictures at the end…

A few weeks ago I was hit by a school bus. Everyone is fine, we were both at speed and he hit me from behind, so it’s not like I was at a stop light and got clobbered or that he ran a red light and broadsided me. If he had stopped when he after the initial hit, even the damage would have been considerably less. However, he didn’t stop, he pushed me for about a block until I sorta rolled off the front of the, my very low car, jumped the very high curb and was brought to a violent rest when it hit brick retraining wall (more like a raised garden).

It initially looked like he was going to drive off, but he stopped about a block away. I’m already on the phone with 911 and bystanders are coming out of their houses and businesses to see what the noise was and check on me. When he walked over to me, he asked what happened, I said ‘you moved over into my lane (with, literally, inches to spare) hit me and then pushed me up into this wall’ and he had a surprised look on his face and said “I did that?”. This went around around in circles. Me (and others) telling him what happened, him seeming totally shocked that he did it. What I should have said was 'if you didn’t know you hit me, why did you stop? If I didn’t know I hit someone, I’d keep driving".

Anyways, a cop showed up, took the report, insurance claims were filed, things are getting sorted out. This was 3 weeks ago, the police report is officially available, but so far I’ve yet to see any charges against him. At the very least for inattentive driving. According to his supervisor that was at the scene. Between his very high bus and my very low car, I was just exactly in his blind spot when he changed lanes. Mind you, he didn’t make contact with me when he changed lanes, but he was, again literally, inches behind me. But even so, how did he not hear or feel the initial impact and no matter how small my car is, how did he not notice he was pushing me for an entire block?

And a side note. The supervisor was very nice, granted part of her job is smoothing this stuff over, but what really bugged me is when we were waiting for the police to show up she made the comment that “If they’re not here soon, we’ll have to just exchange information, he needs to be back on the road by 1:30”. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t some sort of SOP that would keep him off the road until they do their own investigation. At the very least a drug/alcohol test, check his phone for being used during the incident etc.

So, all that and my question is, why wouldn’t he have received a ticket? Does it even matter? Their insurance is working with me. That’s a whole other story, but for the purposes of this story, they’re paying for the damages without any real arguments. Would it bother you, personally, if the other driver didn’t get a ticket?

As promised, some videos.

This one is laggy and grainy, but of all the Nest/ring/surveillance videos people sent me, shows what happened the best.

This one is my dashcam video. (Sorry, I really hate that Colin Quinn was on in the background). It starts really early so you can see the school bus next to me as I pass it when the light turns green. At the 17 second mark, you’ll hear me say ‘oooh’. That’s when he changed lanes, now he’s behind me. A half second later, you’ll hear the initial impact, and then I get pushed until I’m into the wall. I honestly thought I was going to roll over, then convinced myself I was over reacting, then I saw the above video and this dash cam video and realized I actually had the two right tires up off the ground. I’m actually pretty lucky I didn’t roll over.

Some of the aftermath:


This is the guy who owns the green truck in the street behind my car. I think he spent his whole life waiting for something like this to happen (and in front of his house too). He got to block traffic with his flashing lights, had his own road cones. Brought out a battery powered sweeper to clean up the debris. He seemed like a bit of a prepper. That car says ‘zombie patrol’ and was full of first aid gear and fire extinguishers etc. And since he must have been the handyman for the business I was in front of, he was already at work rebuilding the little brick wall. He was so full of adrenaline (or maybe coke) I had a hard time getting a picture of my car without him in it since he seemed to be all over the place.

2

Can the police issue a ticket for something they didn’t witness?

Hope it was a private bus company so you don’t have to sue a school district.

3

In Pennsylvania there has to be a police report if there are injuries requiring medical attention or if either car is not able to be driven. I’ve used this to force a report by pointing out that my turn signal was broken, thus my car wasn’t street legal.

I’ve found a police report makes the insurance claim much more straight forward.

4

Two tickets within a short time can result in a commercial driver license being temporarily revoked:

Maybe the cop was reluctant to cost someone their job (or move them one step closer to unemployment) by issuing a ticket? Given the supervisor’s interest in getting the driver back on duty ASAP, she may have made that argument to the cop on the scene as well.

Your car is not “very low,” it’s a very typical sedan. Not buying the blind spot claim, unless the driver was just 4’ tall. Here’s a school bus dash cam showing a frontal impact:

To be fair, the dash cam here is probably up near the top edge of the windshield, and the driver’s view would be a bit lower. But seeing what this dash cam can see (the door handles of the upside-down pickup trick just a foot above the road and a few feet in front of the bus bumper), your bus driver surely had a clear view at least of the roof of your car while he was pushing you.

5

Heh. Great first line.

6

The scary thing is that if the school bus driver failed to notice the sedan in his blind spot, is he going to notice the first grader walking there? There have been tragic accidents in which schoolchildren have been killed passing in front of the school bus, which is why the driver is expected to stop and wait until they see the kid walk all the way across the road.

7

I hope that driver’s license to drive commercially or otherwise is revoked. He shouldn’t be driving anything. Do we have to wait for him to kill someone before he loses his job?

8

Check in with your insurance company. They should be able to get answers and provide you with them.

9

I’m sorry about your accident and I hope you are okay. His not getting a ticket wouldn’t bother me. He will still have an at-fault accident on his record, so his insurance rates will go up. He doesn’t want to cause any more accidents or he will lose his job. There is no dispute about his liability so I can’t see how the citation would help you.

As you concede, the camera viewpoint makes it seem like a car would be more visible than it really would be but, as you can see in the video, school buses have mirrors right there to check that spot for children. He should have checked that mirror for cars before he changed lanes. There isn’t really a “blind spot” there if you are paying attention.

10

Blind spot, blind scmott. You don’t drive where you can’t see.

11

If he hits a car and can’t tell he’s pushing it down the street, he has no business driving anything.

12

In the case of an accident, absolutely. Otherwise there would never be a ticket issued following an accident, and there almost always is. Their job is to assess the physical evidence, talk to the drivers and any witnesses, and write an accident report. In the process they are almost certain to issue a ticket based on how fault is found. I would consider it a case of major incompetence if the bus driver wasn’t charged. “I didn’t see the other vehicle” is never an excuse.

13

Kids can be much shorter in stature than cars, as well as being much shorter in fore/aft length. The mirrors are to check for kids that are completely obscured by the engine cowling (due to being just a couple of feet from the front bumper), or for pulling up to objects when parking in close quarters.

It was not my intention to argue in favor of the bus driver going uncited. OP asked for reasons why a ticket might not have been issued, and I merely offered my speculation as to what the cop may have been thinking. FWIW, I agree with you: this wasn’t a momentary lapse of attention that resulted in a love tap - the bus literally pushed the OP’s car all the way down the street, and the bus driver professed a profound lack of awareness after the fact. If that doesn’t merit a ticket, I wonder what would.

14

Was just using your examples, not ascribing any motive to you. It’s certainly possible those were factors affecting the police officer’s actions.

15

That’s irrelevant. In cases like this the officer must maintain objectivity.

Typically an officer makes a determination of fault, usually 0, 50, or 100%. This determination can be challenged by the violator and/or insurance investigators. When it’s determined that both drivers were equally at fault either both receive cites or neither. But when one driver is completely at fault a cite is usually issued. It backs up the conclusion of what happened and who did what.

A driver can be at fault in what is called an unavoidable circumstance. Many times cites aren’t issued then.

Maybe I missed it but what jurisdiction did this accident, occur?

16

I’d like to know that, and if it was a private bus company. I assume the police office didn’t see the video. Don’t know what witnesses told him. It’s interesting that the bus driver’s supervisor was there and I’d like to know what kind of relationship she had with the police. And plenty of other things. I can see a small town police officer ending up with a 50% determination as you describe simply to make his own life easier.

17

Between all the camera footage, witness (and driver) statements, I don’t see why not. They could certainly give him a ticket for something and let the courts deal with it.

I believe it was. I mean, it didn’t have the name of a school on it, just the name of the business that owns the bus. I have a feeling, but could be entirely wrong, it may be mostly transporting people with special needs. But I can’t find out a whole lot about them, it’s just based on the name on the bus. They have no real social media presence.

Had she pushed the subject, I would have explained that if he leaves the scene, I’ll report it to the police as a hit and run.

Someone else said almost the exact same thing. That it’s possible part of the supervisor’s job is to go and smooth talk the police (and other involved party) into not pursuing the matter. Having said that, it’s not my problem and that was mostly my attitude during the encounter. In fact, she told me many, many times that their insurance is super good and they’ll call me in the morning and they’re really easy to work with and if I run into any snags at all, just give her a call. Well, I ran into a few snags and when I called their insurance about it, I got snapped at (they blamed me for not asking them for a rental car, even though I already did, then I was snapped at when I mentioned I went to see my doctor because my neck and shoulder were bothering me). After that, I put the claim in with my insurance and I’ll let them figure it out.

I’m not saying it’s very low in general, I was just saying that a civic is very low compared to a bus. Not that it’s excusable, but it made sense. It doesn’t let anyone off the hook, and it almost certainly means he wasn’t actively checking for cars I’m just saying, a low car just in front of and to the right of the bus could be hard to see. But even then, my point, that I made to everyone at the scene, was that even if he didn’t see me when he changed lanes, he certainly must have (or, rather, could have) seen me while he was pushing me down the road.

Yeah, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of ‘well I got hit by a fucking bus’ over the past few weeks. Came in especially handy just a few days ago when my dad, for the millionth time said ‘I’m 65, I might not be here tomorrow’…‘and I got hit by a bus, what’s your point’

That’s kinda my point. Does it really matter what happens with him. On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind seeing him get big fine. I mean, I have to go weeks without my car, then I have to turn it in (it’s leased) and hope they don’t find more damage and for him, what? He was literally back out on the road the same day.
A little part of me considered calling a local news channel because ‘school bus accident’ is something that would almost certainly get some attention.

I don’t think I would have been in that mirror, I probably would have been in front of it. To be clear, he didn’t clip me while changing lanes. He was fully into my lane, for probably a second or two, before striking me.

I did note that in the police report, for distractions it listed “none” for me and “unknown” for him. It also states “The driver of the school bus stated that he never even saw [my car] directly in front of and below him at the time of the crash” The officer also said “it appeared that [the bus] had followed too closely…”
ISTM, that should earn him an inattentive driving ticket and a following to closely ticket. I’ll have to keep checking online, maybe it just hasn’t been issued yet.

City of Milwaukee. 73rd and Burleigh. MPD District 7 responded.

Responding officer saw the video (the one from ‘outside’, not my dashcam). In fact, I think I even sent it to his phone. As far as the supervisor being there, I assume that happens in all cases like this. I don’t think there was any special reason for her to show up other than it was one of her buses that got into an accident.
As for it being a small town…it’s not. As PK can assure you, the City of Milwaukee is anything but a small town (over a half million people and about 1800 police officers, not counting sheriff’s deputies). Plus the specific area where I was hit is a major road, so it’s not even like I was in some little subdivision where everyone knows everyone and people see the same cops rolling through their neighborhood every hour or two.

18

I’m not sure it matters, but taking everything into account I’m surprised there was no ticket of some kind. Considering that and what you mention in the report I’m wondering if this officer was a Sergeant with the last name Schultz.

19

The supervisor from the bus company got to the scene before the police?

Also, you posted the external video twice, and not the one from your dash cam.

20

I was an insurance adjuster for years, and I promise you, of the hundreds of police reports I requested, very, very few had a declaration of fault unless the officer was at the scene. And most where they reported a citation were where one of the parties was being verbally or physically violent or obviously under the influence. The cops would normally include a summary of each parties statement and if I was lucky a mention of any physical evidence at the scene. And they took 2-4 weeks at a minimum to get those reports filed (plus longer to get a copy).

Unless someone is bleeding or dead at a scene, most cops treat these issues as very, very low priority efforts.