Cities pay millions for wrecks caused by buses, cars and trucks

By Marc Davis
The Virginian-Pilot

THE COST OF LIABILITY
Part 1 of 2 / Part 2

 

David Plunkert illustration
Special To the Virginian-Pilot

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ON APRIL 11, 2005, a Virginia Beach ambulance sped through a red light, hit a car and killed a man. The city later paid the man’s family $825,000.

That was just the start.

On the same day, a Virginia Beach police car collided with a civilian vehicle. A Chesapeake school bus hit a parked car. And a Norfolk city vehicle hit a rental car.

Was it just a bad day? Not necessarily.

Every day, on average, one or two city vehicles hit something somewhere in the five cities of South Hampton Roads. Sometimes it’s a mailbox. Sometimes it’s another car. Sometimes it’s a person.

Those accidents cost taxpayers millions of dollars every year.

The cities of Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach paid about $7.5 million to more than 1,700 victims of vehicular accidents in 2004, 2005 and 2006, according to a Virginian-Pilot analysis. Those accidents involved city cars, trucks and school buses.

And that’s not all. The five cities and school divisions paid an additional $5 million during the same period for nearly 1,200 claims of general damages not involving vehicles.

Cities and school divisions take great pains to avoid accidents. They train employees, study and re study accidents to spot trends, and discipline – and sometimes fire – workers with lousy track records.

Yet accidents occur, and sometimes they are awful.

A near-fatal accident happened in Virginia Beach on April 29, 2004. The victim, Elisa Hammer, 72, was taking her regular two-mile walk. She passed in front of the city Social Services building on Virginia Beach Boulevard just as a city plumber was driving his truck out of the parking lot.

The driver was looking to his left at oncoming traffic as Hammer walked in front of his truck from the right. The driver hit the gas pedal, and his truck knocked down the woman and ran her over. He didn’t stop.

He drove all the way to Sandbridge to his next job. He said he never saw the woman or felt the impact.

Hammer suffered a broken pelvis and numerous other injuries. She was shuttled between hospitals and rehabilitation centers for months and never fully recovered.

At first, the city denied responsibility. Then city lawyers argued that the driver was protected by governmental immunity. A judge disagreed.

Finally, 17 months after the accident, the city settled Hammer’s case for $1.2 million.

About a third of all city vehicle accidents in South Hampton Roads involve a school bus. From 2004 through 2006, the five cities paid more than $2.5 million on 641 claims for school bus accidents. That’s roughly one claim paid for every school day during that time.

Most claims are relatively small. The median claim paid was about $1,200. Half were more and half were less. Sometimes, though, the accidents are very serious.

Phoenix Ackiss was driving home from work one day in 2004 when a Norfolk city school bus crossed his path.

“I had the green light, and I was doing the speed limit on Chesapeake Boulevard,” Ackiss recalled. “All of a sudden, a gigantic yellow wall appeared in front of me. I didn’t even have time to hit the brakes.”

Ackiss’ van slammed into the bus.

No children were aboard. Ackiss’ van was totaled and Ackiss, who is now 60, suffered serious injuries to his neck, back, knee and foot.

At the time, Ackiss was an electronics technician with a Navy contractor. He was out of work for five months. Norfolk public schools paid his medical bills, replaced his van and gave him something extra for pain and suffering. The total cost was about $87,000.

Ackiss, who lives in Bayview, is still steamed over how he was treated. “I was not well compensated for what happened to me,” he said recently.

It was the most expensive school bus accident in Norfolk in the past three years. However, it was only one of 176 crashes in which the Norfolk school system paid damages.

In fact, few school bus accidents involve injuries. In Norfolk, for example, 29 of the 176 claims paid for school bus crashes involved bodily injury – roughly one out of every six claims.

Is that a lot of accidents or a little?

City officials don’t know, and neither do experts nationwide. No one keeps reliable numbers. The experts can’t even agree on what constitutes an “accident” and what constitutes an “incident.”

A consulting firm from Maryland recently studied Virginia Beach school bus operations and issued a report in January.

It found “no evidence of unsafe school bus operations,” based on the school system’s rate of 19 “accidents” per 1 million miles driven.

“For a congested, high-

traffic area,” the consultant wrote, the accident pattern in Virginia Beach “is consistent with the norms.”

But the rate depends on how you define “accident.” In Virginia, that’s any crash that causes an injury or more than $1,000 in damage. Anything less is an “incident.”

That means hundreds of smaller crashes are not counted in the accident rates.

From 2004 through 2006, there were 257 claims of less than $1,000 paid for school bus collisions in the five cities. That includes scores of incidents in which buses backed into mailboxes or clipped side-view mirrors.

It is common for school buses to hit parked cars because buses are so wide and streets are often narrow, with cars parked on each side.

In Norfolk alone, school buses have hit at least 70 parked cars in the past three years, including one crash that caused $13,000 in damage. In Virginia Beach, school buses hit at least 66 parked cars during the same period. In Chesapeake, it was 49.

Those kinds of accidents are so common that Virginia Beach bans school buses from entering cul-de-sacs and dead-end streets because it is extremely difficult to back up or turn.

Ultimately, the consulting firm admitted, it could not tell whether Beach school bus drivers are doing well because “accurate comparable and quantifiable national data is difficult to obtain.”

The city’s top risk manager, Keith Barron, who tracks every city accident and claim in Virginia Beach, acknowledged that he doesn’t know how the Beach stacks up against other cities.

“We have not compared ourselves to others because operations and structure varies so much,” he said in an e-mail. “There really isn’t a good database out there with which to make a valid comparison.”

The Fairfax-based Public Entity Risk Institute, a national nonprofit group that compiles damage claims from cities and counties, said it can’t state publicly which cities do well compared with others.

A Virginia Beach school bus carrying 24 students flipped onto its side in 2005 when the driver took a turn too fast. Twelve students and the driver were taken to the hospital. The city has paid $15,000 in claims and costs to nine students.Chris Tyree | The Virginian-Pilot file photos

Serious accidents are rare. But when they happen, cities pay dearly.

Rosa Minor was driving on Ferrell Parkway in Virginia Beach when a city dump truck suddenly made a U-turn

in front of her.

“I hit him,” Minor recalled. “I got caught on his bumper. The driver said he couldn’t see me coming.”

Minor’s car was totaled and her ankle was broken. She now has a metal plate and six screws in her ankle. Her 7-year-old son was in the back seat at the time. He was not physically hurt, but he was very upset and for a while he would not get into a car, Minor said.

The accident happened in 2003. Two years later, Minor sued the truck driver and the city for $950,000. Shortly before trial, in 2006, the case was settled. The city paid $134,000, which included Minor’s medical bills, car repairs, lawyer fees and other trial preparation costs.

Minor was not happy with the settlement. She said her ankle still hurts every day. She said she can’t carry laundry and other loads up stairs, and she can’t walk far without help.

Still, the settlement was the fourth-largest by any South Hampton Roads city or school division for a vehicle accident from 2004 through 2006.

Several other unusual accidents also are contained in the government databases.

In January 2006, a Virginia Beach police car set off a five-car, chain-reaction crash near the courthouse on Princess Anne Road. At least three people were hurt. To date, the city has paid $84,000 in damage claims and other costs. One claim is still pending. The officer was not cited.

In October 2005, a Virginia Beach city school bus carrying 24 Cox High School students flipped onto its side when the driver took a turn too fast. Twelve students and the driver were taken to the hospital. To date, the city has paid $15,000 in claims and costs to nine students. Five more claims are pending. The bus driver was convicted of reckless driving.

In 2000, a Portsmouth police car collided with a civilian car at Effingham and County streets. A female passenger in the civilian car required surgery ; the woman sued in 2002. Ultimately, in 2005, the city and an insurance company split a $130,000 settlement. It was the largest auto-accident settlement by Portsmouth in the past three years.

Liability records also show that garbage trucks often hit or sideswipe cars, mailboxes, fences and other things. In Virginia Beach , 81 claims were paid over three years for garbage truck accidents. Most were payments of $500 or less.

A woman was killed when a Suffolk school bus ran a red light and hit her car in 2004. The city later paid $625,000 to her family. John H. Sheally II | The Virginian-PIlot file photo

Every weekday morning, John Hazelette sends 269 city school buses onto the streets of Norfolk.

Some drivers are in a hurry because they’re running late. Some are substitutes driving unfamiliar routes. Some buses navigate narrow streets with cars parked on either side.

Sometimes they hit things.

“Thank goodness buses are built like tanks,” Hazelette said, “and rarely do we have injuries on the school bus.”

From 2004 through 2006, the number of preventable school bus crashes in Norfolk rose steadily, reaching 33 two years ago. Those were accidents defined by the state standard of causing $1,000 in damage or a personal injury.

That increase in accidents is reflected in the number and amount of damage claims paid. Among the five cities in the region, Norfolk had the highest rate of claims paid per student for school bus accidents during those years – about five for every 1,000 students. Each claim that was paid averaged about $4,000.

The lowest rate was in Virginia Beach, which had roughly three claims paid per 1,000 students.

This year, Norfolk turned the trend around drastically, with only 13 claims paid – the lowest total in years.

“It was a conscious effort,” Hazel ette said. “We strengthened our disciplinary actions.”

The city’s crash review team scrutinized each accident, looking for cause and effect. More drivers were ordered to take re training, suspended or released. Under state law, any driver involved in two preventable crashes in a three-year period must be fired.

In Suffolk, there was a similar crack down a year after a fatal school bus accident in 2004, after a new transportation coordinator came aboard.

“We began participating with the city in the accident review process for everything, whether it’s a trash can or a vehicle” accident, said Lonnie Reavis, Suffolk’s school transportation coordinator.

In Virginia Beach, there were three fatal school bus accidents in rapid succession in 2005: A station wagon hit a bus head-on in Pungo; a 9-year-old boy was struck while running to catch a bus ; and a jogger on Shore Drive stepped in front of a bus. Police said the bus drivers were not at fault for any of the accidents, but a lawsuit has been filed in the case of the 9-year-old boy’s death.

Most bus accidents are far less serious. They involve drivers making turns or backing up when they shouldn’t. In Virginia Beach, 66 of the 212 claims paid for school bus accidents – roughly a third – involved buses hitting parked cars.

Six more stemmed from buses hitting mailboxes, and three involved buses hitting buildings.

“It’s just an error in judgment,” said Hazelette, the Norfolk bus director. “Afterwards, the driver usually says, 'I thought I could get through there.’”

Collecting damages on school bus accidents usually is not difficult if the bus driver is at fault. But local schools almost never pay damages on accidents inside school buildings, and cities often fight claims even when their employees are negligent.

Marc Davis, (757) 222-5131, marc.davis@pilotonline.com

Part 2: Sovereign immunity