Bus Passenger Injury Claims After a Red-Light Collision

Attorney Answer

As a passenger you are almost never blamed for the crash, so the real question is who pays — and if a public transit agency is involved, the deadline to make a claim against it can be as short as six months. That is the part people miss.

You have two possible targets. The first is the driver who ran the red light. Cal. Civ. Code § 1714(a) states: “Everyone is responsible, not only for the result of his or her willful acts, but also for an injury occasioned to another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property or person, except so far as the latter has, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself or herself.” Running a red light and striking a bus head-on falls squarely inside that. The claim goes to that driver and her liability insurer.

The second is whoever operated the bus, if anything about how it was driven contributed to the collision or to your injuries. You do not have to choose. California does not decide fault all-or-nothing: a party's own share of fault reduces what that party recovers instead of ending the claim — Daly v. General Motors Corp., 20 Cal. 3d 725 (1978), is the Supreme Court reaffirming that pure comparative system.

Where the bus is run by a city, a county or a transit district, the claim against that agency runs on a completely different clock. Cal. Gov't Code § 911.2(a) requires a claim for death or for injury to a person or to personal property to be presented to the public entity no later than six months after the cause of action accrues. Miss that presentation and the claim against the agency is usually lost no matter how strong it was (Cal. Gov't Code § 945.4). The claim against the private driver is not governed by that six-month rule.

One coverage point. For a crash on this date, the minimum liability policy a California driver had to carry was $15,000 per person and $30,000 per accident for injuries; the higher $30,000/$60,000/$15,000 minimums apply only to accidents on or after January 1, 2025 (Cal. Veh. Code § 16056(a)). A bus with several injured passengers can exhaust a minimum policy quickly, which is why your own coverage matters: Cal. Ins. Code § 11580.2 requires uninsured motorist coverage in every bodily injury liability policy issued or delivered in California unless it has been deleted by written agreement on the forms the statute prescribes.

What you can do

1. Get medical care and keep every record and bill, including anything from the ambulance or emergency room.

2. Ask the transit agency (or the city) for its claim form and present the claim promptly — Cal. Gov't Code § 911.2(a) allows six months from accrual, and agencies use their own forms.

3. Get the traffic collision report and the bus operator’s incident report number, and note the bus route and run number if you have them.

4. Write down what you remember while it is fresh: where you were sitting, what you saw, and the names of anyone who helped you.

5. Ask your own auto insurer for your declarations page and whether medical payments or uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage reaches you as a bus passenger (Cal. Ins. Code § 11580.2).

6. Ask a local personal injury lawyer to review the six-month agency deadline against your facts before anything else. Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. Cal. Gov't Code § 911.2(a) sets six months to present a claim to a public entity — the shortest deadline in this area of California law. Injury claims against a private driver run on the two-year period in Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1, and a minor passenger is treated differently again under Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 352(a). When each clock started depends on your facts. Have a local attorney check the dates against your own file rather than relying on any general rule.