A still-unexplained bus crash last month left a motorist dead and more than two dozen people injured. Most of those hurt were aboard the bus, but two occupants of another vehicle were also hospitalized after firefighters cut them free from their mangled car. A California Highway Patrol team will continue to investigate the crash.

Midday, Dry Road Crash

The February 27 crash happened in Kramer, a small town about a two-hour drive north of Los Angeles. The bus was about halfway through a run from Fresno to Las Vegas when, for reasons still not clear, it drifted out of its lane and struck two cars moving in the opposite direction nearly head-on. Both cars were completely wrecked and one ended on its side. The bus itself, a small charter with twenty-six people on board, rolled and came to rest right-side-up. Nine of the twenty-six people transported to hospitals were reported to be in critical condition.

This happened around noon on a Monday on a relatively remote stretch of state highway, and there has been no word on possible contributing factors. But high winds prevented rescuers from transporting several of the victims by helicopter.

Safe but Not Risk-Free

Serious bus crashes are uncommon, but they often play out similarly to the Kramer crash. Although this was a smaller bus (actually a conversion van) and many of the passengers were injured because the vehicle rolled, it’s more common for those who are seriously injured or killed to be in another vehicle in the crash—not the bus.

In 2015, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which monitors the safety of large trucks and buses, recorded 295 fatalities in bus crashes. But most of those (246) were to people who weren’t on a bus—mainly occupants of other vehicles involved in a crash or pedestrians. Although bus passengers, just like passengers using any other mode of transportation, are at risk of injury or death in an accident, buses are a much safer method of travel overall. For regular commuters, the risk of being in a fatal accident is seventeen times greater for those in cars over those in buses, even with the same annual mileage.

Memory Still Fresh

It was only five months ago that an even more serious California bus crash grabbed headlines nationwide. Thirteen passengers were killed and thirty-one injured when a tour bus that hadn’t slowed crashed into the rear of a semi-truck in a construction zone near Palm Springs. An official determination of the cause of that crash hasn’t been made, but several of those injured and relatives of some of the deceased have already initiated negligence and wrongful death lawsuits against the bus company.

California Bus Accident Lawyer

When you have been harmed in a bus crash, whether as a bus passenger, a pedestrian, or an occupant of another vehicle, you want to be made whole again. It’s important to your recovery to collect damages from the responsible parties to cover your medical bills, lost wages or salary, and any other expenses that result from the accident.

The team at Kohan & Bablove,Injury Attorneys has been settling motor vehicle crash cases, including bus accident cases, for years. Get in touch with us to schedule a free consultation to go over the details of your case. Our phone number is 1-844-404-2400 or you can contact us online through the form below or by using the LiveChat feature of our website to begin the conversation immediately.

The death toll from the crash of a small plane near Riverside Municipal Airport has now risen to four. The most recent victim, a woman in her forties, had suffered serious burns over 90 percent of her body during the crash. She had remained in critical condition and been on a ventilator and feeding tube since the accident, and when a third round of surgery brought no improvement, her family chose to take her off life support. The remaining survivor has shown improvement and been moved to a hospital closer to her home.

A Tragedy for Passengers and Residents

The five people on board the plane, a Cessna 310, were beginning the return trip to San Jose after watching a cheerleading competition held at a Disney park when the plane crashed about one mile from the airport shortly after takeoff. Three of the victims died in the crash.

Initial reports had created confusion about the identity of the victims and the survivors, suggesting that some had been teens from the competition or residents on the ground. All were adults on the plane, however, ranging in age from twenty-two to eighty-three.

The plane came down in a residential neighborhood and damaged three homes with an explosion that felt to some residents like an earthquake. Two homes and at least one parked car were completely destroyed in the fire that followed the crash, but fortunately, there were no injuries or deaths on the ground, although at least one resident was in one of the houses at the time. This was the second crash of a small plane in the neighborhood in two years, which has some residents worried about their safety.

Investigation Underway

A witness at the airport has told investigators that the pilot had difficulty starting the aircraft’s engine, and that the group left in a hurry to take advantage of a break in the day’s rainy weather. There has been no official word on the cause of the crash, which is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The NTSB investigation will probably take more than a year to complete and will be as thorough as possible, looking into every detail of the crash, including weather, the state of the aircraft (the plane had been built in 1974), and pilot experience (it was unclear from reports if the lone survivor was the pilot or a passenger).

The NTSB has its hands full investigating this type of crash. A 2013 investigation found that there are as many as five small plane crashes every day in the United States, accounting for up to 97 percent of all aviation accidents and as many as 500 deaths each year.

California Plane Crash Lawyer

When you’ve been the victim of an accident involving an aircraft, it’s vitally important that you get experienced help as you take action to recover compensation for the property damage and injuries caused. The team at Kohan & Bablove,Injury Attorneys understands the practice of airplane accident law, and we offer each client a free consultation to go over the details of his or her unique case. Call us today at 1-844-404-2400 or contact us online through the form below to schedule an appointment.

When a motorist is injured by a distracted driver, it’s not unusual for legal action to follow as the victim seeks to recover compensation for the property damage and injuries caused in the auto crash. Sometimes others with potential involvement in the crash are included in the suit, and their specific responsibilities in causing the crash are described in the case.

A suit filed by a California man in January goes further, arguing that computer and device maker Apple, by refusing to implement lockout technology that it has already developed, is in part responsible for an epidemic of injuries and deaths caused by distracted driving crashes. The plaintiff, who was personally harmed when a distracted driver on an Apple iPhone rear-ended him at a traffic light, claims that the company’s inaction has enabled “massive carnage” on American roadways.

Class Action Requested

The suit has been filed as a class action, describing as possible plaintiffs “all California residents whose safety has been put at risk as a result of Apple’s failure to install ‘lockout devices’ on their iPhones.” If that sounds like a large number, it is. But the filing includes some math to justify this broad eligibility. Based on estimates for distracted driving crashes and their causes, as well as the market share of Apple’s iPhone, the suit claims that at least 52,000 accidents are caused by drivers using iPhones in California every year.

The Potential to Prevent

At the heart of the suit is the assertion that despite having a patent since 2014 on technology that would lock out texting and other risky functions when a cell phone is used in a car, Apple has made no moves to actually install this feature on its devices. It alleges that Apple is concerned about the possible loss of market share if it did this, and so it has sacrificed public safety for profit.

Features like a speed lockout are not unheard of. Some individual apps, such as Pokémon Go, already have them. That app essentially shuts down if the user tries to play while travelling faster than 30 mph. Other apps, such as Snapchat (which actually has a feature that some say encourages users to drive at high speed), have not taken steps to prevent their being used unsafely. Individuals have caused crashes because they were using the app and been prosecuted, but at least one attempt to hold Snapchat legally responsible has failed.

Serious Distraction

Distracted driving has become a major cause of auto accidents. Research suggests that more than 660,000 drivers are on their devices at any given moment. In 2014 more than 430,000 people were injured and nearly 3,200 were killed in crashes involving distracted drivers. In 13 percent of those crashes, one or both drivers were using cell phones. All indications are that these numbers will continue to rise.

Orange County Auto Accident Lawyer

No matter what caused the crash, when you’ve been the victim of a motor vehicle accident you need to pursue compensation for any damages and injuries you suffer. Turn to a firm with experience in automobile accident law. Kohan & Bablove, Injury Attorneys offers a free consultation to all clients to discuss their case and explain how we might be able to help. Call today at 1-844-404-2400 or contact us online through the form below to schedule your appointment.

Speak to an experience auto accident lawyer below:

Kohan & Bablove Injury Attorneys
Address: 20371 Irvine Ave Suite 110, Newport Beach, CA 92660
Phone: +1 (949) 271-7863

A Los Angeles grocery store chain found itself looking more like the Grinch than Santa Claus this winter when an ingredient it sold for a traditional holiday meal turned out to be rotten. Hundreds of customers demanded refunds, complaining that something was wrong with the masa they’d purchased from the Amapola market in Downey.

The problem, customers said, ruined numerous holiday meals and in some cases made customers or their family members sick. The company has said that it will give refunds to affected customers, but the rotten ingredient resulted in some families not having any food on the table at Christmas.

Bad Masa the Problem

The main ingredient in the affected people’s traditional Christmas tamales, masa, caused their tamales to turn out inedible. No one seems quite sure what happened, but the masa sold at Amapola’s Downey store two days before Christmas seems to have been the bad batch.

The company said it believes that particular masa was made from a batch of “defective corn” sold to it by a longtime supplier. Amapola has stated that it doesn’t believe there are any health risks from the bad masa, it’s just low-quality and tastes bad. A company executive issued an apology and promised that refunds would be made to all affected customers.

Sizeable Refunds

Due to both the festive nature and size of the holiday tamale meal, as well as the fact that some customers buy masa from Amapola for tamales that they make and sell on to others, many of the refunds are not pocket change.

A local reporter talked with customers who had spent between $150 and $400 on masa at the store, and at least one of these had gone on to lose important holiday business because the tamales she’d made could not be sold. Amapola, in fact, ran out of cash on the first day it was giving refunds.

Food Safety Always a Concern

Overall, the United States has a very safe food production and distribution system, but that doesn’t mean it’s 100 percent problem-free. In fact, it’s not uncommon for there to be more than one recall in a single day, although many of these aren’t because the food is contaminated, but instead because the ingredient labels are incomplete and might not show possible allergens. A situation with outright bad or spoiled food, such as the Amapola masa, is less common.

Sometimes the problem is bacterial contamination, as happened in a number of Chipotle restaurants in 2015. More than 500 people became ill in those incidents, and close to 100 received financial compensation from Chipotle. Similar to the Amapola case, many of those Chipotle customers remained loyal to the restaurant, despite the illness it caused them.

Orange County Personal Injury Lawyer

The Amapola masa case seems so far to have caused no serious or permanent harm. But other cases of bad food products don’t always end that way. Sometimes people are seriously injured or even die because of contaminated food products.

Businesses will often try to do the right thing when a customer is harmed by a spoiled or contaminated food product, but even so, it’s important to have help when you’re seeking a settlement that will cover the costs of restoring your health or correcting the damage done to your business.

If you’ve been harmed or made ill by a food product, give us a call. Kohan & Bablove, Injury Attorneys understands the practice of personal injury law, whether it involves a motor vehicle accident, a workplace injury, or a case of food poisoning. We consult free of charge with every new client to learn the details of every case. Contact us online through the form below or call 1-844-404-2400 today to schedule an appointment.