NATIONAL COALITION OF SCHOOL BUS SAFETY NEWS 2006

Parents Sue Over Fatal Bus Crash

June 30, 2006

BEAUMONT - A Beaumont couple whose teenage daughter was killed in a March bus accident has filed a lawsuit claiming the charter bus company and its driver were negligent.

Marion and Joanne Bonura, who filed the lawsuit in State District Court in Beaumont on Thursday, also accuse the bus industry of choosing profit over safety.

Alicia Bonura, 18, was traveling to a soccer game with the Beaumont West Brook High School girls team when the accident happened on a rural two-lane stretch of Highway 90 near Devers, about 60 miles northeast of Houston.

The bus driver swerved to avoid debris that had fallen from a truck on the wet road, and the bus flipped onto its side as it skidded into a muddy ditch.

Alicia and 16-year-old Ashley Brown died after they were ejected through the windows and pinned beneath the bus. Another girl who was ejected from the bus had to have her arm amputated.

Joanne Bonura declined to discuss the lawsuit on Thursday. The family's attorney, Paul "Chip" Ferguson, said he expects other defendants to be named. Ferguson represents 21 of the teens who were on the bus.

Ferguson said Friday that the lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages.

The bus company, Sun Travel, its owner, Michael G. Labrie Inc., and the company's lawyer could not be reached for comment. Bus driver Lorri Ann White, 41, of Silsbee, also could not be reached for comment.

Ferguson said in a written statement that the plaintiffs view the lawsuit as the "best venue" for persuading the manufacturers of motor coaches and school buses to install seat belts and safety glass.

"This case will focus on the need to put passenger safety ahead of corporate profit," the statement said.

The lawsuit labels the bus involved in the accident as "defective." It also accuses the bus company of failing to properly train its driver to operate the bus in a "safe and prudent manner."

The lawsuit does not refer specifically to seat belts, but seat belts were emphasized in the statement by Ferguson and the Bonura family. The bus did not have seat belts.

A preliminary investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety found that the bus driver and the truck driver both contributed to the wreck.

The report said that White, the driver, contributed to the accident by "taking faulty evasive action" and having "impaired visibility." The driver of the pickup, 23-year-old Joel Eugeno Martinez, a Houston construction worker, contributed by failing to "secure his load," the report said.

The safety value of seat belts in buses has been the subject of continued debate among federal regulators and the bus industry. The National Transportation Safety Board recommended in 1999 that passenger restraint systems in buses should be improved, but federal regulators took no action.

In November, a Waco jury ordered a bus manufacturer to pay about $17.5 million to victims' families and survivors of a 2003 fatal bus crash on rain-slick Interstate 35. Seven people were killed, including five bus passengers.

Jurors in the civil trial found that the lack of seat belts and laminated safety glass rendered the bus "unreasonably dangerous" when the manufacturer sold it in 1996.

Associated Press

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