NATIONAL COALITION OF SCHOOL BUS SAFETY NEWS 2006

Family Sues Bus Agency Over Fatal Accident
They say the driver, company ignored safety

June 30, 2006

A Beaumont couple has sued a charter bus company and its driver, claiming negligence in the death of their 18-year-old daughter in an accident that raises questions about whether buses should be equipped with seat belts.

Marion and Joanne Bonura, filing the lawsuit on behalf of their daughter, Alicia, also accuse the bus industry of preferring profit over safety.

Alicia was among 23 teens traveling to a girls soccer playoff in Humble on March 29 when their bus, dodging debris, overturned as rain pounded U.S. 90 east of Houston in Liberty County.

Alicia and three other teens were partially ejected through the jagged glass windows as the bus tipped onto its side. Alicia and Ashley Brown, 16, died after being pinned beneath the bus. The other two girls had their arms mangled.

One girl's arm was so badly damaged that it had to be amputated. Still other teens were injured when they were raked across the broken windows, causing one girl to have an ear reattached.

"I'm sorry I can't discuss anything about it," Joanne Bonura said Thursday after the lawsuit was filed in the 136th State District Court in Beaumont.

But her attorney, Chip Ferguson, who represents 21 of the teens on the bus, said he expects other defendants to be named.

The charter bus company, Sun Travel, and its owner, Michael G. Labrie Inc., and its bus driver, Lorri Ann White, 41, of Silsbee, could not be reached for comment. The bus company's attorney, Greg Wilkins, did not return telephone calls.

The Bonura family views the lawsuit as the "best venue" for persuading motor-coach and school bus manufacturers to install seat belts as well as safety glass, Ferguson said in a written statement.

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

He cited a front-page story that appeared Sunday in the Houston Chronicle that pointed out safety concerns over the lack of seat belts in buses.

Seven years before the Beaumont teens were killed and injured, the National Transportation Safety Board had warned federal regulators that critical improvements were needed on buses to hold passengers in their seats. But federal regulators took no action.

The NTSB also recommended strengthening the glazing that holds glass in the windows of tour buses.

After the 1999 recommendation, the NTSB issued three additional warnings about the need for seat restraints after catastrophic motor-coach accidents. One accident in Hewitt in 2003 killed seven, including five passengers.

A Texas Department of Public Safety investigator said injuries to the Beaumont teens would have been greatly reduced had the teens had seat belts.

The Bonura lawsuit labels Sun Tour bus, which was not equipped with seat belts, as "defective." Though the words "seat belt" was not used in the lawsuit, belts were emphasized in the statement issued by Ferguson and the family.

In addition, the lawsuit accuses the bus company of failing to properly train its driver to operate the bus in a "safe and prudent manner."

The Texas Department of Public Safety's preliminary investigation cited both the bus driver and a truck driver who lost part of his load as having contributed to the wreck.

Joel Eugeno Martinez, 23, a Houston construction worker, failed to properly secure the insulation he was hauling on a trailer, the preliminary investigation found.

Martinez said a strap tore and a strong wind blew some insulation onto the road in front of the charter bus headed in the opposite direction on U.S. 90.

However, DPS investigators also cited the bus driver for taking "faulty evasive action" when she swerved around the debris. A safer response, investigators said, would have been to slowly apply the brakes and roll over small pieces of debris.

Alicia Bonura was an honor student at West Brook High School and was planning to attend Texas A&M on an engineering scholarship this fall.

"While this accident raises issues of significant proportions, we must never forget that, at its core, this is still a case about individuals," Ferguson said

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