Who operated the bus is the first question
A person hurt on a bus, or struck by one, knows what the bus looked like and may not know what it was. The crash report records a vehicle, a driver, and an owner. It does not say whether the bus was run by a school district, a public transit authority, a charter or tour company, an intercity carrier, or a hotel, airport, or employer shuttle service, and that answer decides nearly everything that follows: which federal and state rules governed the operation, which organization holds the driver, video, maintenance, and dispatch records, and whether the claim is against a private company or a public entity with its own notice rules and legal limits.
The crash report, the investigating agency’s file, and the early search for nearby video are the same as after any Houston car accident. Freight carriers are reviewed as truck accidents, and the way a commercial operation is investigated applies to passenger carriers too. Buses also have their own evidence and legal questions: passenger records, operator types, and the public-entity questions that a transit or school bus raises.
Private carriers: intercity, charter, tour, and shuttle operators
A private company that carries passengers for hire across state lines is a motor carrier of passengers under the federal safety rules, and it is a commercial operation for the same reasons a trucking company is. Federal rules define a commercial motor vehicle by passenger capacity as well as by weight: a vehicle designed or used to carry more than a set number of passengers is covered because of its capacity alone, with a lower threshold when passengers pay. A passenger carrier must hold operating authority for passengers, must carry liability insurance in minimum amounts scaled to how many people the bus is built to carry, and is subject to driver qualification, inspection, and maintenance rules.
Drivers of passenger-carrying commercial vehicles have their own maximum driving-time and on-duty limits, separate from the limits that apply to a truck driver hauling freight. As with freight, Texas applies the federal rules to many carriers that never leave the state, so a Houston charter running to Galveston can generate the same kinds of records as an interstate coach.
The federal rules also carve out exceptions that matter for smaller operations. A church, a nonprofit, or a business that owns a van or bus to carry its own members or employees can be a regulated passenger carrier even though transportation is not its business, home-to-school school bus operations are largely excepted from those rules, while a private carrier of passengers that does not operate for business purposes is excepted from several of the driver-file rules. The record set therefore differs by operator type and not only by size, so the review starts by establishing which rules this operator was under and what it was therefore required to keep.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration publishes a public bus safety search that returns a passenger carrier’s registration, its authority to carry passengers, its insurance on file, and its safety measurement data. The search puts a name and a regulatory history to the carrier. It is a snapshot, not the case, and the carrier’s internal dispatch, driver, and maintenance files are obtained through the legal process rather than from a website. The firm identifies the carrier by its Department of Transportation number, from the bus, the ticket, or the crash report, and directs a written preservation request to it as early as possible, because the bus and its systems return to service quickly.
Public transit: METRO buses and the rules that reach a public authority
The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County operates the bus network that serves Houston, much of unincorporated Harris County, and the surrounding member cities. METRO is a regional transit authority governed by Chapter 451 of the Texas Transportation Code, and that chapter declares it a governmental unit under the Texas Tort Claims Act. The Act permits some claims arising from the operation or use of a motor-driven vehicle by a governmental employee acting within the scope of employment. The waiver depends on the statutory requirements, including causation and the employee’s liability under Texas law, as well as applicable exceptions. Notice requirements and limits require review for the particular entity and claim. METRO publishes its own notice-of-claim form. What those requirements are, and how they apply to a particular collision, is a question counsel evaluates at the first conversation, because a claim involving a public entity runs on its own track from the first day.
A transit authority answers to a different federal framework from a private carrier. The federal motor carrier safety rules generally do not reach transportation performed by a state or its political subdivisions. METRO instead receives federal transit assistance, and with it come the Federal Transit Administration’s requirements: a safety plan built on safety management principles and approved by the authority’s board, reporting to the National Transit Database that now includes assaults on transit workers and fatalities resulting from impact with a bus, and a drug and alcohol testing program for safety-sensitive employees that is separate from the program that governs commercial truck drivers. New transit bus models purchased with federal funds are tested at a federally sponsored facility, and the test report for a model is an obtainable document.
METRO holds its records as a public body. Its police department patrols buses and rail vehicles and, by METRO’s own description, maintains video surveillance of all of its buses. Its records can be sought under the Texas Public Information Act and, in litigation, by subpoena directed to the custodian of the particular record, and its board meets in public with published agendas and minutes. None of this describes what happened in any collision. It describes where the records are and which rules apply, which is what a passenger or a person struck by a transit bus needs to know first. METRORail, the light-rail network, is a different mode with different rules, reviewed with train accidents.
School buses: a district, a contractor, or a transit authority
Texas law defines a school bus, a school activity bus, and a multifunction school activity bus separately, and each definition excludes a bus operated by a mass transit authority. The Department of Public Safety sets the safety standards school buses must meet, school bus drivers must hold a DPS certification and keep it current, and Texas requires drivers approaching a stopped school bus with its warning signals operating to stop and remain stopped until the signals end or the driver waves them on.
A school district may run its own buses, contract with a commercial transportation company, or contract with a mass transit authority, and in each case the DPS driver certification and bus safety standards travel with the vehicle. Which arrangement was in place decides whether the records sit with the district, a private contractor, or METRO, and whether the claim involves a public entity.
A school district is a governmental unit, but the applicable waiver, exceptions, notice rules, and limits must be evaluated for that district and the claim. Texas courts have also treated a school district operating its own buses differently from a common carrier, so the standard of care that applies to a transit or charter passenger is not assumed to apply to a student.
The common-carrier standard and what it does not mean
Texas common law has long required a common carrier to exercise a high degree of care toward its passengers, meaning the care a very cautious, competent, and prudent person would use in the same circumstances. In 2020 the Texas Supreme Court applied that standard to a public transit authority and held that the Tort Claims Act’s waiver for negligent vehicle operation reaches it.
The standard does not make a carrier an insurer of its passengers, and it does not apply to every operator that carries people: the same court has held that a school district operating its own buses was not a common carrier, and whether a particular charter, tour, or shuttle operator is one depends on facts about its business. The firm does not assume the standard applies. It establishes what the operator was and lets counsel determine the duty from that.
Passengers, other road users, and the records a bus generates
A bus generates records a passenger car does not. A private carrier holds the reservation or manifest that places each passenger on the trip, the driver’s qualification file and duty records, the dispatch and route records, the inspection and maintenance file, and the video and location data from the bus’s own systems where they exist. A transit authority holds fare and boarding data, operator assignment and training records, its safety-plan documentation, its incident and accident reports, and its onboard video. A school district or its contractor holds the driver’s certification, the route and stop assignments, and the bus’s inspection record. Retention differs by operator, and a bus is back in service quickly, so the written request naming the bus number, the route, and the date goes out first.
Other agencies may add records. The National Transportation Safety Board investigates some crashes involving motorcoaches and school buses for their safety implications; its docket and report are a record source, it does not decide civil responsibility, and it does not investigate criminal conduct. The investigating law-enforcement agency’s file remains the starting point for the roadway record.
Buses on Houston’s roads
Houston’s buses are as varied as the trips they serve. METRO runs local, express, park-and-ride, and a nonstop airport service between downtown and both Houston airports, and it serves member cities beyond Houston’s limits. The airports list shuttles and buses as their own category of ground transportation, with hotel shuttles requested from the terminals and a shuttle between the terminals and the rental car center. Intercity carriers board passengers at stops and stations in the central city.
School districts across Harris County run their own routes and activity trips, and charter coaches carry church groups, sports teams, and tour groups through the same freeways and streets. Which of those a bus was is not visible from the roadside, and the firm confirms it from the bus number, the operator’s markings, the ticket or fare record, and the crash report before forming a view of anything else.
Which bus matter belongs on which page
- A collision between a bus and a freight truck draws on the truck accident review for the carrier and on the bus records for its operator.
- A van or small shuttle below the passenger thresholds is a company vehicle.
- A person on foot or on a bicycle struck by a bus has the crossing and roadway questions of those collisions, alongside the questions about the bus operator.
- Light rail and trains, including METRORail and grade crossings, are train accidents.
- A death in a bus collision brings the family and estate questions of a wrongful death claim into the review; the operator and public-entity questions described here still have to be answered first.
Talking with the firm about a bus collision
Whatever identifies the bus and the trip is the most useful thing to bring to a consultation: the bus number and route, the name on the side of the bus, a ticket, reservation, or fare record, photographs, the crash report number, and any letter received since. Leatherwood & Schindler will identify the operator and the rules that apply to it, request the onboard, driver, and maintenance records from the right organization, and say which of those rules applies before anyone is told what the claim is worth.