Eight high school students were injured on the evening of May 12 in Kansas City, Missouri when their bus was hit by a drunk driver while they were going home from a track meet, the Missouri State Highway Patrol reported. 

The bus was driving on Northwest US 50 and Missouri Route Z when the crash happened. After the crash, the minivan driver ran away but was arrested in nearby Bates City. The driver was transported back to the crash site. He was then arrested for suspected drunk driving. Several students were taken to a nearby hospital with non life-threatening injuries.

Our View

As personal injury attorneys who have worked on drunk driving cases with death and serious injury, we want to remind our readers that drunk driving is deadly. It is estimated that alcohol impairment is a factor in 1/3 of traffic deaths. In 2016, 10,497 people died in car accidents involving an intoxicated driver. This was 28% of all fatalities! This is a tragedy because all of these accidents were avoidable. So many serious injuries and fatalities could be avoided if people would simply not drink before they drive.

Sadly, many drunk drivers have driven drunk many times before, but it was just that one time where a serious accident happened. But all it takes is one time for people to lose their lives. We hope the above accident with a school bus in Missouri will remind readers to never drink and drive.

Another good reminder to not drive drunk is you can be sued for millions of dollars if you kill or seriously injure another person while drunk. One of our attorneys obtained a $3.5 million verdict in a drunk driving case several years ago in Virginia. Our client suffered terrible injuries because of the terrible decision of a very drunk driver in Newport News. The drunk driver hit our client head on, and our client suffered brain damage and broke almost every bone in her body. She will never be the same, but we were glad that our attorney was able to secure funds to take care of her needs for the rest of her life.