Second driver says CMS bus hit his parked vehicle

CHARLOTTE — A second driver has contacted Action 9 saying his parked vehicle was hit by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ bus and the government refuses to pay for repairs.

Bryant Moore says a CMS bus clipped his pickup at the corner of Sharon Avenue and Brookwood Road in SouthPark.

“I could not believe it,” he told Action 9′s Jason Stoogenke. “It was quite the surprise.”

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So, Moore filed a claim with the North Carolina Attorney General’s office which represents school districts in bus wrecks.

The A.G.’s office denied his claim. It didn’t give specifics, just that, in general, the vehicle owner has to prove two things: bus driver negligence and that the owner didn’t contribute to the crash.

The office didn’t say which of those Moore did or didn’t do. Stoogenke asked the office why, but it wouldn’t say.

So Stoogenke turned to the crash report to see if that would shed light on it. The wording is vague. Maybe Moore was parked too far out in the road. Maybe not. He says there were a lot of construction vehicles on that street he had to avoid, but that he still parked legally. “I wasn’t in the roadway and I wasn’t in the yard,” he said.

Bryant Moore shows Jason Stoogenke the damage to his truck (WSOC)

“If there was a parked car and I was driving down the street and I hit that park car ... or parked school bus, I believe CMS would come after me to repair the school bus,” Moore said.

He can appeal to the North Carolina Industrial Commission. He’s deciding whether it’s worth it. He says repairs would be a few thousand dollars.

Action 9 reported on another case of a CMS bus hitting a parked car and the government refusing to pay. In that case, the government relied on law involving the pandemic that it argued gave the school district immunity.

How often do school buses hit parked cars or other inanimate objects and the state denies the claim? The state doesn’t track that, only how many total school bus claims it handles. Statewide, that’s about 1,400 over the past 16 months.

VIDEO: CMS doesn’t have to pay after bus hits man’s parked car, court says