The CTA approved a $5.45 million settlement for the estate of a woman who was run over by a 152 Addison bus when she was trying to remove her bicycle from the front of the bus.  The CTA approved the settlement because its bus driver was negligent when he failed to look in front of the bus for anyone, especially a passenger that had just alighted.

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the City of Chicago has finally come to terms with the legal flaws in their school speed zone camera plan.  Illinois, thanks to a nearly 40 year legal opinion authored by the then-Illinois Attorney General will only cite a driver from exceeding a posted school speed zone if there are children present. This is a necessary element that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt to enforce the ticket. 

The precedent exists unbroken to this day and requires the arresting officer to testify about the presence of children during a hearing.  This is why signs throughout Illinois in school zones have smaller lettering saying "When children are present."  In other words, the school zone speed only exists when children are present and otherwise it is the default speed for that road (prior posted speed limit).

Though most Chicagoans use the CTA day in and day out, there are occasionally tragic CTA accidents that may occur.  Many of these accidents lead to a CTA injury lawsuit.  In this case, a man was killed in a CTA accident on Chicago’s Loop while he was riding his motorcycle.  The Chicago Tribune reports that the Chicago Police spokeswoman noted that "[t]he victim was riding a motorcycle northbound on Michigan Avenue when a CTA bus that was southbound struck him as it was making a left hand turn in the 600 block of South Michigan Avenue.  CTA injury lawsuits are likely to become more frequent as many people turn to public transportation in Chicago’s increasingly aging system.  There is no word whether the man’s surviving family has filed a CTA wrongful death lawsuit.  The Tribune articles notes that the driver of the bus was cited for failing to yield right of way, indicating that the driver was negligent, creating liability for the CTA. Read more about the accident here.