DDOT or SMART Bus Crash in Michigan: Who Pays, and the 60-Day Notice That Ends Claims

Short answer: If you are hurt on or by a DDOT or SMART bus in Michigan, your own household auto policy usually pays your medical bills and lost wages first, because buses run under a government sponsored transportation program are carved out of the rule that makes a bus's insurer pay its passengers (MCL 500.3114(2)(c)). The claim for pain and suffering runs against the City of Detroit or SMART as the owner of the bus under the motor-vehicle exception to governmental immunity. For SMART, that injury claim needs written notice served on the authority within 60 days of the crash (MCL 124.419), and a no-fault application does not count. Miss it and the injury claim against SMART is gone, even though the ordinary deadline to sue is three years.

Who pays your medical bills after a DDOT or SMART bus crash?

Michigan no-fault starts with your own policy, or the policy of a spouse or relative you live with, under MCL 500.3114(1) (section explorer). Subsection (2) makes an exception for passengers of "a motor vehicle operated in the business of transporting passengers," who claim from the insurer of that vehicle. Then it takes most buses back out. The carveouts include school buses, buses run by a common carrier certified by the Michigan Department of Transportation, "a bus operating under a government sponsored transportation program," buses run by or for a nonprofit, taxicabs, and rideshare vehicles.

The Court of Appeals applied the government-program carveout in Michigan Municipal League Liability & Property Pool v. Farmers Insurance Exchange (published September 16, 2025), a case about a city-owned dial-a-ride bus in Niles. The court said it could not "imagine a more straightforward application of subsection (2)(c)." No published decision names DDOT or SMART specifically, but both are public transit systems, and the same reasoning reaches them.

What that means in practice:

• You have a household auto policy. Your insurer pays your PIP, not the bus. File with your own company.
• You have no policy at all. The carveout only applies "unless the passenger is not entitled to [PIP] benefits under any other policy." In the Niles case the rider had none, and the court held the city's insurer was first in line, not the Michigan Assigned Claims Plan. A rider with no car and no household policy is not left with nothing.
• You were a pedestrian, cyclist or another driver hit by the bus. You were not a passenger, so subsection (2) never applies. Your household policy pays; with no policy, you claim through the Assigned Claims Plan under MCL 500.3115 and MCL 500.3172.

One wrinkle for paratransit riders: the carveout says "bus," and the Niles court left open whether a small van qualifies. In a paratransit van, the answer to who pays first can change.

Your PIP limit is the coverage level you chose under MCL 500.3107c; our guide to Michigan PIP explains the levels.

Can you sue the city or SMART for the injury itself?

Yes, if the bus was driven negligently and the injury is serious enough. Government agencies in Michigan are generally immune from tort claims, but MCL 691.1405 makes them liable "for bodily injury and property damage resulting from the negligent operation" of a motor vehicle they own. A DDOT bus is owned by the City of Detroit; a SMART bus by the authority. Our post on crashes with police cars and ambulances covers the same exception for other public vehicles.

The Michigan Supreme Court held in Hannay v. Department of Transportation, 497 Mich 45 (2014) that a plaintiff who meets the no-fault threshold can recover both economic losses, such as wage loss beyond PIP, and noneconomic damages, such as pain and suffering, from a public body under this exception. The threshold is death, serious impairment of body function or permanent serious disfigurement under MCL 500.3135. Our post on the Michigan threshold explains how that fight is usually won and lost.

The driver is a different matter. A government employee is personally liable only for gross negligence that was "the proximate cause" of the injury (MCL 691.1407(2)), a much higher bar than ordinary carelessness. In most bus cases the real defendant is the owner.

What is the 60-day SMART notice?

MCL 124.419, part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authorities Act that governs SMART, says that "written notice of any claim based upon injury to persons or property shall be served upon the authority no later than 60 days from the occurrence through which such injury is sustained."

The Michigan Supreme Court enforced that sentence strictly in Atkins v. SMART, 492 Mich 707 (2012). The passenger applied for no-fault benefits with SMART's insurer 10 days after the crash and waited more than seven months to tell SMART she might sue. The Court held the no-fault application was not notice of a tort claim, and that there is "no aspect of substantial compliance" to the statutory notice requirement. Her injury claims were dismissed.

The lessons are blunt:

1. Sixty days runs from the crash, not from the diagnosis or the end of treatment.
2. The notice must be written and served on SMART itself. A call to the driver, a report to the dispatcher, or a claim with an insurer is not it.
3. It must give notice of the injury claim, not just of the accident.

DDOT is an open question, not a safe harbor. Section 124.419 is written for transportation authorities like SMART. DDOT is a department of the City of Detroit, and we have not found a statute giving the city the same 60-day notice; MCL 691.1405 contains no notice requirement of its own. Treat that as unresolved, not as permission to wait: written notice to the city inside 60 days costs nothing. Transit agencies outside metro Detroit are organized under other laws, so check which statute created the agency.

What decides fault in a bus case?

Video, more often than testimony. City and suburban buses carry cameras that record from several angles. In Rowland v. City of Detroit (published September 12, 2025), a man opened his driver's door into a passing DDOT bus. The onboard video, which both sides agreed was complete, showed the bus in its lane. The Court of Appeals held that no reasonable juror could find the bus driver more at fault than the plaintiff, and reversed the trial court's refusal to dismiss.

That is the comparative-fault cliff in MCL 500.3135(2)(b): an injured person found more than 50 percent at fault recovers no noneconomic damages. Below that line, damages are reduced by the person's share, not erased. The same kind of video is the best evidence a passenger thrown by a sudden stop will ever have, if someone gets it before it is overwritten. Agency retention policies vary.

The records worth demanding in writing, early:

• onboard video from every camera on the bus, and from any bus nearby
• vehicle location and speed data from the agency's tracking system
• the bus's maintenance and inspection records
• the agency's incident report and any passenger statements it collected

A police report helps, but it does not decide fault in the injury case; the video and the agency's own records usually do.

What about charter, tour and school buses?

Charter and tour buses. A for-hire interstate passenger carrier must carry federal minimum coverage under 49 CFR 387.33, set by seating capacity:

Those are coverage floors, not what a case is worth. Whether a charter passenger goes to the bus company's insurer or back to a household policy turns on whether the operator is a common carrier certified by the Michigan Department of Transportation, which is carved out under MCL 500.3114(2)(b). That is a fact to check, not assume.

School buses. School buses are carved out under MCL 500.3114(2)(a), so a student's household policy pays first. A public school district is a governmental agency, and the same motor-vehicle exception applies to a district-owned bus. Michigan Traffic Crash Facts counted 1,044 school bus-related crashes in 2024 (2024 fact sheets). Our school bus accident guide covers those claims in detail.

What should you do in the first weeks after a bus crash?

1. Get medical care and keep every record.
2. Write down the route number, the bus number if you saw it, the time and the stop.
3. File a written PIP claim with your own insurer, or a relative's, well within one year (MCL 500.3145).
4. If SMART was involved, serve written notice of the injury claim on SMART within 60 days. If DDOT was involved, send written notice to the City of Detroit on the same timeline.
5. Send a written demand to preserve the onboard video and tracking data.

Deadlines after a Michigan bus crash

Our Michigan injury deadline calculator runs these dates from the crash date. For the full picture across trucks, delivery vans, rideshare and government vehicles, see who pays after a catastrophic commercial vehicle crash in Michigan.

Common questions

I was a passenger on a SMART bus and I have no car. Who pays my medical bills? Probably SMART's insurer or its self-insurance. The government-program carveout sends passengers to their own household policy only when one exists. In the 2025 Niles case, the court held the city's insurer, not the Assigned Claims Plan, was first in line for a rider with no other policy.

Does my no-fault claim count as notice to SMART? No. Atkins held that an application for no-fault benefits is not written notice of a tort claim, even when SMART already knows the facts of the injury.

Can I sue the bus driver personally? Only for gross negligence that was the proximate cause of the injury. In almost every case the claim is against the city or SMART as owner.

The bus braked hard and I fell. Is that covered? PIP covers injuries arising from the use of a motor vehicle, so a fall on a moving bus usually starts a PIP claim. An injury claim against the agency needs proof that the bus was driven negligently, and the onboard video is usually what shows it.

Talk to a Michigan bus accident lawyer

A free consultation can sort out which insurer pays your bills, whether the 60-day notice has been served and served correctly, which records to lock down before they are overwritten, and whether the injury meets the threshold for a claim against the city or SMART. Call (313) 800-0000 or request a free consultation. Koussan Law handles Michigan public transit and bus accident and government vehicle accident cases from offices in Detroit, Dearborn Heights and Marquette, in English, Spanish and Arabic.