Is Falling on the Sidewalk While Getting Off the Bus Considered a ''Car Accident'' ?

In Gielarowski v. Port Authority of Allegheny County, 159 Pa. Commw. 214, 632 A.2d 1054, 1056 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1993) a passenger alit from a Port Authority bus and he then fell and suffered injury. This Court affirmed the denial of first party benefits. It stated that a motor vehicle insurance claim against a government agency must satisfy requirements of the immunity statutes and concluded that the circumstances of the passenger's fall on the sidewalk did not come within the vehicle exception in Section 8522(b)(1) because the injury did not occur during the "operation" of the vehicle, as in Love v. City of Philadelphia, 518 Pa. 370, 543 A.2d 531 (1988), where a woman's falling while alighting from a local agency's van was held not to be within "operation" of the motor vehicle as narrowly construed.