Fatal Bus Crash Leaves Questions

Two weeks ago, all of the headlines were focused on a GAO report that, supposedly, stated truck drivers were medically-unfit to be on the public highways. Although that was NOT what the GAO report said, that was the chosen message conveyed in most major media reporting. No one noticed that a full half of the cited incidents involved passenger bus drivers, not truck drivers.

Friday, August 08, 2008 we all awoke to the news that a charter bus had crashed in Texas with fourteen or more deaths. Little information was forthcoming except the speculation that the bus blew a tire. This would have to be a steer tire as this is the only position in which a blow-out would be likely to cause a major loss of control for an experienced driver with a large vehicle. The first news reports were all careful to remind their audience that the location was near the site of a 2004, 10-fatality crash caused by a tractor-trailer crossing the median and hitting two passenger vehicles.

A cursory search to find the owners of the bus line in question, however, quickly turned up the information that Angel Tours, owned by Angel De La Torre of Houston, had recent poor inspection reports from the Federal Motor Carrier enforcement arm and was ordered to cease business until corrections could be made. A check of the Safe-Stat records for Angel Tours revealed extremely high violation percentages in the areas of driver qualifications and vehicle safety. Mr De La Torre had apparently reformulated his business next door to his old business after being placed out-of-service, using the same vehicles and drivers and incorporated under a new legal name while still doing business as Angel Tours. At this point in time, Federal officials are still unable to determine the owner of the bus as it may have been a leased vehicle. It has been confirmed however, that the current company did not have DOT authority to operate because the required $5 million insurance policy had not been procured and that the company was not authorized to travel across state lines for business purposes.

A reading of the Safe-Stat inspection records shows a pattern of violations for brake defects and driver qualifications. Many inspections cited only warnings, not out-of-service orders, for such violations as defective brakes, missing wheel lugs, bald tires, bad wiring, exhaust leaks, inoperable lights-under the law, most of these should put a vehicle out of service on the spot. Driver violations included; no log book, failure to retain last seven days logs, false record of duty status, improper license for vehicle driven, the ever-present "failure to have knowledge of and comply with regulations" and no medical certification. One has to wonder how this company could possibly operate at all with these violation records in the hands of the federal officials.

The fatal crash near Sherman Texas is the worst since the 2005 bus fire that killed 23 elderly passengers fleeing from hurricane Rita. There are similarities in that both companies had been previously cited for failure to maintain vehicles and repeated driver violations. The driver in the 2005 case was an illegal alien without a Texas CDL as required by law. It appears his failure to understand English may have contributed to the fire and explosions that followed as at least one witness says she attempted to tell the driver the hub of his bus was glowing red hot. Experts concluded the cause likely would have been discovered in a less critical state had a valid pre-trip inspection been performed.

That incident was apparently not enough to call down the full wrath of the feds, however. The driver was given immunity from prosecution because he testified as a material witness against his employer. In fact, after homicide charges were dropped, he was given a work visa and now lives in Laredo, driving a bus between Laredo and Dallas several times a week!

Tornado Bus Lines of Dallas was finally shut down Dec 2007 after a fatal accident in Arkansas in which the driver crossed the median and struck a pick-up truck, resulting in four dead. The company had numerous previous safety violations and had repeatedly assisted in falsifying logs for drivers, encouraging them to drive long past their legal limits. At the time of the accident, the driver had been driving continuously for fifteen hours.

Part of the problem with enforcing safety standards on bus services appears to be that DOT inspectors are forbidden from conducting en-route inspections while passengers are present. It's obvious that some sort of change is required to circumvent the loophole that allows these unsafe buses to continue to transport passengers. Perhaps a system in which DOT officers regularly inspect buses at scheduled rest-stops enroute would help solve the problem. It appears from a casual reading of safety inspection reports that violations of the legal Hours Of Service are likely more common among bus drivers than truck drivers simply due to the fact most buses do not have sleeper berth accommodations for a second driver and passengers cannot and will not sit on the bus while a driver takes a mandatory break. But some things are clear: some unknown number of buses are dangerous, companies are allowed to remain in business after continued violations and Texas DOT in particular seems to have a bus safety problem.

Bus crashes appear to be increasing but statistics are very hard to find. The inescapable fact is that a single bus crash has the potential of far greater loss of life than a solitary tractor-trailer crash. In a great many truck crashes, the only fatality is the truck driver. Yet, we continue to focus on and wring our hands over supposed and often minor safety issues among trucks and drivers and hear nothing about passenger bus safety. Could this be yet another political choice in that many devotees of mass transit and global warming disaster theory have a vested interest in promoting any form of mass movement of people and far less understanding of the importance of truck transport's place in the economy? Or is it simply another example of societal and government bias against the nomads of the road they love to fear and hate? In any case, it is time for Congress to re-direct their efforts at transportation safety to address the growing problems in bus transport.