Unsafe Bus Operators Change Names, Keep Trucking

Bus operators which federal authorities have ordered to stop operating because of serious safety violations appear to be frequently "reincarnating" by changing their names and continuing to operate, endangering other travelers on the nation's highways.

That's the conclusion of a Government Accountability Office report which found that many of these operators were so brazen, and federal oversight so lax, they didn't even bother to change their business addresses or phone numbers when they submitted new paperwork to the federal agency that oversees them, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

In a summary of its findings, the GAO said:

GAO's analysis of FMCSA data for fiscal years 2007 and 2008 identified 20 motor coach companies that likely reincarnated from "out of service" carriers. This represents about 9 percent of the approximately 220 motor coach carriers that FMCSA placed out of service during these 2 fiscal years. The number of likely reincarnated motor carriers is understated, in part, because GAO's analysis was based on exact matches and also could not identify owners who purposely provided FMCSA deceptive information on the application (e.g., ownership) to hide the reincarnation from the agency. Although the number of reincarnated motor coach carriers that GAO identified was small, these companies pose a safety threat to the motoring public.

 

In its letter to lawmakers on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the GAO recounts the accident last year that prompted its investigation of the problem of reincarnated bus and truck operators.

On August 8, 2008, a bus carrying a group of people on a religious pilgrimage crashed in Sherman, Texas, killing 17 people and injuring 15 others. State and federal investigators attributed the accident to the loss of tread on a recapped tire installed on the bus's front right steering axle—the use of recapped tires on the steering wheels is a violation of federal regulations. The driver lost control of the bus, struck a curb, and crashed through the guardrail of a bridge. The bus fell about 8 feet, landed on its right side and slid about 24 feet. Twelve passengers died at the scene, while five others died after being taken to nearby hospitals. The carrier that operated the bus was the reincarnation of a motor coach company that had been deemed unsafe and ordered out of service by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) 2 months prior to the accident.

The report acknowledges that ever since that accident, FMCSA has done more to try and catch these reincarnated bus operators using computer matching to find suspects.

But still some operators fell through the cracks despite the agency's new efforts. Another excerpt from the report:

...We found two cases where FMCSA did not identify new motor coach carriers as reincarnations of companies it had ordered out of service and after the (new Passenger Carrier Vetting Process or PCVP) went into effect.