The owner of the bus company, Cayetano Martinez of Los Angeles, had previously been shut down by FMCSA, only to attempt to “reincarnate himself as a new carrier” and unsuccessfully attempted to gain U.S. Department of Transportation operating authority under a new name. “Martinez has shown a persistency and determination to continue operating under new entities and business,” the complaint states. The consent decree also prohibits Martinez, or any affiliated company, “from contracting with or arranging for additional transportation of passengers unless the contracted motor carrier possesses valid operating authority registration from FMCSA.”

The safety of the motoring public and the bus passengers demand enforcement, shutting down, and removal of unauthorized motor carriers from the interstate roads before such a tragedy.

Here is the official press release from the FMCSA:

Illegal Interstate Bus Company Is Ordered to Cease All Operations Immediately FMCSA Obtains Emergency Action to Shut Down Carrier

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Following an emergency request by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the United States District Court for the Central District of California on Saturday ordered the owner of Tierra Santa Inc, the illegal bus company involved in a March 5 fatal crash near Phoenix, Arizona, to immediately cease all interstate and international passenger service.

The carrier ceased operation on the evening of Friday, March 5 at the demand of FMCSA. Saturday’s order makes that shutdown enforceable by the Court.

FMCSA’s complaint states that the owner of the bus company, Cayetano Martinez of Los Angeles, had previously been shut down by FMCSA, only to attempt to “reincarnate himself as a new carrier” and unsuccessfully attempted to gain U.S. Department of Transportation operating authority under a new name.

“Martinez has shown a persistency and determination to continue operating under new entities and business,” the complaint states.

The consent decree also prohibits Martinez, or any affiliated company, “from contracting with or arranging for additional transportation of passengers unless the contracted motor carrier possesses valid operating authority registration from FMCSA.”

The consent decree does not absolve Martinez from possible future civil penalties by FMCSA for violations of federal motor carrier safety regulations.

“It is absolutely essential that unsafe carriers like this one be taken off the road,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “Safety is our number one priority at the Department of Transportation and we will not rest until this accident has been fully investigated.”

“FMCSA investigators are working tirelessly so that we can prevent such a senseless loss of life from happening again,” said FMCSA Administrator Anne S. Ferro. “We thank the United States Attorney’s Office for their outstanding partnership in bringing this emergency action forward so quickly.”

The current rule allows 18-wheeler drivers to drive 11 hours within a 14-hour work day, coupled with a 60-hour driving limit in 7 days or a 70-hour limit in 8 days. The driver can restart the 60 or 70 hour clock after having 34 consecutive hours off duty. The previous rule had allowed for 10 hours of driving in a 15-hour period, but allowed drivers to log on and off duty whenever they wanted.

According to the FMCSA statement, the terms of the settlement require the FMCSA to begin a new rulemaking process and submit within nine months, with the current rule to remain in effect during the rulemaking proceedings.

For 60 years, truckers were allowed to drive a maximum of 10 hours at a time. The Bush administration and the trucking industry wanted to let truckers have an extra hour of driving time. The rule also cut rest and recovery time at the end of a work week from 50 or more hours off duty to as little as 34 hours off-duty. A federal appeals court struck the rule down twice, saying the government did not adequately explain its reasoning for adding the extra hour. But the Bush administration reinstated the rule each time. Public Citizen, Parents Against Tired Truckers, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters sued to get the rule thrown out.

FMCSA officials said that this settlement “resolves potentially lengthy and contentious litigation and gives the FMCSA the opportunity to reconsider its current rule with an eye towards developing a new rule.” Safe driving, driving while not fatigued can save lives. It protects the 18-wheeler driver and the motoring public in the passenger vehicle from unsafe and unhealthy driver conditions.

When commercial vehicles, such as 18-wheeler and tour buses, collide with passenger vehicles the result is a deadly and costly mix of injuries, property damage and death. In an effort to reduce crashes involving trucks, buses, and passenger vehicles, the CVSA in partnership with the FMCSA are sending out the message: “Cutting it close can cut your life short.” This year’s campaign kick off event is at a High School to educate teens about safe driving practices of drivers who share the road with larger commercial vehicles to improve road safety and save lives.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has reacted to the GAO report by putting in place new oversight measures, computer matching processes, new safety audit regulations and stricter compliance follow up. Paying for the needed computer upgrades will only come from a proposed $500 billion highway safety reorganization bill which has been held up by the Obama administration for a review of costs.

In the current economy and amid the national debate over costs of health care reform and rising deficits, passage of that bill seems unlikely. Unfortunately for us that means any bus or 18 wheeler we meet on the road could be the one being operated by unsafe and unscrupulous motor carrier operators.

“We are not going to break everyone of their bad habits — but we are going to raise awareness and sharpen the consequences,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
As a first step, LaHood said President Barack Obama signed an executive order banning all federal workers from texting while driving on government business, driving government vehicles or using government equipment.

The administration also will push to disqualify school bus drivers who are convicted of texting while driving from keeping their commercial driver’s licenses.
Researchers, safety groups, automakers and lawmakers gathered for a two day conference to discuss the perils of distracted driving, hearing sobering data from the government that underscored the safety threat as more motorists stay connected with cell phones and mobile devices.

The Transportation Department reported that 5,870 people were killed and 515,000 were injured last year in crashes connected to driver distraction, often involving mobile devices or cell phones. Driver distraction was involved in 16% of all fatal crashes in 2008 and was more prevalent among young drivers. The next step is to ban texting by automobile drivers.

There are more than 9 million trucks on U.S. roads that make up only 4% of all passenger vehicles but are involved in 12% of all fatalities. The vast majority of the people killed are drivers and passengers of the vehicle the truck hits. Even though there are many reasons for the accidents there are many due to violations of companies trying to cut corners. Some of the violations include overloading truck, allowing unqualified or untrained drivers on the road, failing to properly maintain tires and brakes and compensation systems that promote drivers to exceed speed limits and maximum driving hours.

Trucks are vital to our economy and haul nearly 70% of all our freight. This being said, they are also inherently dangerous due to their size and weight. Because of this we need to ensure our regulations are strictly enforced. Data on all 28,274 trucking companies can be found online.

The violators owed delinquent fines and had scores of violations, from operating without the proper license to failing to test drivers for illegal drugs and alcohol. This same tactic was used by the bus operator in a horrific Texas crash where an unlicensed charter bus carrying a Vietnamese-American Catholic group blew a retreaded tire installed on a steering axle and skidded off the highway killing 17 people in one of the nation’s deadliest bus crashes. The use of a recapped tire on the steering wheel is a violation of Federal regulations.

Investigators said that more than 500 of the tractor-trailer and bus companies were still operating. These companies pose a safety threat to each one of us on the roadway. These motor-carrier and bus companies that reincarnate themselves under a new name to evade out of service orders and fines should be prosecuted criminally and their vehicles seized.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has responded to the report by stating it has put in place a computer matching process to compare new applicants to poor performing motor carriers dating back to 2003. Still, the GAO said the FMCSA did not yet have full computer capability to identify companies that had used similar addresses and names but not necessarily exact matches of each other.

In the Texas crash, Iguala BusMex Inc. of Houston had received a Transportation Department number and was awaiting approval for a federal license when one of its buses crashed near Sherman on Aug. 8. The company was run by Angel de la Torre, who operated Angel Tours Inc., which was forced to take its vehicles out of interstate service just two months earlier after an unsatisfactory review by federal regulators.

Other cases cited by GAO, without identifying the companies were:

—Inspectors examined a bus operated by a Texas bus company in October 2006, fining it $850 after deeming the vehicle unsafe to drive. A few months later, the company was found illegally transporting 33 passengers from Mexico into the U.S. and was fined $2,380. That same month, a new company opened with two of the same drivers, three of the same vehicles, the same last name for the company owner and virtually identical addresses. The new firm operated for 18 months before it was cited for drug testing violations in September 2008; it was ordered out of service last month.

—An Arkansas motor carrier was cited for nine safety violations in May 2007, including failing to get the proper licenses and maintaining driver qualification files, and fined $3,050. A new company with the same business address, phone number and company officer name started in June 2007, three months before the old carrier was ordered out of service. The new carrier operated for more than a year before it was cited in November 2008 for violations including insufficient registration. A $2,000 fine was assessed; the company was ordered out of service in March.

—A California bus company was cited for 18 safety violations in May 2007, including drivers who refused to take mandatory drug tests, and was fined $2,200. The carrier began to correct some of its violations but failed to pay the fine. A new company with the same phone number, fax number and company officer name was formed in October 2007. FMCSA subsequently ordered the old company out of service in February; the new company was still active as of May.

A separate report by Car and Driver magazine found that texting and driving is more dangerous than drunken driving. Texting has grown from nearly 10 billion messages a month in December, 2005 to more than 110 billion in December 2008, according to CTIA, the cellular phone industries’ trade group.

Legislation has been introduced in Washington to ban texting while driving. Although enforcement may be difficult, the education and advertisement of enforcement should tune in drivers that text. 14 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws making texting while driving illegal. The federal government is in a transportation spending mode from billions of dollars to bale out the car manufacturers to the Cash for Clunkers program. Sufficient funding to eliminate and enforce distractions of the 18 wheeler truck driver, the tour bus driver, and those of passenger vehicles is warranted to make the road way free from accidents caused by distracted drivers.

You can access government records and check out the motor carrier’s compliance with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).  Look at the age of the fleet of buses and vehicles used by the company.  Latest is better.  Ask questions.  Check out the driver of your tour bus.  I suggest that organizations that hire tour bus companies have their attorney do a due diligence inquiry for the safety and adequate insurance.

The Shreveport church bus crashed on Interstate 20 in Mississippi, 2 miles west of the Alabama state line. The bus rolled 3 times around 10:20 a.m. near Meridian, trapping at least 2 people underneath. The preliminary cause of the crash was a tire blow-out which caused the bus to roll over. The bus had left the church at 4:45 a.m. headed to a weeklong youth event near Atlanta called Passport.

We should not forget the importance of maintenance and physical inspections of vehicles before each and every trip – this is important for family vehicles, but it is especially important for high-occupancy commercial vehicles. Safety suggests not only inspecting the tires and making sure the tire inflation is according to manufacture specifications, but also a visit to the tire dealer for their professional inspection.

Bus safety is a national concern. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) continues to investigate a motor coach bus rollover accident that occurred in the early evening in 2006. As a 2000 MCI 55-Passenger motor coach carrying 52 passengers was traveling northbound on Interstate 87, descending a 5% grade at an estimated 75 mph, it passed a tractor-semi trailer in the right lane, its left front tire failed, and the vehicle veered sharply to the left. The motor coach went off the pavement, through a 3-cable median barrier, and down a dirt and grass depressed center median. The motor coach struck several large rocks in the median and rolled over, coming to rest on its roof. As a result, 5 people including the driver were killed, and 48 passengers were injured.

Also, the NTSB is continuing its investigation of the 2008 Sherman, TX, motor coach bus accident involving tire failure. The chartered motor coach departed from the Vietnamese Martyrs Catholic Church in Houston, TX with a driver and 54 passengers on board. The chartered motor coach was in route to the Marian Days Festival in Carthage, MO. Four and a half hours after departure, the motor coach was involved in a multiple-fatality, single vehicle collision in Sherman, TX. The bus experienced a failure of a right steer axle retreaded tire.

The report outlined numerous completed highway investigations including a school bus collision involving an 18-wheeler in Florida.  A truck driver, operating a 75,360 pound Freightliner truck tractor pulling a box trailer caused a rear-end collision to a school bus. The bus was occupied by passengers ages 20 months to 15 years.  The school bus was stopped to discharge two students.  A Pontiac occupied by a driver and six passengers was stopped behind the school bus.  The 18-wheeler collided with the rear of the Pontiac and the bus.  All seven occupants of the Pontiac were killed.  Three of the nine students on the school bus were ejected landing on the highway pavement and were seriously injured.   It was determined that the probable cause of this accident was the failure of the truck driver to maintain alertness due to fatigue from obtaining inadequate rest.  Contributing to the accident was the failure of the motor carrier to exercise proper over-sight of the driver’s hours of service.

The injuries can result in a range of diagnoses such as soft tissue injury, whiplash, cervical and lumbar strain or sprain, disc bulges, disc herniations, aggravation of pre-existing non-symptomatic osteoarthritis and injury to the vertebral discs themselves.

Soft tissue inflammation and straining type injuries are usually treated conservatively with a regimen of heat/cold packs, anti-inflammatory and pain medications and physical therapy. More serious injuries such as disc bulges and disc herniations may require steroid injections or surgical intervention. Bulges and herniations cause pain by compressing on the nearby nerves or spinal cord and radiating pain or numbness into the arms or legs. Some experts believe victims can have a discogenic or intervertebral disc injury causing pain coming from injured nerves within the disc itself even in the absence of evidence of nerve root compression.

It is important to seek immediate medical treatment when you have been involved in an auto accident and experience any type of neck or back pain.

A witness said, “The scene is as horrific as you can imagine.  One car was almost squeezed completely together.”  In May, Operation Safe Student was carried out in all 50 states and the U.S. territories conducting thousands of passenger carrier safety inspections at popular travel destinations nationwide.  The inspections were held during the peak season of increased student fieldtrip activities.  Enforcement officials performed approximately 8,700 roadside inspections which resulted in more than 650 buses and 225 drivers placed out-of-service for non-compliance with Federal regulations.

We applaud these strike forces and surprise inspections as part of the overall comprehensive strategy to ensure motor coaches, buses and other passenger carriers operate safely and in compliance with Federal regulations on our roads, highways, and rail track systems.

Inspectors examined the brakes, lighting and other aspects, which include vehicle component, driver component or a combination of both, to find out if the vehicles were in compliance with the FMCSA standards.  15 buses received citations and 2 were taken completely out of service.  In other words, 60% of the buses were cited for violations. 

This level of safety inspections for the bus and driver is applauded.  The number of people transported by tour buses require these surprise inspections for safety of the tour bus passenger and the rest of the motoring public.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) determined the probable cause of the accident was insufficient lubrication of a rear axle, which over heated and caused a fire in the wheel well that filled the 1998 Motor Coach Industries bus with flames and heavy smoke.  The families of the victims contended that the bus manufacturer and the component part makers were aware of a design defect in the hub and axle system that could fail resulting in injuries.

The settlement helps bring closure to the families, but it also plays a more important role in making safety a priority to the motor coach bus industry including the manufacturer, bus broker, bus motor carrier, bus maintenance provider, operator and driver.  Safety is the utmost concern for the passengers riding in the bus as well as the vehicles on the roadway the bus driver encounters.