Personal Injury Law

Dangerous Foreign Motorcoaches On U.S. Roadways

Dangerous passenger buses that do not meet United States safety standards are currently traveling the roadways of this country endangering the passengers and the motoring public. Yesterday, the National Safety Transportation Board issued a call for these dangerous vehicles to be taken off the roadways.

The recommendation is part of a long list of proposals issued by the NTSB following its investigation of a deadly bus crash which occurred in January 2008 in Texas.

NTSB investigators determined that the bus driver who had only three and a half months of experience driving a bus, fell asleep about eight hours into a 10½-hour trip from Monterrey, Mexico to Houston, Texas.

The NTSB staff ruled out the bus and weather as factors, but they uncovered legal loopholes and enforcement failures that allowed the substandard bus to be on the road. The bus did not meet regulations governing safety features that should be included when the bus is manufactured. The board recommended three agencies identify the companies operating substandard buses, put the buses out of service and require the companies to cease operations or face losing authority to operate.

The NTSB found fault with Federal Motor Carrier Administration. Among other things, it could have done a compliance review of the bus operator, Capricorn Bus Lines of Houston, but failed to do so.

Capricorn Bus Lines Inc. leased buses from International Charter Services Inc., to operate in the U.S., but Capricorn had lost its insurance in 2003 because of a fatal accident a year earlier in Mexico.

Capricorn avoided oversight by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration because the lease arrangement allowed it to operate through International Charter. The NTSB faulted the
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration allowing such leases which allow unsafe operators to continue operation.

The NTSB also recommended the following safety proposals:

1. Create databases to help state law enforcement identify out-of-compliance buses and take them off the roads.

2. Require carriers to certify when they apply for operating authority and once a year thereafter that all owned or leased buses comply with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

3. Update safety videos for night time driving and use latest media, such as the Internet, to distribute them more widely.

Full post as published by Georgia Injury Lawyer Blog on December 10, 2009 (boomark / email).