Passenger Trains > Feds Shut Down 5 "Unsafe" Tour Bus Companies in CA

Somewhat off topic because not directly passenger rail-related. Neither Amtrak
nor any other rail passenger service is in direct competition with these Southern
California operations offering cheap bus service to/from Mexico.
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Feds Shut Down Five "Unsafe" Tour Bus Companies
KNBC
Dec 26, 2013
by Joel Grover and Chris Henao

> The federal government is stepping up its crackdown on unsafe buses
> in California, issuing an order that puts five "unsafe" bus companies
> out of business.

> The Federal Motor Carrier Administration has ordered the LA-based bus
> company called "It's Good Promotion" to stop doing business
> immediately. The company, based in East Los Angeles, ran buses from
> LA to Mexico.

> The feds say on Dec. 1, they inspected a bus with the "It's Good
> Promotion" name crossing the border into the U.S., and found 17
> serious safety defects. They ordered the bus "out of service," and
> opened an investigation into the company.

> Investigators uncovered something even bigger: they say It's Good
> Promotion was illegally allowing at least four other "unsafe bus
> companies," that had previously been shut down by the government, to
> continue operating, by using the It's Good Promotion name and federal
> registration number to evade authorities.

> "Rogue bus companies that compromise public safety are being shut
> down in California and nationwide," said Federal Motor Carrier Safety
> (FMCSA) Administrator Anne Ferro.

> In their investigation, the FMCSA found serious violations from It's
> Good Promotions bus operations, including:

> Allowing a driver who tested positive for illegal drugs to continue
> driving

> Using drivers that didn't have valid U.S. commercial driver's
> licenses

> Failing to make sure its buses were properly repaired and maintained

> The investigation found companies like Holy Spirit Tours of Los
> Angeles operating under It's Good Promotion's federal registration
> number. Holy Spirt Tours was shutdown by the feds in October 2012
> after they found serious problems, including the "fitness" of the
> company's drivers.

> The FMCSA also found two Phoenix-based bus companies that were
> previously shutdown, were back in business because they were using
> Its Good Promotion's registration.

> The government has issued an "Imminent Hazard" Order that forces It's
> Good Promotion and the others to stop doing business immediately.

> The federal investigation into these companies continues, and
> officials say those companies could face civil and criminal
> penalties, possibly including prison time.

> "Deliberately evading federal safety regulations that protect
> travelers on our highways and roads has serious consequences and will
> not be tolerated," says U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

Full story:

Feds Shut Down Five "Unsafe" Tour Bus Companies

Triumph of the Bus!

About time

This operator is daring...drove a bus from Ciudad Juarez (across the border
from El Paso), where it had been refused entry due to having been tagged as unsafe,
to Tijuana (across the border from San Diego) where the border crossing was attempted
again, and the bus was placed out of service. Apparently this was the act that triggered
the investigation:

> On Dec. 1, 2013, a bus with the markings of “Its Good Promotion” was
> stopped for an inspection while crossing into the United States at
> the Otay Mesa, Calif., Port of Entry. The vehicle was found to be
> the subject of an FMCSA out-of-service order issued Nov. 15, 2013.
> Furthermore, inspectors discovered 17 serious safety defects, 14 of
> which individually required the vehicle to be immediately placed
> out-of-service as an imminent hazard to the public. It was also
> revealed that the vehicle had attempted to cross the border earlier
> the same day in El Paso, Texas, but was refused entry by U.S. Customs
> and Border Protection agents because of the previously issued FMCSA
> out-of-service order. -USDOT/FMCSA

The imminent hazard out-of-service order against John Andre Ciego dba It's Good Promotion
can be viewed at:

www.fmcsa.dot.gov/documents/about/news/2013/ItsGoodPromotion.pdf



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/13 09:21 by GenePoon.

Judging by the list of busses owned, he operated a fleet of worn out junk.
People shop cheap. Good drivers and good equipment don't come cheap.
They get what they pay for.

rfprr

I'd encourage everyone to read the paragraph about the bus being impounded at the Otay Mesa entry point in San Diego after being turned back from the border at El Paso ON THE SAME DAY. Google says it's 1,468 km (917 miles) on the Mexican side of the border between Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana, and should require roughly 14 hours to drive that distance.

Anyone wonder if the same bus driver was handling the bus the entire way?

And that's the problem with what rfprr says. Yes, the passengers "shop cheap," so perhaps they deserve what they get in terms of shoddy buses and exhausted drivers. But what about the rest of us who are sharing the highway with these decrepit buses and sleepy drivers? Do we deserve to die because an operator's providing a threadbare service? I'm not trying to start a political flame-war here, but this is why there's regulation. Yes, perhaps "the market" will drive conditions. Perhaps people will stay away from a shabby bus company because of its poor safety record, and it will eventually go bankrupt. But how many other, innocent people will be injured or killed while "the market" corrects itself? This is why there's regulation. This is why there are meat inspectors. This is why there are dairy inspectors. This is why there are building inspectors. And, as we seem to keep finding it necessary to learn, this is why there are bank inspectors.

Back to railroading!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/13 10:27 by knotch8.

Ptolemy Wrote:
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> Triumph of the Bus!

While I cannot speak for the American Bus Association, I believe that the intercity motorcoach industry supports the federal efforts on shutting down unsafe bus companies. By eliminating the unsafe operators, the overall reputation of motorcoach companies is improved so that they can continue to play a major role in providing intercity passenger transportation.

knotch8 Wrote:
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I'm not trying to start a political
> flame-war here, but this is why there's
> regulation. Yes, perhaps "the market" will drive
> conditions. Perhaps people will stay away from a
> shabby bus company because of its poor safety
> record, and it will eventually go bankrupt. But
> how many other, innocent people will be injured or
> killed while "the market" corrects itself? This
> is why there's regulation. This is why there are
> meat inspectors. This is why there are dairy
> inspectors. This is why there are building
> inspectors. And, as we seem to keep finding it
> necessary to learn, this is why there are bank
> inspectors.
>
> Back to railroading!

Very well stated! Thanks for writing this.

I'm some cases, Federal Regulations are part of the problem. I'm in the bus industry and I cant believe the crap that rolls down the road. This company they shut down will turn around and show up again under a new name. They buy crap buses and run them as hard and long as they can to make every penny they can. These crap buses are usually referred to ghost buses cause they are run white with little to no lettering on them accept for required reporting marks. This makes it easy to change names and show up again under someone elses ownership and back on the road. We purchased a motor coach from an Arizona company that was run into the ground, it took 3 months and 60,000 bucks to get it in safe and dependable condition. These rat companies are not going to do this sort or work, they want to make money, not spend it. Same as drivers, they aren't going to pay more than minimum wage and they are going to let them drive as longs as they can. California used to have a strict 16 hour work clock. Consecutive, so after being at work 16 hours you died on the clock. But then California adopted Federal standards. Now its 15 hours but not consecutive. On the surface it looks better, drivers are on the clock one hour less than they were, but that's not the case. The driver can still only drive 10 hours, but can be on duty and stretch the day out legally. Case in point, a driver can go to work in Redding Ca, make pickups and drive 5 hours to Reno Nv, taking 7 hours to do it. Let passengers off at Casinos for 7 hours and then do the reverse trip back to Redding. On record cause of the non consecutive time, the driver can take the 7 hours off in reno as off duty time. So on paper the driver only worked 14 hours, but in reality the driver has been up 21 hours which they can be paid for as pay is not an indicator of on duty time. Is it no wonder they fall asleep after doing this day in day out. Motor Carrier ( that does terminal inspections) used to inspect every buss in your fleet. Now they only check out a small percentage of your fleet. I could literally hide a bus from them for 10 years if I wanted to, and we only have 10 coaches. I have to force them every year to do more than they want to just so I can cycle all of then through in a 3 year cycle. So things will not improve until the feds up their standards, Motor carrier actually hires more staff to actually inspect the buses in the state and drivers logs and records and not only shuts down bad operators, but impounds these rolling wrecks to keep them from showing up the next day owned by the scumbags brother in law.

TomG --
Thank you, thank you, thank you for telling the truth about
these dangerous fools who are putting these dangerous
vehicles on our public highways. The feds really need to
make their standards very tight. As has been said -- we
all are at risk from those nasty bus company owners --
and that includes the 1%.

Do we devote the same effort to getting dangerous trucks off the road?

Not sure if it's the same level of effort that the authorities use on buses, since trucks haul goods, not people, but I do read of big rigs being ruled off the road for bad brakes and unsafe tires.

Just in the past two weeks, we've had three bus wrecks here in Southern California, with several fatalities. I haven't seen the CHP reports, but the circumstances in at least one case would point to running with worn-out tires on a rain-dampened pavement.

Back in 1979, I had a job that required driving from Alhambra CA to Laughlin NV to work at the big power plant. We'd stay out there for two or three weeks, then drive home on company time. This meant driving over Cajon Pass on Friday afternoon. We'd be coming downhill and see the charter buses heading uphill toward Las Vegas. Some of them looked OK, but others were struggling up the grade, belching clouds of black smoke, and I wondered if the first gambling action of the trip was betting one whether the wheezy old motor coach would make it to Barstow, let alone the Nevada border.

Trucks are required to pull through scales to be weighed, and are randomly inspected and drivers logs checked. Thats where allot of violations are found and trucks with serious violations are taken out of service. Motor Carrier used to pull buses into scales occasionally to do the same, but stopped the practice because all the bad publicity from having buses siting in scales out of service full of tax payers that wernt getting to their destinations. They would have to wait hours for a replacement bus to arrive. I got that straight out of the mouth from our inspector. Its very sad that safety was put on the back burner to inconvenience. On of the last road side bus inspections was on the California boarder between LA and Las Vegas, they had a dozen buses taken out of service waiting replacement. 500 people sitting in the heat caused CHP to stop the practice. People only want the illusion of safety, not the inconvenience of enforcing it.


Maybe we should turn inspections over to the Air Recourse Board. They wouldnt let anything slide, no matter how small or what the cost to anyone was.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/13 17:08 by TomG.

Good suggestion.

These bus "private operators" just might be showing the ideologues that being a "Private operator" doesn't automatically make you a saint. Yet, we have been told countless times that "private operators" can do a much better job than Amtrak. Maybe these bus guys should apply to operate Amtrak trains instead of buses--then the Surfliners could magically charge $1 fares to San Diego.

Also, aren't these bus operators small "entrepreneurs" and "job creators", running a business for profit--just the kind of guys the "privatizers" would have running Amtrak. Of course, to them "Safety" is a detail for someone else to work out; it's the ideology of "Privatization" that counts; or so they preach to us.

Joe



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/13 20:18 by floridajoe2001.

it varies by state rather buses have to enter weigh station. I know that both mo and so Dakota require all buses to enter open weigh stations

Dangerous way to travel!
Sloppy drivers, poorly maintained vehicles.
Not to mention poor creature comforts.

I don't know the specifics but it strikes me that as many or more people are killed in bus wrecks each year than train wrecks for the same period. So, where's the call for Positive Bus Control, multiple drivers, ad infinitum ? ? ?

RailNet802 owevaaaah

ps, there's been over 3000 highway deaths in TX this calendar year alresdy