A group of tourists, including 15 people from Milwaukee, were injured when their shuttle van crashed at Orlando International Airport, according to a local TV station.
The van’s passengers included the group of tourists from Milwaukee, ages 1 to 56. The accident took place near Terminal B.
A New Jersey woman who suffered brain damage, and had her left leg and right foot amputated, after being run over by a bus is getting a $7.85 million settlement, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported Saturday.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/01/woman_badly_hurt_by_nj_transit.html
Mercedes Perez, 59, sustained her life-changing injuries in an Oct. 9, 2008 accident in Paterson, N.J., where she was hit by a NJ Transit bus at the intersection of Cianci and Market streets. Superior Court Judge Anthony Graziano in Passaic County approved her settlement Friday, according to The Ledger.
A just-hired bus driver hit Perez while she was in the middle of a crosswalk. The Ledger reported that the bus ran over her legs, and that Perez’s head also hit the ground, knocking her out. As a result, Perez suffered traumatic brain injury, had her left leg amputated above the knee, had part of her right foot amputated, and had to have metal rings inserted in her fractured cheekbone, according to The Ledger.
In the aftermath of her devastating injuries, Perez was on a ventilator for 18 days and underwent several operations. She also got septis, The Ledger reported.
Perez’s current condition is that she is bedridden, cannot talk and is being fed by a tube.
The woman, run over when she was on her way to the dentist, is at a rehab center in Edison, N.J., but will now be transferred to a private facility.
It seems that 2011 was the year of fatal tour bus crashes, accidents that drew government scrutiny and crackdowns on the bus industry in states such as New York.
One of the issues has been the need for more stringent background checks on bus drivers. Some drivers involved in fatal accidens have been found to have criminal records, including Ophadell Williams, who was indicted for manslaughter in the deaths of 15 passsengers killed when his bus crashed in the Bronx.
Such was the case in the death of Angela Reid.
Under a settlement, a Staten Island, N.Y., bus company has agreed to pay $9,5 million to Reid’s estate, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday. Reid, a surgical nurse, died of injuries she sustained when she was struck by a bus driver with an extensive criminal record, Rufus Jones.
Needless to say, Jones was less than forthcoming when he applied for a job with Atlantic Express Transportation. When he filled out his job application, he “forgot” to mention that he had 31 criminal convictions and a suspended New Jersey driver’s license, according to the News.
Jones was driving an express bus in Manhattan when he went through a red light at 34th Street and Madison Avenue and struck Reid, who was on her way to her job at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, the News reported. Reid, the 34-year-old mother of two sons, was crushed and sustained devastating injuries, which resulted in surgeries and the amputation of her right leg.
Nonetheless, she died about three months after the Jan. 21, 2009 accident. In an interview with the News, Jones expressed remorse for Reid’s death but said his criminal record played no part in the accident.
But her employer, Atlantic Express, is paying the piper, to the tune of $9.5 million, via the settlement approved by in the Bronix Supreme Court. The money will be placed in a trust fund for Reid’s sons Dante, 9, and Devante, 11, according to the News. They now live in Florida with their father.
It appears that you’re putting your life at risk if you use a city-to-city curbside bus service, according to a study just released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
http://www.ntsb.gov/news/2011/111031.html
The study found that the rapid growth of curbside carriers poses challenges for effective safety oversight, and that such cheapie, sometimes fly-by-night bus operators have a fatal accident rate that is seven times that of buses that run out of bus terminals.
The study’s results were released during a Halloween press conference that incuded NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and U.S. Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez. The six-month study on curbside motorcoach safety was initiated — at the request of Schumer and Velazquez — following a series of accidents in this rapidly growing industry.
“It’s abundantly clear that the oversight of this industry has not kept pace with its growth and the consequences have been deadly,” Schumer said in a statement. “The NTSB report is a wake-up call that we need a more rigorous regulatory regime and it provides a blueprint for how to fill the gaps. I want to thank Chairman Hersman for so quickly and efficiently responding to our goal and I look forward to working with her as we now begin the process of working to overhaul how this industry is regulated and monitored.”
The deadliest accident to date happened March 12 in the Bronx, when a bus crash killed 15 people and injured 18 more. That accident ” highlights key safety issues related to this fast-growing segment of the transportation industry,” the NTSA said in a press release.
“Business and safety practices within the growing curbside bus industry create challenges for enforcement authorities and consumers alike when it comes to separating the safe operators from the unsafe operators,” Hersman said at the press conference.
The report is the first comprehensive evaluation of the motorcoach industry, with an emphasis on what are commonly known as curbside carriers. Curbside motorcoach operations consist of scheduled trips that begin or end at locations other than traditional bus terminals; most of these operations pick up or discharge passengers at one or more curbside locations.
The study analyzed the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) data and conducted field work, which included interviews, focus groups, and observations of compliance reviews and inspections.
The key study findings include:
1. In general, motorcoach travel is safe. However, curbside carriers with 10 or fewer buses and carriers who have been in business for 10 years or less, have higher accident rates and higher roadside inspection violation rates.
2. The fatal accident rate for curbside carriers from January 2005 to March 2011 was seven times that of conventional bus operations: 1.4 fatal accidents per 100 vehicles for curbside carriers compared with 0.2 fatal accidents per 100 vehicles for conventional scheduled carriers.
3. The exclusion of buses from routine enroute inspections — especially of curbside carriers that don’t operate from terminals — reduces opportunities to discover safety violations.
4. The FMCSA is overburdened. For example, 878 FMCSA and state personnel are responsible for compliance reviews for more than 765,000 U.S. motor carriers, a ratio of 1.15 investigators per 1,000 motor carriers.
5. Bus driver fatigue, a contributing factor in many accidents, is a continuing safety concern.
6. There is a lack of transparency in ticket sales. More than conventional carriers, curbside operators use online bus brokers. FMCSA has no authority to regulate these brokers.
“Motorcoach safety is on the NTSB’s Most Wanted List because of the potential for high-consequence accidents like we saw in the Bronx,” Hersman said. “It’s time to recognize that traditional transportation services have morphed into new business models that challenge existing regulatory constructs. I want to thank Senator Schumer and Congresswoman Velazquez for their leadership on this important safety issue.”
Since March, the NTSB has initiated investigations into two curbside bus crashes and has been assessing safety issues in three others. These five accidents resulted in 22 fatalities and 159 injuries.
“When travelers board a bus, they should feel safe, whether the trip starts in a terminal or at a Chinatown sidewalk,” Velazquez said in a statement. ”"The NTSB study has revealed important information about curbside motorcoach travel and, in the coming weeks, we’ll need to continue working to improve the safety regulations that govern this growing industry.”
After several multiple-fatality bus crashes, authorities in New York state and New York City have just completed a one-month crackdown on illegal buses, the New York Post reported Saturday.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/hitting_brakes_hard_LHz8Mb63oP1rHv5lpcTsuN
The tabloid said that the New York City Police Department and state transportation officials had put 46 interstate buses out of commission for “everything from safety violations to mechanical issues.”
As part of the sweep, three bus companies that were transporting passengers out of state, but didn’t even have a license to operate, were immediately shut down, according to the Post.
The crackdown came in the wake of a startling number of tour-bus accidents this year, including one that killed 15 people on their way to Chinatown in March.
The New York safety-inspection crackdown wound up with 150 summonses being issued to bus companies and drivers, the Post said.
The driver who was asleep at the wheel when a tour bus crashed in Virginia, killing four passengers, will be tried for involuntary manslaughter but a reckless driving charge will be dropped, prosecutors told the Associated Press Friday.
http://www.ajc.com/travel/1-charge-to-be-1191992.html
Kin Yiu Cheung, 37, of New York is still slated to be tried in January on four felony counts of involuntary manslaughter. Each of those charges carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.
According to AP, Cheung has admitted to authorities that he fell asleep while driving May 31, when he was driving a group from Greensboro, N.C., to New York City. The bus went off Interstate 95 near Richmond, struck an embankment and rolled over. There were 60 people onboard.
Cheung worked for the discount bus line Sky Express, which transportation officials were in the process of closing down. But they had given the bus company a 10-day extension to appeal a failing safety rating.
The bus driver at the helm during a crash that killed 15 people in March in the Bronx has been indicted on numerous counts of manslaughter. And Ophadell Williams entered a not guilty plea to those charges, even after a prosecutor said that the defendant knew he was too tired to drive. The end result was that now more than a dozen people are dead.
The fatal crash on Interstate 95, which happened March 12 as the bus was en route from a Connecticut casino to Manhattan, has prompted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to take a series of actions to crack down on the tour-bus industry. And national safety officials are taking a look at the issue, too.
Williams apparently fell asleep at the wheel, and his bus subsequently accelerated to 78 miles an hour. The vehicle turned over and struck a metal stanchion, which cut it in half from the front to the back. Some passengers were decapitated during the horrific accident.
According to The New York Times, at Williams’ arraignment a prosecutor accused the defendant of recklessness — reckless because Williams had been driving during his off hours and was very tired when he was driving back from the Mohegan Sun Casino.
Williams, who didn’t even have a valid driver’s license and has a criminal record, was charged with 15 counts of manslaughter; 15 counts of criminally negligent homicide; 23 counts of assault for the passengers he hurt; reckless driving; and unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.
The manslaughter charges alone each have a maximum sentence of 15 years.
The terrible accident in the spring wasn’t Williams’ first problem as a bus driver, but he had kept the others well hidden. First of all, he had done time in prison for manslaughter and larceny.
And last week the New York inspector general released a report on Williams’ that said at the time of the crash, he had three suspensions to his driving privileges open under the alias of Eric Williams, The Times reported.
Williams, upstanding citizen that he is, had provided false information to the New York Department of Motor Vehicles and the bus companies that wound up hiring him.
The only good to come out of this tragic case is the spotlight it has put on the under-regulated discount tour bus industry.
But that won’t help the survivors of the 15 victims who were slaughtered in the crash.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is continuing his crusade for bus safety.
Last week Cuomo signed a law to expand the list of convictions that disqualify people from either permanently or temporarily operating a school bus. That move comes in the wake of the governor last month suspending the licenses of eight poorly performing tour bus operators.
http://www.governor.ny.gov/press/08162011busdriverlaw
The law adds to the list of convictions that would either permanently disqualify an applicant from being a bus driver or disqualify the candidate for five years.
Although the main aim of the new law is to protect children from sexual predators, it also seeks to bar potential drivers who have killed people in accidents from ever getting behind the wheel of school bus.
Before, people would be prohibited from driving a school bus for five years if they had been convicted of vehicular manslaughter in the first degree; aggravated vehicular homicide; and promoting prostitution in the first, second or third degree. The new law changes that temporary five-year prohibition to a permanent ban for those guilty of these crimes.
In addition, forcible touching and criminal sale of a prescription for a controlled substance will be added to the list of crimes that will result in a five-year prohibition.
“This law will protect our children by making sure those convicted of sexual offenses and other serious crimes are disqualified from becoming school bus drivers,” Cuomo said in a press release. “Keeping our children safe must always be a top priority and by signing this legislation we are putting in place additional precautions that will help protect our students. I thank Sen. Bonacic and Assemblyman Pretlow for their work on this important legislation.”
Under the new law, crimes for which a conviction would ban a person from becoming a school bus driver include:
* Aggravated manslaughter in the first or second degree.
* Aggravated sexual abuse in the second, third, and fourth degree.
* Sexual abuse in the first degree.
* Course of sexual conduct against a child in the first or second degree.
* Facilitating a sex offense with a controlled substance.
* Predatory sexual assault.
* Sex trafficking.
* Disseminating indecent materials to minors in the first degree.
* Use of a child in a sexual performance.
* Promoting or possessing a sexual performance by a child.
*Aggravated assault upon a child less than 11 years old.
* Luring a child.
* Persistent sexual abuse.
* Aggravated criminally negligent homicide.
* Criminal sale of a controlled substance in or near school grounds.
The law will take effect in 180 days.
“This legislation is an important step in better protecting children,” Sen. John Bonacic said in a prepared statement. “By making sure those who are convicted of a variety of sex crimes, including crimes against children, are unable to pass the required background check and become school bus drivers, we will make New York safer for all children. I appreciate Gov. Cuomo’s signing this legislation into law. I also want to single out and applaud the Onteora School District’s Transportation Director, David Moraca, for bringing the need for this legislation to my attention.”
In the govnernor’s press release, Assemblyman J. Gary Pretlow stated, “I commend Gov. Cuomo for signing into law this common sense legislation that provides a much needed update to our penal code. School bus drivers spend many hours with our children, and we must make sure these drivers have not been convicted of serious crimes that would jeopardize the safety of students.”
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., made a great point a few weeks ago when he suggested that there should be a national solution to stem the rash of tour bus accidents in 2011. He pointed out that there have already been more bus crashes this year so far than there were all of last year.
Several tour bus accidents made headlines just this weekend and the end of last week. Early Saturday morning in Pennsylvania, 14 people were injured and had to be hospitalized when a Greyhound bus en route to St. Louis overturned on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/penn/ci_18680805
Just days before that, on Thursday, Nickelodeon “iCarly” star Miranda Cosgrove broke her ankle when her tour bus got into an accident on Interstate 70 in Illinois. The 18-year-old had been on her way from a show in Ohio to Kansas, where she’d been scheduled to perform Friday. Cosgrove had to cancel her summer tour because of her injuries.
But those accidents pale when compared to the March 12 tour bus crash in the Bronx that killed 15 passengers. That bus was transporting people back from a Connecticut casino to Manhattan’s Chinatown.
Many of these accidents happened very early in the morning, just before or right about dawn. In several cases, police suspect that drivers fell asleep behind the wheel. But why has this issue surfaced so often this year?
With the recession taking its toll, perhaps bus companies have laid off drivers, meaning those who are left have to work longer shifts. Or perhaps drivers, financially pinched, are volunteering to do more runs even if they are tired, to pay family bills.
In New York State at least, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is trying to address the problem. His administration late last month, via the state Department of Transportation (DOT), launched a crackdown on charter bus companies, suspending the operating licenses of eight ”poor performing” tour bus operators.
http://www.governor.ny.gov/press/07252011CuomoSuspends8CharterBusCompanies
“The eight companies are being directed to ceaseoperations under their New York licenses within five business days,” Cuomo’s administration said in a press release. “All of the companies have failed three or more roadside inspections of buses or drivers in the last six months of intensified state enforcement or failed their scheduled semi-annual bus inspections or received a federal out-of-service order.”
In a statement Cuomo said, ”The frequent, and at times flagrant, violations of state and federal safety regulations by charter bus companies has gone on for too long and put too many lives at risk.”
The Administration said that its action would pull some 100 buses off New York state roads pending a full DOT review of the companies’ vehicle fleets, drivers’ records, and company finances before the suspensions can be lifted.
The reviews will take place at the expense of the suspended companies, according to the press release. Failure to achieve full compliance will result in the permanent revocation of the companies’ right to operate in New York.
Some of the failing operators have separate interstate operating licenses issued by the federal government.
“DOT is working with the U.S. Department of Transportation to assure that sub-standard operators that lose their New York licenses cannot continue to operate in New York under a federal license,” the press release said.
DOT is also adding 20 new inspectors to step up enforcement of bus industry regulations and carrier compliance. The additional staff will perform about 11,000 safety performance inspections of high-risk operators and 2,000 safety audits of poor performing motor carriers annually, according to the Cuomo officials.
These enforcement activities are expected to generate $2 million in civil penalties annually.
In the past four months, DOT has performed 3,000 roadside bus inspections with 542 drivers and/or vehicles being placed out-of-service. This compares with 615 buses inspected at roadside in all of 2010 — a nearly a 400 percent increase.
DOT also conducts more than 160,000 routine bus-safety inspections annually, and works with the State Police to conduct more than 120,000 surprise roadside inspections of buses and trucks annually.
These carriers were suspended: Best Trails and Travel Corp.; Party Ride; A & W Tours Inc.; Touch of Class & Coach Inc.; Silver Star Limo Co.; Zoladz Limousine Service; Long Island Limousine Service Corp.; and Big Apple Bus Charter Inc.
At least New York is making an effort to address the problem head-on. It would be nice if other states did the same.
Once again, another tour bus accident. This time on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Rescue crews are working to free a person trapped when a Greyhound bus overturned on the interstate, injuring 29 people. The westbound bus flipped on its side at about 6 a.m. Saturday, one mile east of the Lebanon-Lancaster exit.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-08-13-greyhound-accident-pennsylvania_n.htm?csp=34news
