Bus inspections get lax oversight despite crashes
Source: AP-Excite
By DANNY ROBBINS
HOUSTON (AP) - Months after their state-certified vehicle inspection station was cited by federal authorities for failing to notice defects in a bus that crashed in North Texas, killing 17 passengers, brothers Alam and Cesar Hernandez shuttered their firm. But that didn't mean they were out of the vehicle inspection business.
Instead, they opened another station in the same Houston neighborhood and continued to inspect buses like the one involved in the accident. And they did it with the approval of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The Hernandez brothers' story underlines a phenomenon that highway safety advocates say has long existed with deadly consequences - the lack of oversight for the businesses that perform state inspections of buses and other large commercial vehicles.
Records examined by The Associated Press show that three of the deadliest bus crashes in recent years raised questions about the commercial vehicle inspection programs in Texas, Illinois and Mississippi and prompted calls from the National Transportation Safety Board for better oversight. Forty people died in those wrecks, yet the agency to which the recommendations were directed, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, has refused to act.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20120401/D9TS8U5O0.html
In this Aug. 8, 2008 photo, A Texas state trooper makes photographs at a bus accident scene on U.S. 75 North bound that killed several people in Sherman, Texas. Months after their state-certified vehicle inspection station was cited by federal authorities for failing to notice defects in a bus that crashed in North Texas, killing 17 passengers, brothers Alam and Cesar Hernandez shuttered their firm. But that didn’t mean they were out of the vehicle inspection business. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)
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