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A dangerous ride on America's buses: while airline travel gets safer every year, travel on commercial bus lines gets more hazardous. Until the government steps in to oversee the industry, lax oversight and weak regulations will continue to make bus travel unacceptably risky.

Article Excerpt
Imagine that a commercial airliner crashed somewhere in the United States, and the subsequent investigation determined that the plane had numerous safety issues: There were no seat belts and no fire extinguishers on board, the fuselage was not structurally sound, and the windows were defective. Even worse, the airline had unlawfully delayed maintenance on critical aircraft components, such as brakes and landing gear.

No one knew this, though, because the plane had never been inspected. Moreover, the airline was not licensed to carry passengers, and the pilot was flying on a suspended license due to an expired medical certificate.

It couldn't happen, you say. Not in this country.

But if you board a bus instead of a plane, the sad reality is it can and does. Every day, Americans ride buses that lack up-to-date safety equipment and are driven by improperly trained or unlicensed drivers. (1)

For a variety of reasons--poor oversight, poor bus design, maintenance problems, and lax operators--the level of safety on the average bus is far from what it should be. Until steps are taken to address these problems, Americans will continue to be needlessly injured and killed in tragic bus accidents.

Unlike plane crashes, bus accidents occur frequently in America, often with catastrophic results. In recent years, several highly publicized, tragic incidents have called attention to the problem:

* In 2005, 23 elderly citizens from the Houston area were killed while evacuating in anticipation of Hurricane Rita aboard a chartered bus. Just outside of Dallas, the bus caught fire and burned, trapping the victims on board. Later, investigators determined that the bus had not been properly maintained and that the driver did not have a valid U.S. driver's license. Criminal prosecution of the bus owner resulted. (2)

* In 2007, 7 people were killed and another 28 injured when a bus carrying a college baseball team from Bluffton University in Ohio flipped off a freeway overpass near Atlanta. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) later determined that passenger seat belts may well have saved some of those lives?

* In August 2008, a chartered bus from Houston crashed near Dallas with a church group on board. Seventeen passengers died, and at least 33 were injured. Investigations are ongoing, but preliminary indications are that a recapped tire had been illegally placed on the steer axle of the bus. Also, the driver's medical certificate had expired. Investigators again noted that enhanced safety equipment might have reduced the number of deaths...

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