The U.S. Department of Transportation has ordered another bus operator to cease operations as part of its ongoing safety crackdown.
The DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on Thursday declared Georgia-based JCT Motor Coach an imminent hazard to public safety and ordered the bus company to immediately cease all intrastate and interstate transportation services.
The FMCSA took the action after discovering that the company was attempting to evade a previous out-of-service order by operating under a different name, JT’s Travel & Charter. The order applies to all companies affiliated with JCT Motor Coach and JT’s Travel & Charter.
Several motorcoach industry insiders have noted the problem of companies continuing to operate after being penalized by the DOT, simply by changing their name.
“A lot of these operators have been shut down under one name and operate under another name,” said John Bailey, president of York, Pa.-based Bailey Coach following a crash last week in which four people were killed and 50 injured when a Sky Express bus overturned on Interstate 95 in Virginia.
Sky Express, too, had apparently attempted to continue operating under different names, National Public Radio reported.
“Regulators appear to believe that the company changed its name to 108 Bus and I-95 Coach — and possibly others — to sell tickets as usual,” the news agency reported.
The Sky Express crash occurred just four days after the DOT announced that it had conducted more than 3,000 surprise bus inspections in May — and ultimately issued out-of-service citations to 127 drivers and 315 vehicles — as part of an initiative to improve bus safety.
The initiative was launched in response to several deadly bus crashes across the country, including a widely reported crash in which 15 people were killed in the Bronx, N.Y. in March.
"If you are an unsafe, illegal bus company attempting to dodge federal safety standards and place passengers at risk by operating under a different name, we will find you and shut you down,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement.
The FMCSA issued an out-of-service order to JCT Motor Coach because the company was falsifying vehicle-maintenance records; failing to ensure vehicles were regularly inspected, repaired and maintained; using drivers who had tested positive for drug or alcohol use; using medically unqualified drivers; and failing to comply with federal hours-of-service requirements for drivers.