Bus Companies

DRIVERS for a Montgomery County-based bus company cited for allegedly endangering the safety of passengers has been hit with a restraining order for ignoring a Department of Transportation mandate to cease operations. "Safety is our highest priority," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, in announcing the restraining order yesterday, issued by U.S. District Court against Double Happyness Inc., headquartered in Huntingdon Valley. "We will not tolerate irresponsible bus companies that jeopardize the safety of bus passengers and other motorists.

WASHINGTON - As a Senate panel investigated passenger bus safety, the U.S. Department of Transportation on Wednesday shut down the Wilkes-Barre bus company involved in a deadly accident this month. Super Luxury Tours violated federal insurance requirements, the Transportation Department said. One of the company's Philadelphia-bound buses crashed March 14 on the New Jersey Turnpike, killing the driver and one passenger. The move to close down the bus company came on the day that a Senate subcommittee chastised the department for moving too slowly to improve bus safety.

A sharp growth in recent years in the charter-bus business - spurred in this region by the hotly competitive Atlantic City casino-charter market - is ready to come to a screeching halt because of huge increases in insurance costs and a glut of bus companies, industry officials say. The first big upheaval in many years in the long-distance bus industry occurred only 3 1/2 years ago, when Congress passed the federal Bus Regulatory Reform Act. ...

The Philadelphia School District has temporarily ended yellow bus service today for students at seven more schools because of a shortage of drivers. Over the weekend, the district halted service for about 1,000 public school students who had to take SEPTA buses to school yesterday. Today, 200 more students, at seven private or religious schools, were forced to take public transportation or depend on parents. The affected schools are Gwynedd Mercy Academy, Plymouth Meeting Friends, Penryn School, Greene Street Friends, Immaculate Conception School, Holmesburg Baptist Christian School and Redeemer Lutheran School.

When Philadelphians headed to the first Atlantic City casinos in the late 1970s and early '80s, many were introduced not only to gambling but also to bus travel. And were they surprised. They found plush reclining seats, stereo systems and lavatories instead of the transit-system basics they had expected. Since then, the number of bus tours from points in Pennsylvania has nearly quadrupled to include about 375 scheduled destinations, ranging from the National Aquarium in Baltimore to shows in Branson, Mo., said Eugene Zimmerman, vice president of the Pennsylvania Bus Association.

A school bus driver and an aide were suspended yesterday over allegations that they left a Camden elementary school student on a bus for more than four hours Monday. The two, who were not identified, allegedly failed to do a seat check before leaving the bus. Their employer, Student Transportation of America, one of five bus companies under contract to the Camden School District, suspended them pending a company investigation. The student was supposed to arrive at Thomas H. Dudley Elementary School at 8:30 a.m. When the child did not show up, a school employee followed district policy and called the home, said David Shafter, school board secretary and district business administrator.

Greyhound Lines Inc. announced an agreement yesterday to take over the financially ailing Trailways Corp. for $80 million, a deal that, if it receives federal approval, would leave the nation with only one national intercity bus company. Greyhound chairman Fred G. Currey, a Dallas entrepreneur who took control of the nation's largest bus company three months ago, said the acquisition was the only way to salvage several thousand jobs and bus service to communities in 17 states served only by Trailways.

In a few weeks, summertime crowds will flock here to gamble in the casinos or party on the beach, arriving by plane, train or automobile. Or bus. About 300,000 buses roll into town each year - and a state subcommittee is recommending new legislation to be sure they're safe. Lawmakers gathered in Atlantic City yesterday for a public hearing on a proposal to ensure that the state's inspection system is tough enough to get buses with faulty brakes and dangerous engines off the road.

The Bristol Township School District's struggle to reduce its proposed $60.84 million budget continues. At Tuesday night's final budget hearing, which lasted five hours, the budget committee found an additional $29,000 to pare. Board members and township residents sit on the committee. In total, the group has suggested that $315,000 be cut from the budget. The largest chunk of this comes from the special-education budget. By taking care of severely disabled children closer to home - instead of as far away as Florida - the district should be able to save about $215,000, said district Business Manager John Vignone.

About 350 gamblers were temporarily stranded here yesterday when the buses that brought them to this seaside casino resort were pulled off the road after failing a surprise inspection. Citing faulty equipment, traffic safety inspectors grounded seven of 30 buses that were parked at Brighton Park, a section of the city where the Sands Hotel & Casino, the Claridge Hotel & Casino and Bally's Park Place Casino Hotel are located. Judy Coss, bus management director for the Atlantic County Transportation Authority, said that two buses failed exhaust emission tests, two had faulty brakes, two had tires that were not properly secured, and one had faulty turn signals.

The parents of 11-year-old triplets who were in a school bus crash in February that killed one of the children are suing the bus and trucking companies involved in the accident. Anthony and Susan Tezsla say the crash, in which a dump truck struck the school bus at an intersection in Chesterfield Township, resulted from negligence on the part of the companies, GST Transport and Herman's Trucking, and their drivers. The Tezslas' three daughters were among about 25 elementary school students on the bus. The accident also severely injured the two other Tezsla sisters and 11-year-old Jonathan Zdybel.

DRIVERS for a Montgomery County-based bus company cited for allegedly endangering the safety of passengers has been hit with a restraining order for ignoring a Department of Transportation mandate to cease operations. "Safety is our highest priority," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, in announcing the restraining order yesterday, issued by U.S. District Court against Double Happyness Inc., headquartered in Huntingdon Valley. "We will not tolerate irresponsible bus companies that jeopardize the safety of bus passengers and other motorists.

Federal officials have obtained a court order requiring a popular Chinatown bus company to cease all operations after defying a previous order to shutdown. Double Happyness Bus Company transports passengers along the Northeast Corridor, making stops in Philadelphia on the way to Washington D.C., New York City, and Albany, N.Y. Last month, the U.S. Dept. of Transportation declared Double Happyness an "imminent hazard to safety" after a federal review found numerous serious violations of hours-of-service, vehicle maintenance, and controlled substance and alcohol testing rules.

WASHINGTON - As a Senate panel investigated passenger bus safety, the U.S. Department of Transportation on Wednesday shut down the Wilkes-Barre bus company involved in a deadly accident this month. Super Luxury Tours violated federal insurance requirements, the Transportation Department said. One of the company's Philadelphia-bound buses crashed March 14 on the New Jersey Turnpike, killing the driver and one passenger. The move to close down the bus company came on the day that a Senate subcommittee chastised the department for moving too slowly to improve bus safety.

The owner of a Philadelphia-to-Manhattan tour bus that crashed Monday night on the New Jersey Turnpike, killing a local college student, had been cited for unsafe driving and fatigued and unfit operators, federal records show. Super Luxury Tours Inc., of Wilkes-Barre, was given an "unsafe driving" assessment, rating worse than 99.6 percent of bus companies, according to records kept by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. In driver fitness, the discount-fare company was judged worse than 85.9 percent of bus companies, and its rating for "fatigued driving" was worse than 55.3 percent of bus companies.

A school bus driver and an aide were suspended yesterday over allegations that they left a Camden elementary school student on a bus for more than four hours Monday. The two, who were not identified, allegedly failed to do a seat check before leaving the bus. Their employer, Student Transportation of America, one of five bus companies under contract to the Camden School District, suspended them pending a company investigation. The student was supposed to arrive at Thomas H. Dudley Elementary School at 8:30 a.m. When the child did not show up, a school employee followed district policy and called the home, said David Shafter, school board secretary and district business administrator.

A veteran Chester County school bus driver was less than a mile from work yesterday when she was killed in a three-vehicle collision that closed Route 322 for six hours, police said. West Brandywine Police Chief Walt Werner said Dewey Book, 49, of Honey Brook Township, was traveling east on Route 322 at 6:38 a.m. en route to her job at the Krapf's bus companies. Werner said Book had stopped her Dodge Caravan to make a left turn onto Highspire Road when she was struck from behind by a pickup truck.

Two bus companies that offer a popular, ultra-cheap trip from Philadelphia to New York City are in the middle of what police believe is a brutal turf war that has led to killings and arson. The two companies, Today's Travel Inc. of New York and New Century Travel Inc. of Philadelphia, operate competing lines that offer round trips from Chinatown in New York to Chinatown in Philadelphia for $20. The bargain-basement prices - Greyhound charges $40 for the same trip; Amtrak, typically about $96 - are just one sign of a competitive bus brawl.

Turning aside a prosecutor's passionate plea for a tougher sentence, a Philadelphia judge yesterday gave a convicted sex offender and pedophile a sentence that will allow him to work for a company that transports Philadelphia public school children. The defendant, Floyd Coleman, 45, will be permitted to work for C&C Transportation Inc., which buses school children, while serving a sentence of 2 1/2 to 5 years, minus one day, in a Philadelphia minimum-security detention facility.

The guardian of a young girl has filed a civil lawsuit against the Camden Board of Education, alleging that the district failed to protect the special-education student from a teenage boy who sexually assaulted her on a school minivan. The defendants had a duty to transport the girl, who was 7 at the time, to school "in an appropriate and safe environment and to provide safety protection and supervision," according to the lawsuit, which was filed last month in state Superior Court.