WASHINGTON — Motorcoach and bus industry leaders have petitioned federal regulators to declare that San Francisco International Airport vehicle inspection rules are preempted by federal regulations and unenforceable.
The airport’s inspections have no safety criteria and are conducted by mechanics without qualifications, the United Motorcoach Association and American Bus Association told Raymond P. Martinez, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
The petition stated that the U.S. Motor Carrier Safety Act of 1984 may preempt state and local government entities such as San Francisco International from imposing their own rules on federally-regulated vehicles.
MCSA states that a state law or regulation may not be enforced if the U.S. Secretary of Transportation determines it has no safety benefit, is incompatible with federal regulations “or would cause an unreasonable burden on interstate commerce,” the petition stated.
The petition was submitted on Oct. 18 by Stacy Tetschner, president and chief executive officer of UMA, and Peter J. Pantuso, president and chief executive officer of ABA, in support of the California Bus Association.
The industry petition noted that the Oakland (California) Airport Authority instituted its own bus inspection program on Jan. 1. “If every major airport in California, or in the country, imposed its own set of ground transportation vehicle inspection requirements, bus operators would be forced to comply with a patchwork of non-uniform standards.”
As a result, a motor carrier “would have to take its motorcoaches to SFO, Oakland and other airports each year for a duplicate inspection that has no safety benefit. This is after complying with the daily and periodic inspection requirements” of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.
“A ruling from FMCSA at the national level would helps us address the issues nationally instead of trying to combat them at each airport like a game of whack-a-mole,” Tetschner said. “It is important that the industry speak as one voice on important issues that begin locally and can randomly spread to other municipalities.”
SFO requires commercial ground transportation carriers to obtain a permit and transponder and submit each bus to an annual inspection.
The petition to Martinez stated that airport guidelines do “not contain any indication of what standards will be used to inspect vehicles . . . nor does the website indicate the training or other qualifications of the airport mechanics to make inspections of commercial motorcoaches.”
The letter said that one motorcoach failed inspection when a passenger seat back had one-half inch of movement. Another failed “because there were reportedly newspapers on the floor.”
SFO officials contend the inspections were prompted by public complaints about dirty vehicles serving the airport, said Tony Fiorini, CBA president and senior vice president of Silverado Stages. However, “It wasn’t something they could pinpoint on the busy industry. We all feel they look at it as a way to make some money.”
The airport’s published fees for “Long Distance Charter Bus Registration & Safety Inspection” range from $1,500 for fleets of 10 or fewer vehicles to $5,000 for fleets of more than 40. Fines of $100 are levied for missing or arriving late for an inspection and $125 for a failed inspection.
The inspections also pose an unnecessary burden, the UMA/ABA petition stated, because buses are out of service and incur expenses travelling to and from the airport.
Correspondence from the San Francisco city attorney’s office has argued that its inspections are compatible with federal regulations and a necessary safety precaution. One letter argued, wrongly, that “only 10 percent of any fleet (is) actually having to undergo an annual inspection” by other regulatory agencies. “That leaves 90 percent of any fleet uninspected for a year or more.”
SFO has agreed to accept annual California Highway Patrol inspection reports for motorcoach carriers based more than 100 miles from the airport but not for the 31 carriers based in northern California, said Dan Eisentrager, chairman of CBA’s legislative committee. “The highway patrol inspection is much more severe than this nit-picky thing we go through at the airport.”
One company does most of their trips out of the Oakland airport to avoid the hassle at SFO, Fiorini said.
Noting that Oakland has instituted its own fee program, he added, “Once the word is out that airports can make this kind of money, it doesn’t take long for other airports to follow. This is going to happen throughout the country.”
