A trio of major motorcoach crashes over a three-day period last month has focused new public attention on the industrys safety shortcomings and the failure of federal and state regulators to police the industry effectively.

By far the worst and most outrageous incident was the crash of a charter coach carrying a group of Vietnamese Catholics from Houston, Texas to Carthage, Mo., for a religious festival.

Twelve people died at the scene and five more died at hospitals near Sherman, Texas, were the crash occurred.

Within hours of the disaster it was learned that the coach was operated by a rogue outfit that had been ordered shutdown in June because of safety violations only to pop up in business under a new name a few days later.

After uncovering details of the rogue operation, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration froze all approvals for new bus companies across the U.S.

FMCSA Administrator John H. Hill said the freeze would stay in place "until I get my hands around this." Hill said his agency would be checking the addresses, fax numbers and other details of all new applicants to verify they were new companies and not reincarnations of outfits recently shutdown by regulators.

FMCSA ordinarily approves about 100 new companies a month.

The Sherman crash highlighted the FMCSAs widely criticized record of enforcing federal safety regulations for trucks and buses, as well as the poor communications link between federal regulators and state motor carrier enforcement departments and law enforcement agencies.

The coach that crashed belonged to a Houston man, Angel de la Torre, who was operating charters under two corporate names, according to the FMCSA. de la Torre started a new company, Iguala Busmex, three days after federal investigators shutdown his other company, Angel Tours, after it failed a safety review. (Iguala is a town in the mountains north of Acapulco, Mexico.)

Hill said de la Torre had denied any connection to Iguala Busmex.

After the crash, when FMCSA investigators went to the headquarters of de la Torres company, they were "thrown out of the premises by the owner and his attorney," Hill reported.

The U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General, which has subpoena power, later gained access. Among other things, investigators are documenting interstate trips made by the company after the shutdown; each can carry an $11,000 fine and criminal penalties, said Hill.

There has been widespread talk by local prosecutors of bringing criminal charges against de la Torre.

Federal attorneys brought a slew of criminal charges against the owner of the coach that caught fire three years ago, during the Hurricane Rita evacuation, killing 23 people, but bungled the prosecution so badly the operator barely got his hands slapped. (See Feb. 1, 2007, Bus & Motorcoach News.)

In any event, it was a de la Torre-connected coach that hit a guard rail after a retreaded right front tire blew out and the driver lost control, according to officials with the National Transportation Safety Board. Retreaded tires cannot legally be used on a steer axle. (See related article on Page XX.)

The driver of the coach has a checkered history, having been stopped in the past for drunken driving, speeding and other violations.

Hill acknowledged that enforcement of FMCSA orders shutting down companies has been inconsistent. The federal government relies on state police agencies to take buses off the road if they stop one that federal regulators have ordered out of service.

This failure by the FMCSA to aggressively enforce its cease-operations orders has long been a sore point with the motorcoach industry and its trade associations.

Carriers that care little about safety compliance and use the savings derived from failing to properly maintain buses and assure they have safe drivers on the road, have severely undercut legitimate operators and inflicted damage on the industry and its reputation for nearly 30 years.

Hill noted that his authority only extends to interstate operations, and that many states have no mechanism for applying federal findings to buses operating within their borders.

Critics point out, however, that the FMCSA doles out millions of dollars annually to state truck and bus safety enforcement agencies, giving it the leverage to force states to step up their communications, as well as enforcement efforts.

In the Sherman crash, Texas authorities say they were never told that de la Torres first bus company had been banned, said Tom Vinger, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety. "Occasionally, we are notified when an interstate carrier is put out of service, but to the best our knowledge we were not notified in this case," he said.

Vinger noted that under Texas law the bus should not have been operating anywhere in Texas once the federal government suspended the company. But the state did not find out about the suspension until after the crash, he said.

As has happened in the past, politicians of every stripe quickly surfaced and began advocating new and stricter safety regulations for the charter bus industry, with some Congressmen predicting legislation could pass before the end of the year.

Bills are currently pending in both the Senate and House, calling for all tour buses or motorcoaches to get seat belts and stronger glass and roofs, plus other safety enhancements.

"The advantage to that is if both the Senate and the House get them passed before Dec. 31, I'm sure the president will sign," said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, at a transportation conference at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas.