HUDSON COUNTY, N.J. -- A long-delayed federal study into the causes of serious bus and motorcoach accidents has gotten off to a sluggish start.

The Bus Crash Causation Study that began in January went for weeks without gathering any information because there were no accidents in the limited target area - the state of New Jersey.

"We are certainly dependent on the availability of data and the good news is that the study was late because there were no bus crashes to report on," noted Bill MacLeod, spokesman for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which is conducting the yearlong study.

The possibility that limiting the study area to a single state would produce too few crashes to make the review meaningful was a major concern the United Motorcoach Association raised with the FMCSA during a comment period earlier this year.

Despite the slow beginning, the FMCSA officials maintain that conducting the study in New Jersey is the right move because historically the state has enough bus and motorcoach accidents to provide researchers with sufficient data to reach reliable conclusions on the causes of bus crashes.

MacLeod said the state also offers a wide range of bus operations - private church transportation, commuter runs, inner-city transit, and professional motorcoach tours and charters among them - that will add valuable input to the study.

"We see New Jersey as having a good mix of types of bus operations, which is essential to the study, and we also anticipate we will have enough different kinds of crashes to report on to make this a worthwhile study," he added.

Federal researchers also plan to mine accident databases and examine insurance data for information on past accidents, as well as evaluate 50 to 100 "serious" bus accidents they anticipate will occur in New Jersey during 2005. The review of the new accidents will include a look at possible causation indicators such as a carrier having high numbers of previous accidents, moving violations and out-of-service safety infractions.

UMA not only contended in its filing with the government that the study findings will be questionable because of the limited study area, but it also maintained that the conclusions would be skewed further because of New Jersey's robust bus safety enforcement program.

"This fact is well known by bus companies, and as such they are aware they are likely to be reviewed at some point by New Jersey officials," UMA Senior Vice President Norm Littler wrote in a filing with the FMCSA. "It has been UMA's experience that states that employ strict bus enforcement programs are the least likely jurisdictions to have high crash occurrences."

UMA suggested the study be broadened to include all states and that researchers pay close attention to the differences in accidents in states with aggressive enforcement programs and those with weak or nonexistent programs.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety also complained to the FMSCA about the study methods.

"If the agency wants to avoid the same criticisms that have been lodged against the Large Truck Crash Causation Study, it will revise its approach to the Bus Crash Causation Study from the ground up or face another rejection by peer review groups and safety organizations of the acceptability of this misuse of federal funds," charged Gerald Donadlson, senior research director for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.

FMCSA said the study is costing $450,000.

The truck and bus crash studies were mandated by the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999. The truck study is due to be completed any time, while the bus study is expected to be finished next year.