ORLANDO, Fla. Motorcoach industry safety is moving in the wrong direction, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board told attendees at UMA Motorcoach Expo here last month.

Kathryn Kitty Higgins, who has sat on the NTSB for three years, noted that while the motorcoach and airline industries carry about the same number of passengers each year, the commercial airline industry has not had a single fatal crash since 2006.

The coach industry, on the other hand, suffered crash deaths totaling 27 in 2006, 37 in 2007 and 28 in 2008.

"That trend is in the wrong direction," asserted Higgins.

"Shouldnt the motorcoach industry be as safe as the airline industry?" she asked.

Higgins was the featured speaker during the Legislative and Regulatory Update session at Motorcoach Expo.

She reviewed a series of high-profile over-the-road bus crashes that happened during the past decade, pointing out how design flaws, driver error or other issues resulted in deaths or injuries to coach passengers.

She also bemoaned the lack of progress by other federal safety agencies in developing enhanced safety standards and rules for buses and their drivers.

For example, she cited the fatal plunge of a coach off an overpass in Atlanta two years ago, asking "couldnt most of those people have been saved if the bus had been designed differently and passengers hadnt been ejected?"

The NTSB has advocated improved roof strength and window glazing for motorcoaches for years.

She also mentioned and showed photos of a coach that plowed into a low bridge in Washington, D.C. She said the coach driver "lost situational awareness" because he was talking on his cell phone.

One of the NTSBs "most-wanted" highway safety improvements is a ban on cell phone use by motorcoach and school bus drivers except in an emergency.

The NTSB also wants electronic onboard recorders required for motorcoaches and over-the-road trucks to better enforce hours-of-service rules, reducing fatigue-related crashes.

She urged coach company owners and managers to do their utmost to assure they operate safely by, among other things, adopting a cell-phone use policy, closely monitoring scheduling and fatigue management, and maintaining aggressive training regimens for drivers.