RALEIGH, N.C. Another school year is under way and North Carolina motorcoach operators continue to plod through a maze of safety inspections that make it difficult to do charter business with schools.

David Brown, a former president of the North Carolina Motorcoach Association, says the state legislature failed to act this year on proposals that would have established a single, state-approved list of operators for carrying school children.

Instead, all school districts continue to be responsible for their own approved list of charter carriers based on their own inspections.

Brown, who heads Holiday Tours in Randleman, N.C., says the quagmire developed as a result of a 2001 charter bus accident in Georgia involving students from the Cumberland County, N.C., school system. After the crash, the state established new charter bus rules for schools.

"It turns out the bus they were on had some improper equipment, and a possible ineligible driver, but thats old news," says Brown.

"As luck would have it, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction developed a set of guidelines for the school systems to use when chartering a bus."

The guidelines, which were widely adopted, instructed schools to review everything from tread depth, to the driver's CDL when chartering a bus, Brown says. Many counties created their own list of approved operators.

"To get on the list, a county representative would inspect the company," Brown says. "As you can guess, the quality of inspections (has) varied widely."

At least one county went so far as to require $10 million in liability insurance. The county subsequently reduced the amount to the standard $5 million, Brown says.

Another county required a criminal background check of drivers, but now the drivers permission to do such a check is required, according to Brown.

"Several counties joined a consortium, decreasing the number of physical inspections, while other counties simply opted out of the program entirely," Brown says.

The state motorcoach association was preparing a bill to deal with the issue, but Brown says legislative leaders shut down all committees in August, except for budget-related measures.

"They ended the session and left," he says, "and the bill is still there. It'll be among the first up in the next session, which starts in January."

A draft of the bill apparently doesnt exist because it was in the writing stage when the Legislature adjourned.

"A few of us met with the bill-writing staff just before the legislative leadership closed down all of the committees," Brown says. "It may be stalled at that point. Our bill champion, A. B. Swindell, has promised that he will get the bill introduced during the short session in 2008."

Short of legislative relief, operators have no other recourse. "Either you get on an approved list or you can't carry their school kids," he says.

Brown says wealthier counties have their own inspection program, others get into consortium, and poorer counties have dropped out of the program.

"They rely on the federal government to keep everybody safe," Brown says. "It's only logical that if more protection is needed, all kids should be protected equally. That's why we're after a state list. It'll be an easier and simpler process and the inspection will only have to be done once, making sure that everybody is safe."

"The idea is that every student in North Carolina deserves the same high level of safety, so the inspection process should be uniform, and there should only be one approved list in North Carolina."

Ralph Young of Young Transportation in Ashville, N.C., echoes Brown's concerns, calling the inspection dilemma a huge issue. "Every county is doing it differently," he says. He, too, was hoping that the Legislature

could straighten out the mess.

Brown says another issue faced by North Carolina coach operators involves so-called school activity buses. They're the same as the yellow school buses, but painted in school colors.

"Originally they were intended to carry teams to athletic events," Brown

says. "Now theyre using them for over-the-road field trips. Even interstate trips. Each county does it differently. Some charge students 50 cents a mile. Some school districts are in the charter bus business but they just dont admit it.

"Every trip thats run on an activity bus is not run on a motorcoach."