By Dave Millhouser

The old Scenicruiser was cranking south on Chicagos Dan Ryan Expressway early one morning when the driver decided to turn on the A/C. He reached to his left and flipped a switch.

Suddenly, the drive-axle brakes locked up and the bus came to a shuttering halt in the middle of (arguably) Americas busiest highway.

The driver was used to driving a GM PD4104 that had virtually the same dash as the Scenicruiser. "Virtually" is the key word; the Scenic had an extra toggle that energized the high idle, while locking the brakes.

Oops.

Motorcoach operating and safety systems are changing rapidly -- more rapidly than the manufacturers change models.

Bus builders are traditionally careful about changing models, striking a delicate balance between increasing curb appeal for passengers, while not changing appearance so frequently it hurts resale value.

To enhance efficiency, many fleets have made an effort to standardize on a single coach brand, and even model. This simplifies maintenance, dispatch and driver training.

At the same time, the combination of government mandates and rapidly developing new and innovative technologies has created the potential for problems. Your fleet of identical looking coaches can offer a bewildering combination of features, and the way they are used can have dramatic consequences.

Boiled down, drivers cant step in a coach and know, by appearance alone, if it has such key features as ABS, stability control, tire pressure monitoring, onboard diagnostics, or several other systems that should influence the way they drive.

When youre skating on ice, theres a world of difference between a coach with ABS and traction control and one without.

If your coach insists on regenerating its particulate trap at an embarrassing moment, it pays to know how long that light can stay on without consequence, and where the exhaust exits the coach.

Two distinctly different transmissions are in wide usage by motorcoach operators. If you dont pay attention, one likes to creep forward, while the other goes wherever gravity calls.

Procedures for things as mundane as jump starting a bus can vary, and the manufacturers have a secret torture program that involves changing the entertainment system controls on what seems like an hourly basis.

In addition to providing entertaining stories for future columns, the significant operational differences between seemingly identical coaches create liability concerns for drivers, operators and manufacturers.

Any strategy for dealing with this issue clearly involves training.

Coach builders provide manuals and part of a professional drivers job should involve studying them. You might want to have your drivers sign off on having read them. You dont want a situation where a drivers response to an incident is "So THATS how it works."

In addition, youll want a system for making sure the driver is aware of what systems are on the particular bus he or she is driving. The ideal solution is to assign each driver to a specific coach. This is one of those great ideas that, regrettably, doesnt often work in big fleets.

Some sort of signage may help, or having your operations folks sort of "group" the coaches by significant features. Drivers qualified on school buses, in mixed fleets, arent automatically used on coaches. That principle might be applied to coaches with specific features. At the very least, youll want to make sure that drivers know what theyve got.

A pilot doesnt get to just leap into any aircraft and take off. Theyre "type rated," and have demonstrated knowledge of the particular aircraft theyll fly. Thats a ton more than we want to get into, but it shouldnt be too much to ask that a professional driver understand the specific vehicle she or he is operating.

Some coaches have traction control, others spin merrily on ice. A 45-foot coach may sweep outside on turns, while the 40-foot version of the same coach doesnt. You get it.

Its easier to identify a problem than to fix it. Im doing OK with recognition here, but falling way short on solutions. If any of you have ideas, please let me know. Ill steal them, take the credit, and get them out there.

Youre probably thinking that Im the dummy that threw the wrong switch on the Dan Ryan. NOT SO. That was another dummy.

Im the one who hydroplaned a coach in Kansas City. It was raining and I forgot that I was driving the one Flxible in our fleet that had the power steering option.

My reward was a wild fishtailing experience for about a mile of elevated Interstate 70. We (my passengers and I) regained traction just in time to follow the interstate around a curve.

One shaken passenger asked: "Do you always take curves that way?"

Dave Millhouser is a bus industry marketing consultant and freelance writer. Contact him at: dave_millhouser@hotmail.com.