Enroute Bus Inspections

I wonder about the speed limit as well.

 

Oh good lord I can hear it now...

"sorry folks we will be parked along the road for a 10 hour rest because I'm out of hours"

Or

"Sorry folks, we will be parked along the road because this bus is so unsafe dot put us oos until it's fixed"

hahahahahahaha

 

Now that's funny. I don't care who you are.

 

Funny but unlikely because passengers are real people (not truck drivers)....

 

Yoy see these signs at the coops "buses weigh". So, if a bus is over weight do they make a couple of fat people get off or what. I always wonder about that when I see the sign. Or maybe make one move from the front to the back to get weight off the steers.

That does happen on airplanes. When I was doing weight and balance at TWA many years ago there were some airplanes that were fussy about weight distribution. It usually meant moving people from the back to the front when nobody was booked in first class.

 

I spent 10 years behind the wheel of a tour bus....I left the Industry due to this kind of nonsense. Any HOS changes that have currently been revamped did not include them. In my opinion that was one place that needed immediate changes, and big ones! It is nothing unusual for a tour coach driver to put in an 18 hr. day...mainly because they don't have a start/stop clause. They can split their hours up however they wish. As long they show their time off (which is only 8 hrs.) then they're good to go. It's not the Companies at blame here, it's the tour operators as well. Although many of them know the rules, they simply thumb their noses at then, knowing that if that particular Company makes any noise they'll just take their business elsewhere. Someone is always willing to look the other way, competition is tough. I used to get snagged in regular inspections in Yosemite Nat'l. Park in CA. They would let me drop my pax off at the Lodge then go back around the circle to do my inspection, after leaving my license and logbook of course... It's a tough industry, pay is poor when you compare it with driving a truck, yet the responsibility is off the charts... There needs to be a complete overhaul of the rules for them as well. I would never go back...I can easily make double what I used to by staying in the truck...

 

FMCSA web site has a new letter 'bout one of their people speaking to congress about this stuff, I read it today.

She mentions that they took three bus companies out this week, including one in MI that had passengers riding in the cargo hold...

That would be like having a trainee sleep in the side boxes under the bunk!

 

Some blithering idiot truck driver called Dave Nemo's show this week about that professing it was "technically" legal because the people in the cargo hold were NOT paying customers...but they were family members!

Glad I'm not related to the guy that owns those buses!

 

One thing about the roadside inspections of busses. As the driver above said, they generally allow you to drop your passengers and then they inspect. The reason you don't see many if any busses on the side of the road is if they put that coach out of service, They are responsible for the passengers, and they don't want to spend the money.