The recent headlines in Binghamton, New York have been frighteningly familiar – another discount bus skidded off the road, throwing the lives of every passenger on board into jeopardy. From the horrific March crash in the Bronx that claimed 15 lives, to more recent ones in Virginia, Idaho and upstate New York, this disturbing trend has left our leaders scrambling to figure out what’s gone wrong in the intercity bus industry.
As someone who has spent his entire career working with bus drivers and operators, these crashes are absolutely devastating – but they are not unexpected. They are the direct result of an unregulated discount bus industry that has operated below the law for years and encourages its drivers to work on little to no sleep.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the number one cause of these crashes is driver fatigue. It estimates that 36 percent of intercity bus accidents are the direct result of drivers nodding off at the wheel. This compares with just six percent for inattention and two percent for road conditions.
Despite these numbers, lawmakers and regulators have inexplicably failed to address driver fatigue thus far. Focused on seatbelts, vehicle structural integrity, and keeping unsafe bus owners out of business, the Motor Coach Enhanced Safety Act of 2011, currently under consideration by Congress, is well-intentioned legislation that misses the mark.
Seatbelts, stronger buses, and better safety technology are all critically important. However, if the driver of a 40,000-pound vehicle traveling at highway speeds falls asleep at the wheel and crashes into a bridge or flips into a ditch, the lives of passengers are going to be in grave danger, even if they are strapped in and the vehicle has the strength of a tank.
How many more lives have to be sacrificed before we confront the root cause of these crashes?
Intercity bus companies typically pay their drivers abysmally low wages and force them to work more than 100 hours a week. Even when drivers do get eight hours off, they are often forced to try and sleep in company-provided quarters that are inadequate, unsanitary and over-crowded. To make matters worse, these bus drivers don’t get overtime pay for work exceeding 40 hours per week as 85 percent of Americans do under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Why do bus operators get away with that? Because intercity bus operations are exempt from overtime rules under the FLSA due to an outdated loophole.
Congress and the Administration need to realize they have created a framework for the bus industry to operate sweatshops on wheels. They can begin to clean up the intercity bus industry by lifting the FLSA overtime pay exemption on intercity bus drivers so they are fairly compensated for work exceeding 40 hours per week, making them less inclined to work second jobs while pushing their bodies beyond safe limits.
Extending these protections to intercity bus drivers is not only the right thing to do; it’s the safe thing to do for our drivers and passengers alike. No more bus tragedies on the road. Safety starts with protection under the law.