The Washington Post reported this week that “curbside” buses, those that pick passengers up at designated roadside stops as opposed to at a terminal, are five times more likely to be in an accident than terminal buses.  The National Transportation Safety Board claims that safety inspectors for these bus companies are unable to keep pace with driver fatigue, which is a contributing factor toward the increase in crashes. The lack of available inspectors, roughly 2,300 assigned to over 53,000 buses, is one reason that current inspectors cannot keep pace. The NTSB also believes that companies are frequently changing their names in hopes of slipping past inspectors’ radars, leading to an upsurge in unmonitored safety violations. A demonstration of the serious consequences of these safety hazards came in March, when a speeding bus hurdled off an elevated highway and smashed directly into a utility pole. The bus split from front to back, killing 15 and leaving 18 with injuries. Senator Chuck Schumer has since proposed that a letter-grading scale, charting a company’s cumulative safety ratings, be made available to consumers prior to selecting a transportation service. This still does not account for the lack of available inspectors.

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