Indiana legislature bill could tighten regulations on private buses
When a church bus crashed into a median on Keystone Avenue last July, killing three people, questions surrounding the cause quickly arose.
Did the brakes fail? Were there other mechanical problems?
While investigators ultimately found the Colonial Hills Baptist Church bus mechanically sound, an Indianapolis Star examination of the incident shed light on a troubling legal loophole. Owners of commercial buses and privately owned buses are required to have their vehicles inspected, but owners of private buses are exempt from having to submit proof of such inspections to federal or state authorities.
In other words, the public has no way of knowing the inspection history of a privately owned bus — or even whether it has been inspected.
An Indiana lawmaker says he wants to close that loophole. The bill would tie the vehicle registration process to a state-approved inspection.
Sen. Tom Wyss, R-Fort Wayne, said he wrote the bill in response to last summer’s fatal crash. The measure unanimously passed a Senate committee vote last week and now heads to the full Senate.
Wyss, chairman of a Senate committee that addresses transportation issues, said he was inspired by similar programs in other states, including neighboring Illinois, in which State Police have oversight.
Senate Bill 238 would require Indiana State Police to establish a stringent set of criteria for inspecting private buses. Those that can hold 16 or more passengers would be affected.
Lt. Mark Carnell, legislative director for the State Police, said police likely would not carry out the inspections themselves but would set the parameters for what parts of each bus need to be checked.
“I would strongly suspect that we would use a very similar inspection program or criteria as we would with commercial buses,” Carnell said.
Public bus inspections in Indiana are generally carried out in two ways. School buses, for instance, are inspected by employees of the State Police. Inspections of other types of commercial buses are carried out by government-approved mechanics, who check the brakes, steering mechanism, lighting devices, tires and other parts of each bus before approving the vehicle for use.
The bill would create a program similar to the second method.
Inspections would be tied to bus registration with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. When a private bus owner obtains or renews a registration, the bus would have to submit to the annual inspection program through the State Police.
“I don’t see this as being a very particularly challenging issue to find and designate inspectors that can also do these private buses,” Carnell said, adding that it would be similar to the process used for most commercial vehicles.
Carnell said about 2,100 privately owned buses are registered in Indiana. He did not know how many commercial buses are registered in Indiana, though he said there are about 16,000 school buses.
James Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, called the proposed program a “good step” toward increasing accountability and transparency among private bus inspections.
However, Hall said, he would like to see a few additional checks and safeguards to make certain the private bus inspections are held to the same standard as commercial ones.
“You have to, in that situation, ensure that you have adequate training and qualified personnel” as inspectors, Hall said.
He also encouraged Indiana lawmakers to make the program as transparent as possible.
“The program, I would hope, would contain a very large and visible decal or some sort of sticker (on the bus) that would indicate when the inspection took place.”
Wyss said the inspection results would be accessible through public records.
“It’s back to public safety,” Wyss said. “If we as a state are going to legitimize you with a license plate, I think the general public believes it’s legitimately a safe vehicle.”
If the bill becomes law, it would go into effect July 1, though private bus companies would have until Dec. 31, 2015, to comply, Wyss said.
“I think most people feel right now that the federal government has as much as it can do and probably more than it needs to do,” Hall said. “This is an opportunity for Indiana to really lay down a standard that other states can follow.”
Call Star reporter Jill Disis at (317) 444-6137. Follow her on Twitter: @jdisis.