FMCSA Curbed 52 Passenger Carriers In 2013

According to a press release from the FMCSA, in 2013, the FMCSA’s Quick Strike team placed 52 passenger carriers and 340 vehicles out of service.

The “intensified effort” was a part of the FMCSA’s Operation Quick Strike program, a 3-phase passenger carrier safety campaign to “raise the bar for safety in the motorcoach industry and to strengthen the agency’s oversight methods.”

The Quick Strike team is comprised of 50 “specially trained” FMCSA investigators.  The special team of investigators were out in full force from April through November to “conduct in-depth reviews into the patterns and practices of the 250 most at-risk motorcoach companies.”

According to the FMCSA:

• 214 top-to-bottom compliance investigations were completed*;
• 20 motorcoach companies were immediately shut down for violations and posing an imminent hazard to the public;
• 32 companies were issued “Unsatisfactory” safety ratings and shut down after failing to remedy critical and acute violations;
• 28 companies took corrective action to fix the safety violations investigators uncovered to avoid being shut down; and
• 340 vehicles, of the more than 1,300 vehicles that were inspected during the investigations, were put out-of-service for safety and maintenance violations.

“Company-wide failures to adequately maintain their buses, inadequate drug and alcohol driver testing programs and widespread hours-of-service violations were among the reasons companies were shut down,” the FMCSA stated.

Additionally, Quick Strike investigators evaluated 1,300 carriers that had “minimal inspection history or data with the agency.” As a result of the investigations, 240 carriers were targeted for more in-depth investigations.