Skip to main content

Freedom, cheap buses, journalism


Yesterday's WNJ carried a story entitled Stopping 'Chameleon' Bus Lines is No Easy Task.

Notice first, the assumption inherent in the title:  somebody in authority is trying to look out for you.

Here are the first several paragraphs:  
At the end of 2011, federal regulators slapped a shutdown order on Double Happyness, a private, super-low-cost bus line running from Wilmington to New York’s Chinatown, for what they called “a management philosophy indifferent to motor carrier safety.”
But buses kept running from the station, a spartan storefront at 3 W. Fourth St., under the name New Everyday Bus Tour, a company owned by the brother of Double Happyness’ owner.
Last month, after racking up a long list of violations of its own, New Everyday’s authority, too, was revoked by the U.S. Department of Transportation after it did not provide proof of insurance. And, once again, buses are still running from in front of the station, to the same terminal in New York that both New Everyday Bus and Double Happyness used.
They are now operating under a separate company named Rockledge Bus Tour, which also has a long list of safety citations by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, including failure to make repairs. Although it is still authorized to run, the administration has ranked Rockledge in the bottom 5 percent of U.S. bus carriers for driver safety and fitness.
So what's happening here?  Are doughty, committed regulators attempting to save unwitting passengers from an unsafe experience?  Are we looking at a couple of sleazebags attempting to rip off the public?

Or is something completely different occurring, both in real life and in this story?

The answer is far more complex than that, so if you read on, prepare for a longer ride than usual . . .
First, note that the issue of bus safety in Chinatown emanates from a recent bus accident that did NOT involve New Everyday Bus, Double Happyness, or Rockledge Bus Tour:
The issue of bus safety became more prominent after a March 2011 crash of a motorcoach serving New York’s Chinatown, operated by World Wide Travel. It overturned and collided with a highway sign in the Bronx, killing 15 and injuring 18. Federal officials shut down that company, but the owner was later found to be operating the company’s old buses under a different company name.
Now let's look at what's apparently wrong with NEB/DH/R buses:  
A look at government records shows multiple connections among the various bus companies. New Everyday and Rockledge have similar license plate numbers, and both filed with the State of Delaware to do business at the same Wilmington address on July 11, 2011.
“That’s a red flag there’s legal gamesmanship at work,” said Joseph Schwieterman, director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University.
In January 2012, a U.S. assistant attorney general asked for a court order to close down bus service at that address, noting that that Double Happyness unlawfully directed the activities of other lines, including Rockledge. A Rockledge bus in New York also was found to have Double Happyness brochures on its dashboard during that investigation two years ago.
The safety administration enacted new rules in 2012 aimed at establishing links between bus lines it has closed and new ones that take over their routes. The agency shut down 26 bus lines in 2012, including some that “reincarnated” under new names, and then another 52 lines in December. 
So there's "legal gamesmanship at work?"  Wow, considering the State of Delaware routinely misses the change when high-polluting chemical companies change their incorporation status to walk away from millions in fines and contaminated brownfields, I guess I'm thrilled to discover that we're hot on the trail of rotating bus companies.

My second response is to recognize that "legal gamesmanship" is apparently all right for mega-corporations operating in Delaware, like Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, or Bloom Energy, or Fisker Automotive, or DuPont, or even Amtrak, but not for small-time entrepreneurs.

And, frankly, that's the essence of the issue here.
 
Let's see what our infamous bus company has actually done:

New Everyday was cited for 237 violations between February 2010 and July 2013, according to a 442-page inspection report obtained through Freedom of Information Act.
During a June 2013 compliance review, New Everyday was cited with serious violations for failing to keep a record of each driver’s qualifications, failure to implement an alcohol and drug testing program, failure to make needed repairs after numerous maintenance citations, and failure to seek periodic inspections.
But the government did not shut down New Everyday Bus Tour over safety matters, despite its conditional safety rating. A DOT spokesman, Duane DeBruyne, said the line’s authority to operate had been revoked Feb. 10 for failure to show proof of insurance. If that proof could be shown, any line in that situation would be free to resume operations, he said.
An assistant at the bus station in New York, Randy Lin, said insurance had cost too much and the line had closed.
You have to be careful here, and note what the article DOES NOT SAY, as much as what it does.

First, let's consider those "serious" safety violations.  We know that none of them led to any accidents or injuries because (A) DOT did not shut down the busline; and (B) this carefully "balanced" story would have gleefully informed us of that.  In fact, we know that even seven months after this June 2013 compliance review, DOT had no intention of shutting down the line for its maintenance or driver history issues.

We also know that none of the maintenance issues were incredibly dangerous, for the two reasons mentioned above.  You can bet the farm that our intrepid reporters would have carefully parsed the 442-page report they FOIA'ed from DOT for juicy details.  Obviously, they didn't find any.

And they didn't find any with the successor company, either:
Rockledge’s safety record on the FMSCA’s website contains a lot of the same themes. During a June 2013 compliance review, Rockledge was cited with serious violations for using a driver before checking their background, as well as failing to promptly make needed repairs, and failure to submit to periodic inspections. Nevertheless, the company’s safety rating was listed as “satisfactory.”
 
We also note the absence of any record of customer complaints being discussed in this story by anybody; instead, we get this:
Riders continue to line up to ride the bus, which offers from nine to 11 round trips per day between Wilmington and New York.
Kiara Smith, a Delaware State University student who had taken a DART bus up from Dover, said she takes the bus three or four times a year, appreciating its $35 roundtrip price. Just before she boarded the bus, she said she felt safe for the most part, but “it’s just really cramped,” and wished there was a seat belt.
Valerie Cherrin of Wilmington, who boarded the bus from Wilmington on Thursday, said she wanted to see more proof the problems were dangerous before changing her travel plans.
“All I hear about is technicalities,” Cherrin said. Neither Rockledge nor New Everyday had any crashes on their FMCSA safety records.
The people riding these buses are obviously quite aware of what they're getting:  cut-rate, dead-bang cheap travel to and from NYC in rattletrap buses.

They know there are maintenance issues, and they are also almost certainly aware that the bus drivers are not rocket scientists with National Honor Society memberships on their records.

They're also people who have the right to make their own choices regarding the trade-off between expense, convenience, comfort, and safety.  I know more than a few DSU students who ride buses like this home and back to school because it's what they can afford.  They can't pony up the bucks for an Amtrak ticket, and they don't have a dependable enough car, or money to cover the gas.

They make choices.  Maybe you wouldn't make the same choices; maybe you don't like the choices they make.  Maybe you've never lived their lives, and maybe they don't like your choices, either.

I'll probably never ride a cut-rate bus to NYC, but I don't see Lun Dong Chen or his brother Lung Bin Chen as the villains of the piece.

What I do see is a society that is increasingly unwilling to allow individuals to make their own choices and take their own chances with the consequences.


Comments

aamiits said…
lovely blog nice article very useful thanks for sharing
If you are looking for party buses Please visit this link and make your party more enjoyable.
Laksha said…
Nice post!Thanks for your information.
Coach Rental and Bus Charter Services Grow in Popularity as More People Value Travel: http://www.europa-coaches-paris.com/
munich said…
Thank you so a lot for sharing this sort of wonderful data.

Coach Rental and Bus Charter Services Grow in Popularity as More People Value Travel: http://www.europa-coaches-munich.com/

Bus Charter Services Munich
Bus Rental Munich
Unknown said…
thank you for your article. Daftar Akun Sbobet. I really liked your article because articles that you provide khayak provide many benefits to the public.DAFTAR IDN POKER. I will your next article and your next post.. thanks
Thank you so much. This blog is really helpful for me, I’m lucky to find out this informative blog.
Website Designing Companies in Bangalore | Web Development Company in Bangalore
Thank you for sharing with us, and we sincerely hope you will continue to update or post other articles.blog to share with us
Billy Kimber said…
It was fun reading this blog about freedom, cheap buses, and journalism. Keep up the good work and entertain us with your awesome blog posts like this. Now its time to get the services of Custom Soap Boxes, click for more information.

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point:  Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo:  Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1.       Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...