Thread: Bus driver had 1 ticket. We can thank NAFTA

Bus driver had 1 ticket
Missing extinguisher among his violations before fiery crash


10:09 AM CDT on Tuesday, September 27, 2005



The driver of a bus that became a funeral pyre for 23 elderly Hurricane Rita evacuees did not have a fire extinguisher on another vehicle that he was operating earlier this year, according to state records.

State troopers who stopped Juan Robles Gutierrez three times between February and August listed nearly a dozen violations, including the missing fire extinguisher, but he was ticketed only once for speeding. Mr. Robles could not be reached for comment Monday.

Sgt. Don Peritz, a spokesman for the Dallas County Sheriff's Department, said he did not know whether a fire extinguisher was on the bus that burst into flames Friday, killing 23 of the nursing home patients on board.

Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the bus fire, could not be reached for comment late Monday.

The victims were being moved from a Houston-area nursing home to facilities in the Dallas area because of Hurricane Rita.

State records show that drivers for the company operating the bus, Global Limo Inc., were written up for regulatory infractions 11 times and received tickets on nine occasions between January 2002 and August 2005.

One of the drivers was James H. "Butch" Maples, the owner of Global, which has its headquarters in Pharr, Texas. He was issued a ticket for violating a license restriction, but troopers also noted on commercial vehicle enforcement forms that he was driving with an inoperable tail lamp and no driving log and had failed to display insurance.

"He's been in this business for a long time, and he really hasn't had any problems until this time, which is, of course, a great tragedy," said Kelly McKinnis, a bankruptcy attorney who represents Mr. Maples.


Low safety rating

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Web site gives Global a rating of 97 on driver safety, meaning that it was among the lowest 3 percent of carriers.

Mr. Robles, the driver in the bus fire, was found to have 11 violations and one ticket – for speeding eight miles over the posted 70 mph speed limit. Other violations, according to Texas Department of Public Safety records, included having defective lights, failing to maintain his driving log and for being a non-English-speaking driver.

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, it is legal for people with the equivalent of a commercial driver's license from Mexico to operate buses for U.S.-based carriers, said Tom Vinger, a DPS spokesman in Austin.

Mr. Robles, 37, listed his home address as Global's office in Pharr in one record and in San Nicolas de los Garza, near Monterrey, Mexico, in two other records. Two of the records showed him to have only a Mexican driver's license.

All but one of the other eight drivers listed in DPS reports listed addresses in the lower Rio Grande Valley and Houston. The ninth driver, who was 75 when he was ticketed in March 2002, listed an address in Ohio.

The Texas Department of Transportation also has confirmed that the bus involved in Friday's deadly fire had been out of service after its registration expired.

How that bus ended up hauling dozens of elderly hurricane evacuees from Houston to Dallas remained unanswered Monday, but state officials backed off previous statements that suggested a waiver issued by Gov. Rick Perry played a role.

Randall Dillard, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Transportation, said the bus was not put back on the road because of an emergency waiver from the governor.

"We made a big mistake," Mr. Dillard said. "We just flat got it wrong, and I wish we hadn't."

On Saturday, Mark Cross, another spokesman for the state agency, was quoted in media reports as saying the governor's waiver may have allowed the bus back in service.

The blaze spread from the brakes of the bus into the cabin, where it ignited several portable oxygen tanks, in what became the deadliest bus accident in Texas in more than five decades.

Robert Black, a spokesman for Mr. Perry, said a vehicle registration waiver signed by the governor didn't go into effect until almost four hours after the incident.

"The bus left the Houston area on Thursday and tragically caught fire early Friday morning in Wilmer," Mr. Black said. "The governor didn't issue any waiver until 10:30 a.m. Friday."

Mr. Black said transportation officials made an "inadvertent mistake," the result of confusion over the timeline of events in the last week.

By Sunday morning, the story spread from Texas newspapers to national TV news talk shows and appeared to blossom into an embarrassment for the governor.

The governor's press office defended the waiver for almost two days before realizing the error, Mr. Black said. Staff members didn't read news reports on the issue until they returned from a tour of damaged and flooded areas around Beaumont.

Mr. Black also said a state disaster proclamation issued Sept. 20 by the governor contained no details that could have been interpreted as a waiver for the ill-fated bus.

"By itself, the [emergency] proclamation didn't do a whole lot but open the gate for the evacuation," Mr. Black said. "But it did not serve as a waiver for that bus. It couldn't have."

Mr. Black said the governor's waiver, addressed to Texas Transportation Commission chairman Richard F. "Ric" Williamson, never cleared the way for anyone to put an unsafe bus – or any other unsafe vehicle – on the road.

"Expired registration and safety requirements are two completely separate issues in this," Mr. Black said. "And neither had to do with the vehicle restrictions waiver."


Five names released

Also Monday, the Dallas County medical examiner's office released the names of five victims: Eldon Michael Boudreaux, 89; Adrian Flake, 90; Natalie Lenzner, 68; Dorothy Mod, 80; and Martha Talbot, 77.

Jeffrey Barnard, Dallas County's chief medical examiner, said Monday that he plans to release more names today and provide additional information about his investigation.

"We've got IDs on a fair number, and we're trying to make contact with their family members," he said. "We're trying to be fast but thorough."

The five victims who were identified on Monday all died of smoke inhalation and burns.

A spokeswoman for Sunrise Senior Living, which owns Brighton Gardens in Bellaire, Texas, where all the crash victims were being bused from, declined to confirm whether any of the names matched those they knew to be on the bus or whether they were residents of the home.

The agencies investigating the crash – including the Dallas County Sheriff's Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the National Transportation Safety Board – plan to provide more information about their investigations Friday, the Sheriff's Department said.


http://www.khou.com/news/state/stories/ ... 70562.html

Take a look at the voting record and who supported NAFTA. Those who voted in support of CAFTA also supported CAFTA. They are backdooring people into our nation through supposed free trade. Are those who voted for NAFTA as guilty as this man for the deaths of those people?