Travel by bus in the U.S.: Driving to extremes
(CBS News) If Americans have always had a love affair with cars, you might say that they've started flirting with buses - they're convenient, comfortable and cheap! But with buses in the "fast lane," policing bus safety has never been more important. Our Sunday Morning Cover Story is reported by Peter Greenberg:
If you had a TV in the past 50 years, you probably remember commercials - or at least a very familiar slogan - from Greyhound, who asked you to "leave the driving to us."
Those ads are long gone, but now, buses are back.
At a time when gas prices are soaring, train service is limited, and flying has become an expensive chore, the bus business is booming.
After falling off for most of the last five decades, bus travel has gained ground since 2006, with more than 700 million passenger trips last year alone, according to the American Bus Association.
The biggest jump is in what are called curbside bus operators, like Bolt Bus and Mega-Bus, that load passengers on city streets as well as terminals and take them between big cities, often for next to nothing.
One passenger told Greenberg he'd bought his New York-to-Boston ticket for $15. Others paid $9.50, or as little as $1.50. For many, it's just too good a deal to pass up.
In 2011, a year that saw air travel up about two percentage points and train travel up five, curbside bus trips shot up more than 30 percent.
Clearly, the bus game has changed.
In the 1956 film "Freedom Highway" - produced by Greyhound, no less - the bus looked more like a country club lounge, only somehow nicer.
It was safe, but now, with more bus trips than ever, safety officials have their hands full keeping it that way.
In March last year, more than a dozen died in a crash on I-95 near New York City (left), when a drowsy driver lost control and hit a signpost, cutting the bus nearly in half.
Just days later, another bus crash on the New Jersey Turnpike left two dead.
Two months later, a crash in Virginia killed four people when their speeding bus rolled onto its roof.
For federal regulators, scenes of horror like these were a wake-up call.
"These crashes really pointed out to us that we needed to focus like a laser beam on these bus companies to make sure the buses are safe, mechanically okay, [and] the bus drivers are well rested and properly licensed," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
In May, the DOT shut down 26 bus companies, for everything from bad drivers to bald tires, and the hunt for rule breakers is ongoing.
Last month, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration allowed our cameras along while they carried out random inspections at Boston's South Station bus terminal.
One bus was starting to load passengers when DOT Inspector Patty Lavouie stepped in.
Inspectors look for leaks in the engine bay, check treads and tire pressure, and to see if the windows will actually open in an emergency.
They also go through the driver's logbook to make sure he's not driving longer than the legal limit.
They found nothing wrong with this carrier, but in general, safety officials say driver logs are a trouble spot.
"We believe those log books provide too many opportunities for falsification, because again, it's a paper log book," said FMCSA Administrator Anne S. Ferro.
"What's to prevent a driver from literally carrying two sets of books?" asked Greenberg.
"The solution is an electric log, much like an electronic timesheet," said Ferro. "An electric log that ties into the engine of the bus, that identifies whenever that bus is moving, whenever it's being operated by that driver beyond their limits."
Ferro says electronic driver logs could be on buses as early as next year.
Beyond catching sleepy drivers, there are other ways to make bus travel safer. At Penn State's Larsen Institute, researchers working with both private and federal agencies put just about every kind of bus sold in the U.S. through a brutal battery of tests, from big motor coaches to those little airport shuttles.
And where else would you see this? A New York City bus rolling past a dairy farm, on a road designed to mimic the bone-jarring streets of Manhattan.
"The point is that not all buses hold up that well," said Dave Klinikowski, who runs the bus program. "We've had buses that cannot complete the program, or leave the program on a truck, because they've fallen apart."
"So they do make 'em, and you do break 'em?" asked Greenberg.
"We do break 'em sometimes, yes," he replied.
And down the road, buses could get sturdier: Under new federal law, bus companies will look at ways to make roofs less likely to crush, windows less likely to shatter.
Some new buses, like a Greyhound model, already come with seatbelts. But there's no new rule for belts in buses already on the road.
In the 1960s the National Transportation Safety Board made an urgent recommendation to put seat belts in buses.
Greenberg asked Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., who helped draft the new law, why after 40 there were still no seat belts in buses.
"What we've seen in a very safe bus industry, motor coach industry today - they are moving towards with their new buses getting seat belts on - but to retrofit them costs thousands of dollars," Shuster said. "The cost benefit is just not there."
"The retrofitting bothers you because of the cost?" asked Greenberg,
"Well, it's a huge cost," said Shuster. "I used to have that number off the top of my head, but it's several thousands of dollars for each bus. And what you have out here are small business owners that run a very safe business, 99 percent of them, and we're going to have the federal government come in and mandate something that is probably not going to save any more lives."
Mike Fullington's namesake company has been in business for more than a hundred years, with a solid safety record. What he hasn't seen is a demand for seatbelts.
He told Greenberg that if seatbelts were put into a bus, "People aren't going to wear them. They don't wear them. We have five or six motor coaches that have seat belts, and we look to see if they're wearing them. And we ask them to wear them, and they don't put them on."
Seatbelts or not, there's no sign of slowdown in the bus industry, or with the people whose job it is to keep up with it.
"Every life counts," said FMCSA Administrator Ferro. "We have to continue to work to make sure that every company operating out there, moving passengers, puts safety as their top priority. That's our focus."
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