SPEAKER_01 0:00

The video that you're about to see that I hope you'll spend some time looking at is a discussion about a recent accident in the motor coach industry where five people were killed because of and I'll say it because of the negligence of the bus company operator and the and the driver. I'm really hoping that this video is a catalyst to get national news organizations to investigate this, investigate these chameleon motor coach operators that pop up under different names and who are not safety compliant. And it is also a call on our state compliance people and our federal representatives to make appropriate changes so that this never happens again. At the end of the day, these are 36,000 to 50,000 pound bullets heading down the highway. And I'm asking, hoping that after you look at this video and you investigate yourself this accident, that there'll be steps taken to make sure that these chameleon operators are put out of business.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

And now for your host, Ken and James.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Well, good afternoon, Ground Transportation Podcast audience. My name is Kenneth Lucci from Driving Transactions. Today we're going to hit upon a topic that's definitely serious, and I hope everybody will listen up, double down and listen up uh to the podcast, but also look uh on YouTube because I think this is a video that every transportation operator should see. I am joined today by Tom Holden from Transportation Advisors. Frankly, I've known Tom since the 2012 presidential conventions, even before that, when you worked for an operator, and my company, Ambassador Limousine, was contracted to do the Democratic Presidential Convention, and we utilized the operator that you work with in Charlotte. That's how we we knew each other and a different life. And then you started transportation advisors. We've had you on the podcast before. So you're probably the most esteemed guy in safety that I know in in the motor coach or the showford space. And I called you and asked you to come on after this incident happened in reference to a motor coach. So, first of all, welcome and thank you for agreeing to come on.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Absolutely, Ken. Thank you for thinking of me uh about this. It is a very, very important topic, and I'm I'm I'm really happy that you're spearheading this conversation today.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

This hit me hard because I know the family that was that got killed. I know of the family. Friends of mine know the family from Massachusetts. So, John, please tear up the news video so we can talk about this accident.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

We begin with the news out of Virginia tonight. A bus heading south on Interstate 95, apparently failing to slow down for road work, slamming into other vehicles that did, injuring dozens and killing at least five, among them children tonight. The moments after the crash are captured on cell phone video as passengers make their way off that damaged bus. But investigators say all those who died here were in other vehicles, those in the path of the bus. One federal official calling it, quote, one of the most tragic things I've ever seen. CBS News correspondent Lilia Luciano has more.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Cell phone video captured passengers scrambling out of a charter bus that crashed into six vehicles and rolled down an embankment on Interstate 95 around 2:30 this morning. And one driver potentially unaccounted for. Virginia State Police say at least five people were killed. Four of the victims were in a single car that caught fire, including a 13-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy. Forty-four people were injured, with at least one person still in critical condition. People screaming, the bus smoking. A stranger came, bust the window open, and let us all out. According to state police, the bus was traveling overnight from New York City to Charlotte, North Carolina, with about 34 people on board. Authorities say the driver, identified as 48-year-old Jing S. Dong, failed to slow down as the bus approached a work zone. He was treated for injuries, and police say charges are pending. The crash shut down all southbound lanes for seven hours as crews worked to lift the bus out of the median. And before this incident, the company that operates the bus has had a satisfactory safety rating, according to a federal database. The NTSB says they have investigators at the site trying to figure out exactly what went wrong.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

So, Tom, you know, at the end of the day, how much does a motor coach weigh empty, roughly?

SPEAKER_04 5:21

Full-size motor coach is probably 36, 37,000 pounds empty.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Okay. So, and with 38 people, 34, 36 people on board, you've got to it's it's gotta be closer to 50,000 pounds.

SPEAKER_04 5:34

Right. So you're move you're moving down the road, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Okay. So it's a 50,000 pound bullet heading down the road. So you've got more information on on this, and that first video to me is a little bit it's what they knew that day. Tell tell us what we know now about this company that was operating this business, that bus.

SPEAKER_04 5:59

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, first of all, and and let me let me just say right up front, if I if I'm going to refer to this as the type of bus that it is, by no means am I being derogatory or or or or passing judgment on anything. There is a very specific bus business that's out there that are constantly in accidents for decades. You'll hear the word chameleon. You'll hear me use that word over and over again. That word is used a lot in the trucking industry, and it is exactly the word that has to be used in this particular accident.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

What does it mean?

SPEAKER_04 6:32

So it's a it's a company that when they when they operate, they're very hard to find, first of all. They're they're basically not uh in a in a in a retail business or a corner business lot, someplace where it's publicly seen. This particular company is working out of Kings Mountain, North Carolina, working at an apartment. He's got four buses out of many motor coaches that are running up and down the East Coast uh that are doing transportation uh to and from let's say Chinatown in New York or Washington, D.C. or Philadelphia. Okay. Uh they pick up in Walmart parking lots or somewhere like that. They move their pickup locations around frequently. The feds have been chasing them for decades uh and have yet to be able to consistently shut them down. Okay. And in this particular case, you know, this guy, this company had an audit done 56 days before the accident took place. And they're, listen, I'm involved in audits every week with our clients across the country. I get to see how the audits are conducted, what they ask for, who's looking for stuff and who's not. And in this case here, you know, without proof in my hands, how many days did he spend on the audit on four buses, 11 drivers? It was not a week-long investigation, I can assure you, right? But the reality is that 33.3% of his drivers have been put out of service compared to a national rate of 6.67. What does that mean? That means that the driver's logs or fitness is is totally not in line with the regulations.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

That's what it means when they're put out of service.

SPEAKER_04 8:07

That's when a driver can no longer drive that bus until it's been corrected, right? If a vehicle is put out of service, the driver can drive another bus, but that vehicle can't move. Okay. And so when a driver is put out of service, a different driver must come in and take over the route and move forward at that point until such time as the violations that that driver was involved in have been affixed, right? And so 33% of the drivers of that one company put put out of service. That is horrendous. There was only 11 drivers.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

What's then what's the what's the average acceptable in your mind?

SPEAKER_04 8:43

Well, national average is 6.67. Okay? Yep. 6.67. What's acceptable to me?

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:50

You got that, you got that one driver that made a mistake.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Right.

SPEAKER_04 8:53

That's what's acceptable. Okay? I don't even think you should have 6.67 because it's not that difficult to follow the rules. And that's not what this conversation is about, anyway. This is about the the company that's operating as a chameleon operator who goes down the road, they get involved in an accident. They had an accident in 2024, they had an accident. The same exact driver was stopped because of not being able to speak English. He was not put out of service, he was not removed from his position, he was put back in a bus again, right? Now, granted, this accident, and I'll be the first one to say it, this accident did not happen because the guy could not speak English.

unknown 9:30

Right.

SPEAKER_04 9:30

But that is a rule, that is a federal rule. You can't be in a driver's seat, right? And from what I've learned, you know, when he went to get his CDL training with a P endorsement, I believe he he had that training done at Virginia, but the state of New York is who licensed him and gave him that ability to drive that bus when they should not have.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

So let's let's back up one step. In your mind, make in your mind, you know, listen, the guy was was speeding, and he has had a history of speeding before. First and foremost, what systems should have been in place or should be in place to change that behavior?

SPEAKER_04 10:12

Yeah, well, that's that's a that's a whole nother uh timeline. I mean, there there are policies and procedures, and you and I are gonna be discussing that at the at a different time. But the the the company itself is the one that's really responsible here, right? And that's where it boils down to. They're gonna hire a driver, put him in the seat, and they're gonna make him go out there and work. Most of the time, in these chameleon operators, they're technically driving more than 10-hour days. You saw that this one happened at 2 34 in the morning or something like that, right? 2 35 in the morning. Yep. You know, a very bad time to be going down the highway. And and and and there there's no policy and procedure. The very first policy, can he speak English? No. Then you shouldn't be driving a bus.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Okay?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

If that's this is this just say it. This has nothing to do with discrimination. This person has a job to do. The job is if something happens, that person has to direct people to get out. They also have to interface with law enforcement and emergency personnel. So it is a job that requires English proficiency by law, correct?

SPEAKER_04 11:22

Exactly. Exactly right. And I'm sure you've seen the news and other articles that, especially in the trucking world where they're talking about uh the non-domicile drivers today. Yep. In the motor coach world, in the chauffeur-driven world, there are drivers that are technically non-domicile that do not have the right work visas to be driving a bus.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 11:42

All right. And if you're a company owner, it is your responsibility to go investigate those drivers to make sure that they should even be in your driver's seat.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

And look, you and I are blessed. We both do have we we both deal with customers that we love. We both deal with customers. Mine are financially, they're people that take finance and profitability very seriously. In your case, they take safety very, very seriously. We don't work with any of these kind of chameleon operators. But am I wrong to say this could have been prevented with a combination of regulatory compliance and telematics? I mean, let's just say, worst case scenario, this guy did fall asleep at the wheel. There are electronics that would have warned him, correct?

SPEAKER_04 12:28

There are, yes, you you can have a unit that's going to alert you. Most of them are doing that today, so we don't have to get into name brands. Right. But they're they're gonna they could verbally alert you, uh, distract the driver, right? If if you're running a bona fide company, hopefully you're running a 24-hour operation, somebody's watching something. Okay. It's a lot of times, unfortunately, people will turn off the the the uh alert system because they don't want passengers to hear that alarm go off. Yeah, but it is out there, it it is it is it is uh available. Does this vehicle have a camera in it? I haven't seen that yet, right? Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

If they did, they probably ripped it out pretty quickly, so they they wouldn't um look this all points to us an underbelly of the motor coach industry that you know, first of all, these guys don't belong. They uh they guarantee you they're not you know involved in the associations, guaranteed they're they're not we they're they're certainly not uh making much effort to be compliant, but this could have been prevented. I wanted you on here for a couple of reasons. You know, number one, any operator and every operator that's that's listening to this, you've made a significant investment to hire Tom, and you've made a significant, hopefully, and a significant investment to get into Motor Coach. If you view safety and compliance as an expense and a pain in the ass, get out of the business. Get out of the business. The other thing I want to say is safety sells. Safety sells. When anybody says to you, why are you X amount of dollars an hour compared to other companies? You say, I don't know uh what the the other companies do, but I can tell you, here's our compliance record, here's our safety program, this is the telematics and the electronics that we have to protect you. You know, it gets me about like the airport airline crashes, they talk about, well, there were 45 souls on board. Yeah. To me, this industry, the motor coach industry, I don't think we're the feds or the regulatory is like the FAA. I don't think they this this company should be grounded. This company should be should be literally full stop. Give me the keys to your motor coaches uh until this investigation is done. And there should be sanctions involved. You've done something quickly here that I is interesting. You put together a a use case or a study on this. I'd like to bring that up if it's okay with you.

SPEAKER_04 15:01

Sure, go ahead. Let's go through that.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

John, go ahead and bring bring up the slides. Okay, is this uh so take us through this? Take us, take us through this, Tom.

SPEAKER_04 15:09

Yeah, sure. Obviously, the the the important product here is uh the five people, unfortunately, four of them in the same family. Uh the other, I think it was a lady in an SUV that was originally hit.

unknown 15:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:22

Uh so five people were killed, four to four people hospitalized, 56 days after a satisfactory rating. You know, there's only there's only three things that could happen during a rating. You're either getting satisfactory conditional or unsat, right? And so if you get a drop to conditional or you get a drop to unsat, that doesn't mean you're shut down today. That means in the bus world that you have 45 days to appeal it, and on the 45th day, they're going to make a decision in Washington whether or not you can get an upgrade or not, right? If you're in unsatisfactory condition, you're done on that 45th day if they deem you to be unsat, and then they they can come in and chain your doors down. Okay. But as again, in a chameleon operator, they've already opened up with a whole DOT number, a whole different name, a whole different pickup location, and they're still in business. You see that there are 12 companies under an investigation. That's what I'm saying. I'm just going to show you a little bit later here for this chameleon. This is the information exactly who this company is. Uh, again, they're working out of an apartment in Kings Mountain, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

You can see an apartment complex.

SPEAKER_04 16:31

An apartment complex.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

A little bit difficult to have a repair and maintenance facility up and running and demonstrate that you can did you can maintain your own equipment working out of an apartment complex. Look, I'm all for the entrepreneur, okay? But at the end of the day, this is something wrong here.

SPEAKER_04 16:49

So so I'm going to use another word for you. It's called a line run, which I which I assume you know what that is. Greyhound bus.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 16:56

Greyhound, Greyhound is a perfect scenario of a line run. It picks up from city to city to city, right? You have you have Greyhound out there, you have Flicks, which now owns Greyhound, you have our bus, you have a couple of different ones that are out there. You there's trailways, all of them are out there, and most of them are very, very good, reliable companies. But that's exactly what's going on in this this particular bus in this accident was a line run going from New York to uh to Charlotte, coming back to Charlotte with its passengers. It's a relatively inexpensive ride back and multiple stops on the way. So let's be clear warning.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Everybody you've talked about there, those are bona fide first-class companies, meaning Trailways has been in business for a long time. A couple of the companies you mentioned, you know, I've done business with, and their bona fit is fantastic. You don't see the the trailways logo or anybody's logo on these kind of buses, do you?

SPEAKER_04 17:54

You you do not. You don't see any any logo. You you're you're lucky to find that they actually have their DOT number posted down the side, which only has to be two inches tall.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah right.

SPEAKER_04 18:03

And so so again, those numbers get scraped off, and a whole new set of numbers gets put on it, and he's back on the road again. That's what a chameleon operator is about.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

So bring us through his red flags, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:14

Right. So he had he had three speeding violations, this company, 15 miles an hour or more in a motor coach. Now, your highway is 70 miles an hour mostly, 95, highway 95. You're doing 85 miles an hour or or above with a vehicle at 50,000 pounds. Okay. Prior crash, August of 24, same exact company failed to slow for slowed traffic. Why is that? In Lexington, North Carolina. Uh, the same exact driver failed as English tests. Uh, 33%, as we mentioned before, of driver out of service rates compared to a national average of 6.67. Uh, apartment headquarters, like we talked about.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

You know, that driver out of service, that's kind of a misnomer. It really should be, it's driver out of compliance, correct?

SPEAKER_04 19:01

That is correct.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

That's a nice way of saying driver out of service. I might be home sleeping, but driver out of compliance is really what you're talking about. 33% drivers out of compliance, that's five times the national average. How does that happen?

SPEAKER_04 19:17

It happens because because the companies allow it to happen, right? You you asked me to be on. I can only be factual and truthful with you. Yep. When when management allows that to continue to happen, that's how it happens, right? Again, the line run type of business, and in this particular chameleon organization, they're all about moving that bus up and down the road. They're putting 15,000, 20,000, maybe more than 20,000 miles per month on that vehicle. Yep. Right. And so they don't have a garage because they don't maintain the vehicles like they should.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Right.

SPEAKER_04 19:49

Okay. It's a catastrophic event when that bus is stopped. That's when it gets worked on.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

So talked about the the prior crash was outside the window. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_04 20:00

Yep. So when they come in to do an audit, they're looking at the previous 365 days. Okay. If you have two, if you have two accidents in the same 365-day period, and I've and I've experienced this in the past, right? Accidents happen. You know, it may not have even been your driver, but they wrote it up as a reportable accident, and it's your fault. The the reality is that you can go from a satisfactory, you can be the best of the best out there.

unknown 20:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 20:25

And you can have a satisfactory rating, and you have two accidents, they're going to come in and they're going to drop you down to conditional in that 45-day period. Okay? You have that 45 days to argue it, appeal it, and see if they reverse it. Most of the time it's not going to happen. You're going to be dropped down to conditional. Conditional means that you could still operate, you can still go up and down the highway. You may not get contracts. The chauffeur-driven world, the motor coach world, they have they have some pretty hefty contracts that are out there. Department of War requires you to have a satisfactory rating, right? You may lose that business because you were dropped to conditional, but you're allowed to operate.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

So you and I have talked about this, though. In the past, you had talked about this when you've said to me, prospective clients, they weren't clients before, but they call you in a panic because they've gotten a conditional rating. Talk to us about how you can correct that permanently.

SPEAKER_04 21:20

Right. So coming in there and redoing everything that they've got that they were found wrong for. We had a client that came on board with us and we knew that they were going to have an audit coming up. And we knew that based on based on their history that it would be an unsatisfactory rating. And sure enough, unfortunately, a whistleblower happened and they they came back with an unsatisfactory. Uh, but we had fixed all of the problems from the time that we had started. Okay. And we rebuilt the establishment, rebuilt their policy and procedure. And after the audit was over and done with, a lawyer was hired. Uh they got uh from unsatisfactory, they went back to back. Too satisfactory. They skipped conditional. Because of the work you did.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Because of the work you did.

SPEAKER_04 22:04

Because we fixed it, right? Because they focused on it and fixed it. They're still operating today. They're doing good. And they realize that, oh my God, what was happening in the past should never have happened. Let's go ahead and fix this problem once and for all.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

You know, and the reality is the same thing happens with us. People will call us and they'll say, oh, you know, oh crap, I'm in a bad financial situation, or I couldn't get a bank loan this time around, or something happened. And we come in and we make their corrections, right? We we absolutely correct everything. So you're doing the same thing. We're not saying, we're not saying that if you get found unconven unconditional, excuse me, what the the term unsatisfactory unsatisfactory, you know, that it's a it's a it's a it's a scarlet letter. But what we are saying is it's a shot across the bow that you better change the way that you do things. And and and and the companies that are operating, trying to operate properly do it. They make the changes. But you're saying these guys don't.

SPEAKER_04 23:05

These guys don't. They open up another company. A whole brand new DOT number. They probably already have the DOT number already established, right? They just turn it on.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

This this brings up exactly what you talked about. So how did you find this out, by the way?

SPEAKER_04 23:21

Yeah, I mean, this is this is definitely news that's in the internet. You do a little digging for it, you're gonna find it. But you can compile all these company names that are right here in front of you, and there are ties right back to this company, this E and P travel company. Yeah, and just to prove the case itself again, they they 100% are a chameleon type of operator. Yeah. You can see Superbus Incorporated, Pandora Travel, uh, Triple Group Incorporated, 12 additional companies on top of that. Uh and they're the key individuals that are under scrutiny right now. It's all listed right there.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

And you found these through you found these through news reports of what's taken place. Okay. That is, you know, yeah. And and why does I'm gonna set this up? We we have a uh we have an ENO errors and omissions insurance policy. And it basically, when we got it, the insurance company said to us, have you ever had an ENO insurance policy? Yes. Have you ever had a claim? No. And if we answered no, we probably couldn't have gotten the ENO. How is it possible that it's not a question that have you ever owned a MotoCoach company before? Yes. What was it? Why are they allowed to do this?

SPEAKER_04 24:39

You have to start looking at the thousands of applications that are being put through. There's only so many of them. This is all digital application. You're going online, you're applying for it. You're probably going to not tell the truth on every question that comes across. You're going to sign digitally at the bottom that you understand the regulations, and you could be held against penalty, blah, blah, blah, right? And the next thing you know, you have a DOT number. The next thing you're applying for is going to be your authority. You're going to apply for that at the exact same time. If you've passed and you got your DOT, you're going to apply for the authority. You do not get the authority instantly. It could take a week or two, maybe longer. Uh, and they're going to change some names, they're going to change some addresses where it's covered up. You've heard of it's look, it's done every day in corporate world, right? There's so many corporations that are buried under umbrella companies that you can't find out who the real owner is. You know, I I think 60 Minutes did a thing two months ago on the trucking company uh that was out there, and and they have a uh a firm out of Serbia that was running that trucking division here in the United States. Well, they're not going to find them in Serbia. They just know they're there, but they don't know who they are.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Exactly right. And I think it's time, I think it's time for a national news organization to look into the the Motorcoach space. You know, let's let's let's be clear. There are 1800, roughly 1,825 Motor Coach operators out there. Yep. Okay. The reality is the vast, vast majority of these people are fantastic, wonderful people. You and I've been doing business with them for a long, long time, and they don't like to see this stuff either. Okay. But there is there's that small amount that these chameleons that are out there, and I have less of a problem with it in trucking. I sh I I shouldn't, because I know that they can call it cause accidents, and they have caused accidents. But I have more of a problem when you're actually putting bodies onto a vehicle, and you you know flat out you're not following the there's a special place in hell for you, as far as I'm concerned.

SPEAKER_04 26:45

So yeah, and in and in this case, you know, nobody, thank God, nobody on the bus died, but unfortunately the people, the passengers in those cars are the victims, right? And so whether it's a truck that hit them or a bus that hit them or or any other vehicle, you know, that that's horrible. And it should never have happened.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Because there are there are ways, electronics now, even if you fall asleep, which is kind of the worst thing in the world for the trucking industry, because it happens. That you know, the guys fall, they're just batite. But now there's electronics that shake the seat. They it it provides an audible, but on top of that, it sends the signal back to the to the operator, correct?

SPEAKER_04 27:24

Yes. Yep, yep, yep. There's no excuse at all, Ken. If you're going to if you're going to invest into the equipment, then use it for how it's been designed. Don't eliminate aspects of it. Don't eliminate the vibrating. Don't eliminate the auditable alert. Okay? You're saving a life. Does it really matter the path the passenger herd distracted driver? That's my opinion only. I'm no longer an operator, but that's how I felt when I used to be an operator.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

I agree. Look, and and safety, as I said, safety sells. Every operator you and I deal with that are engaged, our services. My message to them is when you are presenting to new clients, I don't care whether it's a wedding, I don't care if it's a corporate, uh, corporate uh corporation to do a group or meeting or a corporate shuttle, you need to, you need to emphasize your safety. You need to emphasize the a the newness of your equipment, the the safety program that you have, invite them out to see your facility and and tell them the warning signs.

SPEAKER_04 28:31

This accident should have never happened. This accident type of chameleon service in the passenger world, along with the trucks. They they they there should have been a way to stop the chameleon lifestyle that continues every single day. Okay. You know, we're capable of going in and and and figuring out our government and figuring out how we're going to get so and so out of what country or whatever the case may be. I'm positive that we could figure out a way to shut down chameleon operators once and for all.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

And and listen, at the end of the day, I guarantee you that apartment complex has local regulations against operating a business out of an apartment complex. I can guarantee you that that if that investigation looked into and there was a rule, hey, if you're twice or three times the national average on drivers out of compliance, guess what? You're you're the FMCSA should have the ability to just shut them down right then and there. There's enough operators.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

They they should have that ability, right? But there are rules to them. There there have to be two critical violations that are going to take effect for you to be dropped to conditional.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

But how how is it such that I can operate a company that 33% of the people that I am putting in charge of their motor coach are out of compliance? Shouldn't be allowed. What what what's your message? And you and I have had many conversations about private conversations we probably couldn't have on stage at and any of the shows. What's the what's the message you think that the the industry associations should be focused on to make sure this stuff doesn't happen? What what do you think? What what's the ideal here that these associations should be telling their congressmen about or when they go to Washington on Day of the Hill, uh, which they all have, by the way, the you know, the the motor coach associations and the show for side. What what's what's the ideal we should be focusing on to get rid of these chameleon operators?

SPEAKER_04 30:36

Yeah. I think first of all, uh to to make it work, the very first thing that has to happen, Ken, is that all the associations have to agree on the exact same topic line. Okay? They have to get their story together. You can do research on it, you can go back to COVID, you can go back to look at the grant money that they were looking for, and all three associations were were coming up with different facts and figures. And so whatever monies were being granted was because there was so much confusion at the time. Okay. You know, when you come down to the chameleon operator, there just has to be one thing. It's just got to be right from Washington. This cannot be allowed. Let's figure out, let's get our states together, let's get our state inspectors doing the jobs that they're supposed to be doing, okay? Yep. And having full blown-out investigations. They changed it from an audit, the word audit to investigation. They changed that 10 years ago. Well, then conduct an investigation.

unknown 31:29

Right.

SPEAKER_04 31:30

That's what should happen.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Right.

SPEAKER_04 31:31

Okay. There are there are too many times that I've seen it where they come in, they've met the guy before. Oh, you're so-and-so operator. We know he's a great operator. Let me come in. I've seen it, Ken, where an audit is done in four hours. That's impossible.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Well, it's it's impossible for us to do a comprehensive financial review in 40 hours. So I get it. And what gets me is the this to me is like uh the regional airlines, right? There's probably the the the plane I just took from from Charlotte uh Salisbury to Charlotte had less people on it than this bus. Okay. And at the end of the day, I I don't I think I don't think it's the the bus inspections or any or the regulatory is anywhere as stringent as it should be with the FAA. And now I I'm not advocating putting people out of business. That's not what I'm advocating. I'm advocating that you it's gotta be a level playing field. It has to be a level playing field and it has to protect the public. Those people that died from Massachusetts were going down to a wedding, and the whole family was in the car. And at the end of the day, to me, if if this was one of the motor coach companies that you and I deal with every day, this in my mind it wouldn't have happened.

SPEAKER_04 32:57

Right. Because right, it it's not supposed to happen. It wouldn't have happened. There are there are gray areas out there, unfortunately, sometimes that operators are are are becoming just a little bit more excited about the more business that they're getting. You know, can I get one more job in? We don't we don't need to push the envelope. I think everybody should be very happy with the business that they have right now, focus on that, turn the bottom line into a very profitable line and concentrate on safety.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

That's what I think. There's no question about it. And we've been getting the signals. We just put out the study of the the the first survey or the second, yeah, the first survey of 2026. And I was kind of shocked that people were not updating their chauffeur manuals, and it was brought to my attention that a lot of people are updating their safety manuals via AI. Give me your thoughts. Give me your thoughts on on that.

SPEAKER_04 33:57

Yeah. You know, I I'm a I'm a fan of AI. So am I. But um, but but I'm a fan of of human resources. Yep. And and there has to be a a a human set of eyes that are going to go through this and make it realistic to your company. You can come up with a policy from AI that's just worded so perfectly well that that you know, John Adams could have used it uh in in in in 1777, right?

unknown 34:24

Right.

SPEAKER_04 34:25

The reality is that it doesn't fit your company.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 34:29

And so so you take that AI, you add the human flavor to it, sure, and now Tom's bus company is exactly the way his policy says it's going to be.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 34:40

Right? Correct.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

And in addition to that, I hate to say it this way, but I don't know how much of a uh how much of a life's investment somebody has in a bus company, a chameleon bus company like this, the living out of an apartment compared to the guys you and I operate, uh help operate, they have their lives' fortunes tied up in these companies trying to do the right things. And, you know, it's funny, I told a story I forget which podcast, but I had a guy call me who wanted to sell his company, and there were some red flags on the conversation, but one of the things that bothered me for days was he says, you know, I I don't believe that uh accidents can be prevented. He said, you know, I just think it's a it's a it's a it's it's in God's hands. And I said, Well, you talked with the wrong guy, you're talking to the guy that spends his Sundays reading the Bible. You know, I go to Bible study and then I spend some hours and I said, But I don't want to have that conversation with you. I disagree with you, but let me ask you a question. You ever hear of Smokey the Bear? He said, you know. I said, Do you think forest fires went down after they really hammered on Smokey the Bear? He said, Probably. I said, How about four times? How about the number of forest fires went down by four X because Smokey the Bear that that entire program? So that shoots holes into what you're saying. Now, can all accidents be prevented? No, they can't. But at the end of the day, I think we'll both agree that there is operators that want to comply, doing everything possible, hiring a guy like you, constantly updating, and listening to what you say. And there's a far cry from that operator, the guys that we deal with, and these chameleons. I mean, at the end of the day, this is I'm not a I'm not a let's get into the government involved and everything. But at the end of the day, this to me is much more of an issue to make sure that the government solves it once and for all than you know the stuff that perhaps we talk about on Day of the Hill. You know, we we did talk about on Day of the Hill, no tax on tip, clarification and all of that stuff, which I think is important. But at the end of the day, the guys that we deal with are serious about safety, serious about life safety. And I just don't I think these guys fly in the face of it from what what you're telling me. Right.

SPEAKER_04 37:20

No, they're you're you're right on right on spot, Ken. The government has to step up and do something different compared to what it's been doing for the last 20-some years, 30 years, because it's been around that long. You know, I I think accountability, you talk about the individuals that you represent and I represent that are spending an awful lot of money on motor coaches and are putting their life savings on the line. The reality of these chameleon operators, they have investors that are dumping money into these older used buses. Sure. They have 800,000 miles on a bus and are running up and down the highway. They have a million and a half miles uh that are running up and down the highway. Those those are not six, seven hundred thousand dollar motor coaches, right? No, they're not. Um, and and there's there's so many people. The the re the case today I showed you was 12 plus companies, but there are so many other people that are investors into this because there's money to be made. Yep, right? Let's shut that down. You want to talk about criminal organization, that's what that is.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

And you and I, we're not gonna mention his name here, but we you and I have a we're we're big fans of a guy that runs a what 1200 motor coach operation.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

And you could eat off his facility, and he is so proud so proud of the fact that he he's he takes safety extraordinarily serious. And it it he he was one of the first guys I texted when I said, you know, I'm I'm ashamed to say that these people were in the same business that you are. And he said, Ken, you know, i i it's it's night and day. I would he said I would I would be distraught mentally if something like that happened to my to my operation. Well, listen, I I don't like to be this serious on a Friday, but but we had to do it. You know, when I talked to you about this, when I saw this, you know, the connection to Massachusetts kind of really bothered me. And then it's also something that I go up and down the highway and I see these buses, you know, I go see my clients in New York City, and I see these buses, and they're always up my ass. You know, I'm doing 75, they're passing me like I'm standing still. And I I think at the end of the day we're not asking the government to change much. But when I read the articles that the NTSB has made suggestions from past bus accidents that have still not been made, you know, I I do think that there's a way people in our industry can talk to their representatives and make it happen. This is giving everybody a bad name. If you listen to this and you say, well, I don't operate that way. I hate to tell you, you are being compared price-wise, and you've got to tell people you don't compare me price-wise to the I can't operate, no one can operate safely and operate like that. So, so last words on last words on this. What do you think if there's a silver line lining to come out, God forbid, of you know, of people dying? What do you think can be what do you think can be done here?

SPEAKER_04 40:25

Yeah, you know, the silver lining is can people like you or me or anybody else that's gonna talk about this, and hopefully this conversation will continue with somebody else, that we're actually opening the eyes up for people to start paying attention. And I and I I think it's time that that we all have to come together and agree that we're in a business where we're moving humans around and we have to do everything above and beyond to make sure that we're gonna deliver those human packages safely.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

1000%. There's people you and I have talked about as operators that we won't deal with. And I'm just gonna reach out. I'm just gonna just shout out if you're an aggregator in this space and you've built your business on creating demand and you don't own equipment, I would tell you you need to double down on who you're who you're picking for operators because it's not just looking and saying they're satisfactory, but it's doing your own because your brand is on the line as well. So, Tom, I I the next I promise you the next podcast we do will be, you know, uh on something that's more a little bit you know less heavy of a subject, but you're the guy to handle this. You were the guy that I that I said, if there's anybody that can shed light on this, it was you. And I will just say on behalf of the Ground Transportation Podcast, we're gonna we're gonna do something with this video after we edit it. We're gonna make sure that some of the news organizations get it, and some people that perhaps in government should get it, because this is not a one-time occurrence. The statistics on people have been injured in bus accidents is out there, and I think things have got to change. If if this helps in any way, it's been worthwhile. So I really appreciate Tom. Tell everybody how they can reach you, tell them uh the the website of your business.

SPEAKER_04 42:17

Sure, absolutely. Again, Tom Holden, Transportation Advisors. The address is theadvisors.org. Look us up. We could help you out with all of your uh safety and compliance needs, drug and alcohol testing, everything else that goes with it. Thank you, Ken, for your time.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

My pleasure, and I think we are kind of kindred spirits. I get take finance and profit pretty seriously, and and you take safety pretty seriously. So I'm happy to know you and happy to that you agreed to do this. And and thanks again for your time.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

Absolutely. Anytime. Thank you all. Thank you for listening to the Ground Transportation Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about PAC Training and to contact James, go to PAXTraining.com. And for more information about driving transactions and to contact Ken, go to driving transactions.com. We'll see you next time on the Ground Transportation Podcast.