Mexico Trucker Online

A troubled Houston bus company at the center of two accidents within two days this week has had faulty buses placed out of service 41 times since 2006 for issues such as bad tires and brake problems, records show.

Even so, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Transportes Los Norteños remains in compliance with national transportation statutes. Federal regulators said Thursday, however, that they will review the East End carrier after a harrowing accident in Dallas late Wednesday, the second involving the company in as many days.

No one was killed as the driver of a Transportes bus made a mad dash for the nearest Interstate 35 exit near the Dallas Zoo after his brakes appeared to fail, said Kimberlee Leach, spokeswoman for the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office.

“Hold on!” driver Bernardo Lopez Laurel reportedly warned the 37 passengers aboard the Columbus, Ohio-bound bus, according to Leach, just before it raced along a I-35 frontage road and through an intersection before crashing into a vacant gas station.

Seconds before the impact, one male passenger jumped from the bus through a window, breaking his leg. He was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital where he was treated. Another half-dozen passengers were treated at the scene for bumps and bruises.

The day before, on Tuesday, another Transportes bus caught fire close to where I-35 and Interstate 20 intersect south of downtown Dallas — just a few miles from Wednesday’s accident site. No one was injured.

In the 41 times that federal or state inspectors stopped or examined a Transportes buses since 2006, they have been found to be so deficient — with bad tires or other problems — they were placed “out of service” until repairs could be made.

Pulled for bad brakes

A Transportes bus with the same vehicle identification number as the one that crashed on Wednesday near the Dallas Zoo appears to have been inspected at least 15 times in the last two years or more, according to the FMCSA’s online database. Minor violations were noted.

However, a bus with the same license plate that crashed Wednesday was inspected last New Year’s Eve and was found to have inadequate brakes and put out of service. No one from Transportes could be reached for comment.

By late Thursday, FMCSA officials had decided to give Transportes another look, nearly one year after a similar review was carried out.

“We’re doing a compliance review on them,” FMCSA spokeswoman Kristin Schrader said.

But first the federal government will have to find them.

According to federal records, Transportes Los Norteños is owned by Hugo Campa and is located at 5621 Harrisburg Blvd., east of downtown Houston. But there’s another bus company at that location, Autobuses Regiomontanos, and it’s owned by Campa’s brother, Jose Campa.

“He (Hugo Campa) just gets his mail here. I keep his records because I know him,” said Nadia Luevano, an Autobuses Regiomontanos employee.

She also said that Transportes does not keep its buses in Houston. She said they are in Monterrey, Mexico, and go from there to San Antonio to Dallas to Ohio and back.

Brother’s credit profile

The bus that crashed late Wednesday, a Mexican-made 1997 Dina Viaggio 1000, was at first leased for the past 30 months from Titus Leasing Co. of Pennsylvania, and then was bought from them on May 27.

According to a Titus employee who gave her name only as Michelle, Transportes Los Norteños owner Hugo Campa owns the bus, but his brother’s credit profile was used to complete the transaction.

The business relationship between the brothers and the addresses of the companies raises questions about how the federal government is able to keep track of interstate carriers and why the companies are allowed to provide a mailing address, but not a location address.

A year ago, a compliance review was done on Transportes Los Norteños after the company had several insurance cancellations in a row.

SOURCE:Houston Chronicle

[UPDATE] After compliance review, Transportes Los Norteños, allowed to continue operation

Federal regulators are allowing a Houston bus company to continue to operate despite two accidents in one week near Dallas, the bus company’s owner told the Houston Chronicle on Friday.

Investigators from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation, spent most of the day at Transportes Los Nortenos, combing the company’s files in offices shared with another bus firm on Harrisburg Boulevard near downtown.

While they downgraded the company’s accident rating from satisfactory to conditional, they did not suspend nor remove the company’s license to operate across state lines.

“The accident factor (rating) was affected,” said Hugo Campa, Transportes Los Nortenos’ 36-year-old owner. “The safety part of it stayed the same.”

Investigators were sent to meet with Campa, who has an office at his brother’s bus company, Autobuses Regiomontanos, to conduct a compliance review of Transportes’ operation after the two accidents in Dallas this week.

On Tuesday, a Transportes Los Nortenos bus caught fire, but the driver and all of the passengers escaped injury.

On Wednesday, a 1997 bus owned by the firm veered off I-35, raced down a frontage road and crashed into a vacant gas station near the Dallas Zoo. One of the 37 passengers jumped from the bus before it crashed and broke his leg.

The driver, Bernardo Lopez Laurel, 53, of San Antonio, told investigators in Dallas that the brakes had failed, forcing him to make a quick exit and crash.

Campa said Laurel told him, however, that was not the case. Instead, Laurel said he swerved to get out of the way of another vehicle and lost control of the bus, Campa said.

“The driver told me the vehicle got in his lane, and he tried to avoid a collision and went to his right and lost control,” Campa said. “I proved to the U.S. DOT that I had new brakes on that bus — I was able to show them, using invoices.”

Driver had convictions

Campa’s driver, Laurel, was convicted in 1999 for a DWI committed four years earlier in Bexar County, Texas Department of Public Safety records show. Laurel, who could not be reached for comment, also was convicted in 1991 for driving without insurance.

In both the DWI and insurance cases, it was not known, according to the records, whether he was driving his personal or a commercial vehicle.

Two years ago, Laurel was convicted of speeding more than 10 percent above the posted speed limit while driving a commercial vehicle in Bexar County.

Campa said he fired the driver after talking to him.

Campa, a former bus driver from Monterrey, Mexico, started his bus company, which caters to Hispanic immigrant workers, in 1999.

He said he houses his company — but not his buses — inside his brother Jose Campa’s Autobuses Regiomontanos for convenience and not to mislead the public or federal investigators.

“No, I don’t think it’s misleading because I don’t have any kind of advertising in Houston,” Campa said. “As a matter of fact, no one knew I existed in Houston until the accident.”

Campa’s fleet of seven buses, now reduced to five, make runs three times a week from Monterrey to Columbus, Ohio, with stops in Laredo; San Antonio; Dallas; Little Rock, Ark.; Nashville, Tenn.; Louisville and Lexington, Ky.; and Cincinnati.

“I guess people keep working further north as work in the South declines,” he said. “They’re going up north where the work is more plentiful and paid at a better rate.”

Recent scrutiny

Campa said he was optimistic that his overall rating would improve once he provided more information to federal regulators about how both accidents could not be prevented.