Arkansas bus crash: Bus operator recently fined
Late Sunday evening, a group of elementary school-age children piled on to a bus in Fort Worth, Texas, to return to their historic Memphis neighborhood of Orange Mound after competing in a football tournament.
Four hours later, when they were halfway home in central Arkansas, the bus flipped multiple times, tumbling off of Interstate 30 over two embankments, according to one of the coaches on board.
One of the children died. About 45 more were injured.
In an initial statement, the driver of the charter bus said she lost control of the vehicle, according to Arkansas State Police.
The driver is one of seven employed by Scott Shuttle Service, which operates five buses, according to data from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the agency responsible for oversight of commercial vehicles across the U.S. The owners of the Somerville, Tennessee-based company could not be reached for comment and have yet to make a statement available.
The Commercial Appeal analyzed the company’s federal safety records and found that Scott Shuttle Service was fined in July 2018 for allowing a driver to operate one of its vehicles without a proper license. And a few months before that, in November 2017, the company was involved in a minor collision in Jackson, Tennessee.
According to data from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration — which collects information on all crashes regardless of fault — the driver did not receive a citation for the collision, which occurred in the evening on a ramp when the road was wet.
In the last two years, four of the company’s five buses have passed unannounced roadside safety inspections by Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration auditors without any major issues — though minor violations were found, involving a discolored or damaged windshield, an oil and/or grease leak and an inoperable tail lamp.
Those violations did not prevent a “satisfactory” rating of the company, following a comprehensive review by federal auditors, in May 2018.
And while the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration provides bus passengers an online portal to search safety information on specific bus companies, that portal does not provide a safety measurement in the category of “Driver Fitness” for Scott Shuttle Services.
That’s because only one of the company’s seven drivers has been inspected in the last two years. A carrier must have at least five driver inspections to be assessed.
A spokesman for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Duane DeBruyne, declined to comment on the recent crash in Arkansas. But, he said that roadside monitors — typically stationed at weigh stations, truck stops, terminals and popular destinations like casinos — have less opportunity to conduct random inspections of small companies like Scott Shuttle Services, which has few vehicles, that typically travel short distances.
Ron Maxey, Micaela Watts and Linda A. Moore contributed to this report.
Reporter Sarah Macaraeg can be reached at 901-426-4357 or sarah.macaraeg@commercialappeal.com. She is on Twitter at @seramak.