Bus Company Shutdown for Safety Violations: Declared an Imminent Hazard to Public Safety, Scapadas Magicas has been Shut Down
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has the ability to shut down trucking and bus companies when they don’t operate safely. When the FMCSA determines a company is operating in a way that is unsafe and a hazard to others on the road, they can pull their license to operate in the United States.
On Feb. 3, 2013, a bus operated by Scapadas Magicas LLC, was in the process of transporting passengers on a ski trip from la number of areas, including Tijuana, Mexico to a ski area in Southern California, when it crashed on a mountain road just east of San Bernardino. In the accident, they also hit two other vehicles. In all, seven of the bus passengers were killed, and dozens injured. The crash also took the life of the driver of one of the vehicles the bus hit.
The National Transportation Safety Board is in the process of investigating the crash, along with the assistance of FMCSA and local police. The FMCSA also ordered an inspection of Scapadas Magicas’ other two buses being operated on U.S. roads, and apparently what they found caused the agency to immediately shut the company’s U.S. operations down and officially blocked them from conducting future operations in the United States. The carrier was also labeled an imminent hazard to public safety.
The post-crash inspection by FMCSA inspectors found a number of serious mechanical safety violations, and those buses were immediately placed out-of-service. Inspectors also found that Scapadas Magicas had failed to regularly and systematically inspect, repair and maintain their buses, and that the company’s drivers were not properly qualified or licensed, even though the company claimed they were so as late as January 2013.