Statewide Safety Crackdown : CHP Conducts Surprise Charter Bus Inspections

Gray Line charter bus driver Robert Milligan was northbound on Interstate 5 on Saturday when a team of California Highway Patrol officers pulled a surprise safety inspection near San Onofre, threatening to spoil the day of fun planned for the 38 passengers who boarded in San Diego.

Milligan and his bus passed. He and his passengers quickly returned to the road, confident that their destination of Six Flags Magic Mountain would likely provide the day’s only scary ride.

But Saturday’s unannounced inspection--part of a statewide weekend safety crackdown expected to waylay hundreds of charter buses--was the first Milligan had faced in 29 years of commercial driving.

“I guess I’ve just been lucky,” Milligan, 63, said.

In Los Angeles and San Diego counties, CHP checkpoints at San Onofre and Magic Mountain inspected 106 buses, took 15 out of service until repairs could be made to faulty brakes, loose steering or worn tires, and issued 71 commercial citations carrying fines of $90 and up.

Along Interstate 80 near Sacramento, meanwhile, 12 of 41 inspected buses were not allowed to proceed until repairs were made. However, nearly twice as many bus violations had been found during a similar inspection there last May.

“I think the drivers appreciate this,” said Jerry Bohrer, a CHP officer in San Onofre. “Many times, these guys don’t really know what condition the bus is in. They are only paid to drive them.”

Al Palmer, a CHP motor-carrier specialist conducting inspections at Magic Mountain, said the inspections are part of National Tour Bus Week and will continue today. While various CHP districts routinely perform such examinations, Palmer said Saturday’s effort was “a special deal” because it was coordinated statewide less than a month after a Starline Sightseeing Tours bus bound from Reno to Santa Monica crashed into the Walker River in Mono County, killing 21 elderly people from Santa Monica and Los Angeles.

On Saturday, CHP inspectors found buses like the one driven by Lynette Farley, 20, a Saugus resident who works for Brock Bus Lines. After she dropped off her charter of 40 Costa Mesa schoolchildren at the main entrance to Magic Mountain, CHP officers determined that her bus needed a brake adjustment. When another Brock bus arrived with a repairman, inspectors discovered that it, too, had faulty brakes.

Inspection Welcomed

Lee Burke, 44, a Los Angeles mechanic who also volunteers as a bus driver for the Gethsemane Christian Love Baptist Church, was flagged down after dropping off 31 children at the amusement park.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Burke said. “I really invite this kind of inspection. You’ve got too many peoples’ lives in your hands. . . . It’s for my own safety and also the passengers’.”

No passengers at Magic Mountain were inconvenienced, since they were in the park while the inspections were conducted.

But when a bus from the California Stage Line of San Diego was taken out of service in San Onofre because of a faulty brake system, another had to be dispatched to pick up passengers bound for Los Angeles.

Wait for Tire Change

Sergio Zarate, a driver for Golden State Transportation of Los Angeles, was forced to remove one of the rear tires of his bus because of two quarter-inch gashes. He said he did not know that the tire was defective. He changed the tire while his 25 passengers sat on a curb at the rear of the inspection station.

Capt. Keith Newman, head of the San Onofre operation, said that because the tire posed a potential hazard, Zarate could not proceed without replacing it.

“Chances are, it will cause a blowout and he probably could control it. But you don’t want to take that chance, especially with a rig carrying these many people,” Newman said.