Firm Promises Closer Checks of Bus Drivers : Safety: Laidlaw Transit is taking the action after the arrest on drunk-driving charges of an employee who allegedly used an alias to hide previous arrests.

The company that employed a school bus driver arrested at an Encino elementary school last month on charges of driving while drunk has told school officials it will do a better job of investigating job applicants.

The bus driver, Harold Keith Lone, was employed by Laidlaw Transit and transported Los Angeles students under the company’s contract with the Los Angeles Unified School District. Lone used a license obtained under an alias enabling him to conceal a long criminal history and a driving record that included at least four convictions for drunk driving, state officials said.

Dave Daley, vice president of operations for Laidlaw, reported to school officials this week on his investigation of the incident in which Lone was arrested with a blood-alcohol content triple that allowed under state law. Lone had been seen driving erratically by another motorist Jan. 16 and was waiting to pick up students at Lanai Elementary School when arrested.

In the most important procedural change, Daley said, Laidlaw will ask applicants about the date their driver’s license was issued and about any previous driver’s licenses they might have held, even in other states.

Such questions, Daley said, might have exposed Lone’s ruse because the California driving record he submitted with his application went back only two years. He used a forged birth certificate to obtain a license under the name Harold Keith Holmes after his legitimate license was suspended for an earlier drunk driving conviction, state Department of Justice officials have said.

Had Lone’s background been known, he would not have been hired last fall, company officials said.

“If a person is lying to you, and pushing 40, like this guy was, and you make them explain where they have been licensed to drive, then you’re able to follow up a little more on their background,” Daley said.

“In all the things I saw from our procedures, that’s the one, if . . . followed up with by questions in the interview, it might have turned this situation around,” he said.

Rupert W. Dunevant, head of transportation for the school district, said he had not seen Daley’s report and would review it today. But he agreed that several of the company’s planned changes would be an improvement.

“It might avoid a Lone-Holmes situation, provided the information can be obtained,” Dunevant said. Dunevant said the company’s plan to expand its personal reference checks, especially of people claiming to be self-employed, would also be welcome.

When Lone applied for a job with Laidlaw last July he told company officials that he was a self-employed handyman. The company sent reference check forms to two previous employers but got no response. Under Laidlaw’s new procedures, the company will ask applicants claiming to be self-employed for the names of three customers.

Meanwhile, the state Department of Justice has completed fingerprint checks on about half of the 620 bus drivers in the state who, like Lone, were driving under temporary certificates issued by the California Highway Patrol. As a result of the Lone incident, the department agreed to expedite its review of those drivers’ applications for permanent bus driver licenses.

No results of those reviews are yet available.

The Highway Patrol is also considering revamping its procedures for issuing temporary certificates so that few, if any, drivers would need them. The temporary certificates are issued prior to obtaining the results of a fingerprint check.

In addition, school officials are continuing to investigate a report that a parent had complained last fall that Lone arrived at a school late because he stopped the bus at a liquor store and left students unattended.