Bus Firm Cited 559 Times in Past Year; 220 Were for Brake Problems

California Highway Patrol records show that buses run by Mayflower Contract Services, which operated the bus involved in the fatal Girl Scout crash near Palm Springs on Wednesday, were cited 559 times in California over the past year, including 220 times for brake problems.

State officials declined to speculate if the number of citations was unusually large or small considering the size of Mayflower’s fleet, which the company said includes 600 buses and vans in California. But state officials did say that paperwork indicates the company is “pretty clean.”

“We haven’t really had any problems” with them, said William Schulte of the California Public Utilities Commission, which licenses private bus companies in California.

In addition to the 220 citations for faulty brakes, Mayflower drivers also were ticketed for infractions ranging from such relatively minor matters as material blocking part of a windshield to operating vehicles “in an unsafe condition (or) . . . not safely loaded,” according to the California Vehicle Code.

The CHP computer printout does not indicate which vehicle was cited, only which driver was at the wheel when the problem was found. None of the 559 citations were issued to Richard Anthony Gonzales, the driver of the bus involved in the Palm Springs crash. Gonzales was among seven who died in the accident.

CHP records also show that Mayflower vehicles were involved in at least 13 accidents in the last 12 months, including two accidents in Riverside that resulted in minor injuries. Accident reports blame the injury mishaps on Mayflower drivers pulling away from curbs without seeing oncoming traffic. Three non-injury crashes were blamed on excess speed and the rest on improper signaling of turns. No accident in the last year was blamed primarily on faulty brakes or any other mechanical problem.

Meanwhile, the Department of Motor Vehicles said Gonzales, 23, held a valid commercial driver’s license, a valid school bus certificate and had no accidents on his record. Gonzales had received only one ticket, for not carrying with him valid proof of insurance when he was stopped by a police officer on April 8, 1990--11 days before he was hired by Mayflower. The law has since been changed and drivers are no longer required to carry proof of insurance in their vehicles, although they are legally required to be insured.

The bus involved in the accident, a 72-passenger, 1989 Blue Bird TC-2000 “transit-style” school bus, was last inspected by the CHP on Aug. 29, 1990, and CHP officials in Sacramento said the inspection was valid through the end of next month.

“(The inspection record) appears to be in order,” said CHP spokesman Fred Dowdle. “There doesn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary.”

Passengers on the bus said Gonzales warned them that the brakes had failed shortly before it plunged off a rocky precipice along a winding road leading to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway and some reported that the bus had experienced mechanical problems earlier in the day.

At Mayflower Contract Service’s headquarters in Shawnee Mission, Kan., Executive Vice President Kyle Martin said the driver of another Mayflower bus in the ill-fated convoy did not suspect anything was wrong with Gonzales’ bus before it went out of control and crashed.

“Our driver in the other bus has shared with us that (Gonzales) had no problem with this bus as they started back” down Mt. San Jacinto, he said.

Mayflower Contract Services Inc., a subsidiary of the same Indiana-based company that owns Mayflower Moving and Storage Co., is the nation’s third-largest private operator of school buses. Martin said it owns about 7,000 buses nationwide and operates in 23 states, mostly in the West, Midwest and South. It has operated in California since 1987.

Martin said the company’s primary business is operating school buses for the 30% of school districts that hire private firms for that service, although the company also charters buses, as it did for the Girl Scouts, and operates paratransit vans for elderly or handicapped people who require on-demand door-to-door transportation.