Safety Officials Cracking Down on LAX Shuttles

Paula Alexander landed at Los Angeles International Airport after a 12-hour flight from Barcelona, Spain, and did what she always had done before: She hopped into a shuttle van, the cheapest way home.

But Alexander, 48, never reached her destination.

Only eight miles from her Arcadia house, the van she was riding in collided with a car that ran a stop sign, killing her instantly.

Although the shuttle company was not cited for the accident, state regulators point to the incident as a symptom of an industry that has grown increasingly unsafe. The worst thing about the July crash, regulators say, is that it might have been prevented.

Police found that one of the van’s tires was bald and cited that as a factor in the crash. The driver had paid a shuttle company for use of the van--an illegal practice, regulators say. After getting a flat, he had put on the spare and kept driving, according to a police report.

“The driver did not want to return the vehicle because he was going to lose revenue, so he used the bald spare tire,” said Larry McNeely, a supervisor at the state Public Utilities Commission, which regulates shuttle van operators. If the tire had sufficient tread, McNeely said, the driver might have been able to stop in time.

“The tragic incident is one of our worst nightmares come to reality,” McNeely said.

According to a Times study of records, 20 of the 40 carriers serving LAX are under investigation by the Public Utilities Commission for a range of violations, including faulty brakes, bald tires and defective steering mechanisms. Other violations involve unlicensed drivers, carriers that operate without insurance and the illegal use of independent drivers.

In addition, 540 complaints have been lodged against the carriers in the last 22 months by consumers who are unhappy with service to and from LAX. Most of these complaints--filed with the PUC, the airport and an industry group--involved allegations of overcharging, excessively long rides, reckless driving or abusive behavior on the part of the drivers.

During a recent unannounced safety inspection at LAX, investigators from the utilities commission and the California Highway Patrol cited 23 of 55 randomly selected vans for posing an imminent danger to the public and ordered that the vans be towed away or fixed on the spot. These vans came from small companies as well as the industry leaders, Super Shuttle and Prime Time.

“Where else in the passenger industry do you see a safety record like this? The vehicles are not being safely operated or maintained and there are unlicensed drivers behind the wheel,” said McNeely, who heads a special investigations unit of the utilities commission. “Unlawful business practices are so pervasive that we are seeing signs that we can’t get people to and from LAX in a dependable, safe fashion.”

John Goss, president of Super Shuttle International, the state’s largest and oldest shuttle company, said the industry has deteriorated as a growing number of operators compete for a diminishing number of passengers.

“(The utilities commission) wasn’t able to keep the industry under control; the airport wasn’t able to keep it under control,” Goss said. “The result is the chaos that has been going on and the deterioration in the industry in Southern California.”

The shuttle van industry ran virtually unmonitored until this year, when the utilities commission launched its crackdown. Unlike taxi drivers and most bus drivers, shuttle drivers are not subjected to any tests or background checks. And although the utilities commission is responsible for licensing the shuttle operators, no agency is mandated to inspect vans that carry fewer than 10 passengers.

Statewide, a staff of 11 utilities commission investigators oversee 3,500 for-hire passenger vehicle companies, including limousines, tour buses and airport shuttles. Some investigators say they lack the personnel and the regulatory clout to make the shuttle industry toe the line.

LAX, like all airports, has jurisdiction over shuttle companies but it is an authority it rarely exercises, said Bill Jones, management analyst for the airport’s land operations. Shuttle companies are “encouraged to solve their own problems,” Jones said. “We are not a regulatory body for the industry and we don’t want to be.”

San Francisco Airport, by contrast, conducts its own safety inspections of shuttle companies. For the first time, on the basis of those inspections, San Francisco Airport will soon suspend six companies because of safety deficiencies, officials said.

“We’ve done (safety inspections) because we consider the PUC negligent in their responsibility,” said Sheldon Fein, assistant deputy director of San Francisco Airport’s land operations. “They totally ignore the safety of the public in vehicles with (up to) 10 passengers. They license the vehicles, they give them authority, but they don’t check them.”

In California, shuttle vans carry about 8 million passengers every year to and from airports, generating more than $100 million in revenue, according to the utilities commission. With the recession and fewer air travelers, the competition to win passengers is fierce.

Utilities commission officials and some shuttle company owners agree that the industry’s biggest problem is that no agency routinely conducts safety inspections. Although the California Highway Patrol inspects buses and trucks, shuttle vans fall into a gray area. Because of this loophole, carriers are often able to avoid costly maintenance that can ensure safe vehicles, McNeely said.

The utilities commission decided to crack down on the shuttle industry after the case of an Amtrans van driver came to its attention. In July, 1991, driver Clarence Duren was shot in the leg during an armed robbery. When Duren tried to collect workers’ compensation insurance, it was discovered that the company had filed bogus forms and had no insurance--a violation of utilities commission rules.

Regulators quickly found that other companies were uninsured. Moonlight Transit, for instance, was cited by the utilities commission for operating with fraudulent insurance and without a permit. The commission revoked its license last year. The company is awaiting trial on charges that it operated illegally at LAX. Meanwhile, Moonlight has been named in 27 different lawsuits filed by individuals seeking more than $550,000 in damages and restitution.

Hoping to bring the shuttle industry into compliance, the utilities commission and the CHP held its first two unannounced inspections at LAX in 1991, and three in 1993.

During the two inspections in 1991 and another in January, 1993, citations were issued to 17 of 18 Amtrans vans for a total of 47 safety violations, including cracked steering boxes, faulty brakes, inoperative headlights, faulty turn signals, bald tires and cracked windshields. Eight vans were immediately removed from service and four vans were towed away. Amtrans was involved in 63 accidents during an 11-month period in 1991.

Regulators said they had hoped the inspections would lead to an improvement in the safety maintenance of the vans. But the inspection this month at LAX turned up many of the same problems. For example, a driver for Ace Shuttle, driving with no taillights, explained that he had removed the fuse powering the taillights and used it to operate the radio. His van also did not have a horn and smog equipment was disconnected.

On another van, the exhaust flowed directly into the passenger area. A mechanic asked the driver if he smelled the fumes and the driver merely shrugged. On yet another van, the exhaust leaked into the passenger cabin and the tire had worn so its steel cord was exposed.

“Does that mean I can’t work today?” one driver asked as his vehicle was dispatched to the out-of-service area.

Inspectors gave out-of-service citations to two Apollo-Soyuz vans, one for a defective steering box and another for an exhaust leak. But co-owner Sam Nazaryan said only the faulty steering was serious. “We maintain vehicles on a daily basis,” Nazaryan said. “We found out the part was defective; we returned the part. They don’t make good parts anymore.”

Kenneth Obatusin, owner of Airport Ride, explained that it is difficult to keep up maintenance on the vans because they are in almost constant use. “The utilization of these vans is so frequent, you can fix something now and the van gets on the street and another thing goes wrong,” said Obatusin, two of whose vans were taken out of service after citations were issued.

After the inspection, Bill Schulte, the utilities commission’s director of transportation, said the agency will reorganize its resources in the weeks ahead. “This industry has failed to meet its public obligation to provide safe vehicles. Whatever it takes to get the message across, we will do,” Schulte said.

Dr. Stanley Alexander said that before the fatal accident involving his wife, the couple had no idea that many shuttle vans have safety deficiencies.

“So many people take shuttles,” he said, “and you just don’t think of these vans having problems.”

According to the utilities commission, a common means of cutting costs is the practice of hiring independent drivers, who do not receive workers’ compensation insurance and other benefits. This practice enables a carrier to save about 30% of operating costs, McNeely said.

Utilities commission officials say contract drivers, eager to pull in as many fares as possible, have no incentive to properly maintain the vehicles.

In the case of Paula Alexander--the first person to die in a shuttle van accident--the driver had paid Prime Time $85 for use of the vehicle for 10 1/2 hours. After getting a flat tire in Studio City, he put on the spare, which had insufficient tread, according to the police report. Then the driver headed to the airport to get passengers for his final run, the report stated.

Twenty minutes before the end of his shift, the van was hit by a car that ran a stop sign in South Pasadena. The van driver saw the car, honked his horn, hit the brakes and swerved to the right, according to the police report, but he was unable to avoid the collision. The van rolled, breaking Paula Alexander’s neck.

John E. Kindt Jr., president of Prime Time, said the tire did not contribute to the fatal accident and that the company’s vans were safe.

“Somebody blew a stop sign and hit us broadside,” Kindt said. “It should be obvious that the tire had nothing to do with that. . . . We never operated an unsafe vehicle ever and would never do so.”

Earlier this year, the utilities commission accused Prime Time of improperly hiring drivers as independent contractors to reduce labor costs, and Alexander’s death was cited, McNeely said.

Prime Time--one of the state’s biggest shuttle firms and the second-largest at LAX--was fined $80,000 by the utilities commission as part of a settlement of the charges in September. Prime Time denied that it had improperly used independent drivers but agreed not to contest the allegations, according to court records.

As part of the settlement, Prime Time was required to have a vehicle maintenance and safety program, and its vehicles and maintenance records will be regularly inspected by a safety consultant.

Prime Time drivers attend an extensive two-week training program before they are allowed on the road with passengers, Kindt said. And the company no longer uses independent drivers, he said, because “independent drivers are not, in a long run, a good thing.”

Vans in Violation

In an unannounced safety inspection earlier this month, California Highway Patrol and Public Utilities Commission investigators determined that 23 of 55 randomly selected vans at LAX posed an “imminent danger” to the public and ordered them out of service. Investigators found a total of 100 safety violations among the inspected vans. Here’s a look at the more serious ones:

Vans Company Removed Violation A.A.A. 1 Exhaust leak Ace 1 Exhaust leak Airport Flyer 1 Exhaust leak Airport Ride 2 Brakes, brake lights; leaky hose and exhaust; cracked muffler Apollo Soyuz 2 Exhaust, steering Best 2 Exhaust leak, bolts that hold axle LAX Chequer 1 Exhaust, cut tire L.A. Xpress 1 Steering, suspension problems USA 1 Exhaust leak, frame suspension Valencia 1 Steering 3R Express 1 Exhaust leak, cut tires Hidey 1 Tires worn to steel belt Golden Star 1 Exhaust leak, faulty tires L.A. Top 1 Cut tire Metropolitan 1 Steering Express Prime Time 1 Suspension problem, loose axle bolts Southern 1 Steering mechanism Calif. Coach Super 2 Exhaust leak Shuttle The 1 Steering, exhaust Transport

Source: California Highway Patrol

*

Shuttle Service Complaints

Over the past 22 months, 540 consumer complaints were lodged with the Public Utilities Commission, the airport, and Shared Ride Management, a private company funded by the shuttle van industry. The majority of these complaints--338--were lodged with SRM about vans servicing Los Angeles International Airport. Some involved multiple complaints. There were no complaints on record against other companies serving LAX. Here is a look at the complaints received by SRM:

COMPANY DELAY/ TOO LONG RECKLESS VERBAL (NO. OF VANS)* OVERCHARGE NO SHOW ROUTE DRIVING ABUSE OTHER Super Shuttle 5 8 1 1 1 1 (240) Prime Time (81) 4 7 10 1 5 3 Best (25) 1 1 0 1 2 0 Shuttle One/LA 5 1 0 2 4 3 Top(24) Coast (23) 6 1 7 1 2 0 Golden Star (22) 2 0 8 2 5 2 Apollo (19) 4 2 6 2 4 2 Airway (18) 2 1 1 0 3 3 Airport Ride (16) 13 1 4 3 4 1 LA Xpress (16) 0 0 1 0 0 1 USA (16) 4 1 0 0 2 1 Airport Flyer 0 1 1 0 3 2 (13) Ace (12) 10 1 5 0 1 2 Air Trans 7 6 0 1 2 3 Express (10) Abia (9) 0 1 0 0 0 0 Trans American 0 0 2 1 0 0 (9) A-1 Skyline 2 0 0 0 0 2 Express (8) All American (8) 2 3 2 0 1 1 3R Express (7) 0 0 1 0 0 0 1-A Sahara (6) 13 0 3 1 5 2 LAX Chequer (6) 2 1 0 0 1 1 Metropolitan (5) 2 0 0 0 0 0 Quick Trip (5) 3 0 1 0 0 0 Hidey (4) 20 6 6 8 7 4 Econoride (2) 3 1 0 0 0 2 Glendale 1 0 0 0 0 0 Airport (1) Am Trans ** 1 2 3 1 2 4 OVERALL 112 45 62 25 54 40

COMPANY TOTAL PER (NO. OF VANS)* COMPANY Super Shuttle 17 (240) Prime Time (81) 30 Best (25) 5 Shuttle One/LA 15 Top(24) Coast (23) 17 Golden Star (22) 19 Apollo (19) 20 Airway (18) 10 Airport Ride (16) 26 LA Xpress (16) 2 USA (16) 8 Airport Flyer 7 (13) Ace (12) 19 Air Trans 19 Express (10) Abia (9) 1 Trans American 3 (9) A-1 Skyline 4 Express (8) All American (8) 9 3R Express (7) 1 1-A Sahara (6) 24 LAX Chequer (6) 5 Metropolitan (5) 2 Quick Trip (5) 4 Hidey (4) 51 Econoride (2) 6 Glendale 1 Airport (1) Am Trans ** 13 OVERALL 338

* The number of complaints against a company should be viewed in light of the carrier’s size. Chart lists the number of vans for which a company has a permit. It is, however, common practice for carriers to use more vans than they are licensed for, regulators say.

** License revoked.

Note: Other complaints include breaking luggage; lost items; driver kept or tried to keep passenger’s luggage when passenger refused to pay higher rate; mechanical problems; driver refused to transport passenger because they live too far away or because passenger had already prepaid fare; driver allowed smoking on van; and driver refused to accept credit cards, even though policy and van signs state otherwise.

COMPLAINTS: To register a complaint, call the PUC: (213) 897-2994 or (800) 366-4782.

Compiled by Times researcher CECILIA RASMUSSEN