As a vintage bus line slogan goes, “Leave the driving to us.” Trouble is, when you do that you also leave safety precautions to bus lines, and safety doesn’t always lead their to-do list.

Take the Jan. 2, 2008 Texas bus accident in which one Houston passenger was killed and 17 were injured seriously, with two of them losing arms in the crash. The driver fell asleep at the wheel, ran off U.S. 59, over-corrected and flipped the bus on its side, where it was hit by a pickup truck. Again, a complex and catastrophic traffic accident happened very quickly.

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Large passenger buses are inherently dangerous. Big rigs, diesel trucks, semi trucks, 18 wheeler trucks or tractor trailers  are even more so. Combined, how dangerous are they? You do the math.

The tragic numbers after a recent bus-truck crash in northeast Mexico were 11 bus passengers killed — including 10 United States and Canadian tourists — and 15 injured when a tractor trailer went out of control and swerved into oncoming traffic, smashing the bus, Mexican authorities said.

As usual with such incidents, the diesel truck driver survived with only injuries. The bus driver is dead, along with 10 passengers. Those who were injured reportedly are in “grave” condition.

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In case you haven’t heard, Jack got hit by a bus. That’s Jack, the bubble-headed spokesman for fast-food chain Jack in the Box, whose current campaign to sell more artery-clogging burgers and tacos involves mock news and web coverage of Jack’s bus accident injury.

Launched during Super Bowl XLIII’s telecast — among other ads wallowing in the mirth of misery — it’s a warped yet creative campaign, and it’s likely to make even more money for the chain’s 2,100 restaurants. But we’d like to mention, for sensitivity’s sake, its utterly bad timing.

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While buses in general can be as risky as trying to draw on an inside straight, casino tour buses can be an even worse bet.

In California Sunday, a casino tour bus taking passengers from Sacramento to a gambling den flipped over and rolled into a ditch, killing eight people and critically injuring at least 30 others. As this and other bus accidents have shown, buses can be extremely dangerous when they turn over, which they often do.

The California Highway Patrol said the bus driver was perhaps on medication, and CHP has charged that driver with driving under the influence. The bus also lacked a valid license plate, having expired Texas plates. Built in the 1980s, the bus also lacked seatbelts, but that’s a common failing on buses.

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In a move that came too late for too many bus accident victims, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has halted approval of any new bus carriers until the feds get a fix on a problem that’s claimed 20 lives in two crashes in just the past week.

The government was responding to a problem created by a loophole in regulations which allowed bus lines with poor safety records to keep operating after supposedly being shut down. This was the case in the North Texas bus accident Aug. 8 in which 17 Houstonians were killed, after chartering a bus line which had been shut down for being unsafe but was simply operating under a new name.

The FMCSA “is concerned about these rogue operators, the chameleon carriers, who get put out of business and then come right back under a new name,” said the agency’s Kristin Schrader in Washington. (more…)

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