The Government Accountability Office (GAO) completed a study on tractor-trailer and bus companies following federal safety regulations.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, there were hundreds of tractor-trailer and bus companies ordered to shut down because of federal safety violations. These violations ranged from suspended licenses to possible drug use. They have stayed on the road, avoiding the violations by using different names.
The report found that about 20 of the 220 commercial bus companies were fined and ordered out of service in 2007 and 2008 by federal regulators and “evaded compliance by setting up shop under a new name.”
Offenders were found in at least nine states including Georgia. The other states included Arizona, Arkansas, California, Maryland, North Carolina, Texas, New York and Washington.
The violators in these states owed tens of thousands of dollars in fines.
Greg Kutz, GAO’s managing director for special investigations, said, “These companies pose a safety threat to the monitoring public. We believe that these carriers reincarnated into new companies to evade fines and avoid performing the necessary corrective actions.”
