Justice Department Fines Dallas Bus Company $55,000 for Violating the ADA

From the Department of Justice  (9.27.10):

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Justice Department Fines Dallas Bus Company $55,000 for Violating the ADA

The Justice Department and the Department of Transportation announced $55,000 in fines against Tornado Bus Company Inc., of Dallas, for violating passenger carrier accessibility requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  In addition to the fine, a consent agreement reached with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the Justice Department requires the bus company to upgrade its fleet to meet ADA requirements by February 2011 or have its operating authority revoked.

An extensive investigation conducted by FMCSA uncovered that Tornado had only one accessible bus in a fleet of 53 buses, while ADA regulations require that at least 50 percent of a carrier’s vehicles must be accessible. The investigation also found the company had purchased new non-accessible buses, failed to train employees on interacting with disabled passengers and failed to establish a wheelchair lift maintenance program. The fine and citations came as a result of FMCSA’s ADA strike force held in May 2010.

“At the foundation of our society is the ability to live independently and move freely,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division.  “This freedom is no less important to people with disabilities. We are grateful FMCSA takes accessibility requirements seriously and has reached this agreement.”

“Adhering to ADA accessibility requirements is not a choice, but a high standard that every commercial bus operator must follow,” said FMCSA Administrator Anne S. Ferro. “FMCSA will continue to work closely with the Department of Justice to vigorously enforce ADA compliance so that all travelers can enjoy destinations across America by way of commercial bus.”

In February 2009, FMCSA and the Justice Department entered into a memorandum of understanding concerning the enforcement of commercial passenger buses. The memorandum between the two agencies was included in the Over-the-Road Bus Transportation Accessibility Act of 2007 and is designed to ensure consistent ADA enforcement nationwide.

>>More information about the Civil Rights Division

>>The consent agreement with Tornado Bus Company

>>>For the Original Release

Comments

[Happywheels]

Bravo, DOJ! Now, drive out I20 west to help us with many challenges including "wheelchair" transporting companies that are not licensed to tranport the disabled, seniors, or from hospital to hospitals to rehab. hospitals, etc. To say we're being terrorized is mild.

There is nothing to and from LIA after 6 PM except these non-licensed companies. Look at the Internet, guarantees of "Millions Transporting the Disabled and Seniors -- " it's becoming a game.

No one is address the licensure of these companies. The metropolital transport companies like DART and Citibus, and STS in Austin, are great but there has to be something for those in the 'burbs' or rural areas, and after 6 PM that is safe, and licensed to transport this special population.

[Csaba S. Hutoczki]

The ADA passage that dictates only half of a carrier’s busses to have accommodations for persons with disabilities is quite lenient. Requiring only 50% of the vehicles to be equipped essentially means that through the other half of its fleet the transporter is still allowed to discriminate against persons needing additional access. All people are potential customers of a transportation agency. Not one, two or 50%, but all busses of every carrier ought to be automatically equipped with proper accommodations to use for all citizens. How about not even granting an operating license in the future without meeting this criterion?

Perhaps, if the ADA would be adjusted to demand not only operating entities but even manufacturers to furnish each vehicle with access for persons with disabilities, the confusion could be eliminated and similar future problems prevented. One would think with the second decade on the 21st century upon us, this ambition would be logically, legally and morally accepted across the board.

Amend the ADA now to order the inclusion of special access requirements to 100% of the busses and other types of transporters, serving 100% of their potential customers without discrimination!
(When this is achieved, society may even have a shot to one day eradicate the use of the term “special accommodation / access” from our language, rather the very expression “carrier” will naturally include the meaning of access for all!)

[Advocacy for the Disabled]

Kudos and Bravo to Mr. Perez, indeed. However, as Casaba addresses, changes in ADA must begin right now. We rushed out to help a woman in a power-chair on a vent. outside a hospital last week. We were attending a meeting there, in fact, and someone saw this through a window. There across their neuroscience center, the woman could not get past the phone poles, gas meters, and stanchions on the sidewalk, adjacent to the parking garage, and there was a deep 'lip' on the curbs bordering all that block's driveways. Back and forth she was going, trying to "get down;" needless to say there were no curb cuts!

By the time we reached her, she was in tears, trying to 'meet' her city bus pick-up, but fearful of rolling down into the street off the curb. NO ONE should have to go through such a fear! It's inhumane.

Then, later, visiting an in-law in their adjacent town, we found him rolling in the streets because there are NO curb cuts in his entire community just 7 miles from the major SW city, and the downward inclines from the entry road are steep for an automobile much less a person in a power-chair. With his wife who is blind, walk nearby, again, no traffic signs to alert drivers on the side streets to a blind resident - and they were speeding! People don't want government interference but they want federal dollars when things go wrong, and have yet to realize that when they don't act the feds have to act.