Thor Ind. Announces Sale Of Bus Business

 

Thor Announces Sale Of Bus Business For $100 Million

SOURCE Thor Industries, Inc.

ELKHART, Ind., July 31, 2013 /Bus Digest-- Thor Industries, Inc. (NYSE:THO) today announced that it has entered a definitive agreement to sell its bus business to Allied Specialty Vehicles (ASV) for $100 million in cash, subject to closing adjustments.  The sale is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed by November 1, 2013.

"Although the bus business has been a valuable part of Thor, this transaction allows us to focus on maintaining and growing our leadership position in our core recreation vehicle (RV) business," said Peter B. Orthwein, Thor Chairman.  "From an investor perspective, divesting the bus business will simplify our overall operations and solidify Thor's position as the leading company in the RV industry which is recovering strongly.  Pursuing the strategic development of our RV business enables us to drive growth in sales and earnings, ultimately delivering improved value for our shareholders."hor's bus business includes Champion Bus, Inc., General Coach America, Inc., Goshen Coach, Inc., El Dorado National California, Inc., and El Dorado National Kansas, Inc., which combined represent one of the largest producers of transit and shuttle buses in North America with bus segment sales of approximately $450 million for the fiscal year ended July 31, 2013. 
"We are excited to add the Thor bus business to our diverse line up of specialty vehicles," said Peter Guile, President and CEO of Allied Specialty Vehicles.  "We view the opportunity to expand our business into the transit and shuttle bus markets as a key initiative in broadening our markets and providing products that meet the needs of our dealers and end consumers. We are eager to welcome these new bus brands to the ASV family."


Thor will continue to own and operate the bus business until the closing date of the sale.  As a result of the decision to pursue a divestment of the bus business, Thor will report the financial results of the bus business as discontinued operations in its upcoming annual report filed on Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which the Company expects to file in late September.  The Company does not anticipate any impairment to goodwill or intangible assets of the bus business as a result of the sale.

Thor expects to report preliminary sales for its fiscal fourth quarter and full year ended July 31, 2013 on Monday, August 5, 2013.  

Ticketed Bus Driver (80) Is Not The Oldest

Submitted by Nadine Maeser .READ MORE: Ticketed bus driver (Video) not oldest in county

Last week's (2010) school bus accident involving 80-year-old bus driver Otis Hames raised some concerns on our website. According to New Hanover County Schools, Hames is not the only bus driver in his 80s. Now some lawmakers say maybe the laws should be changed.

By law, there's no age limit to drive a school bus, but after Wilmington Police charged Hames with failure to yield the right of way, some are questioning the safety of students.
Many of the comments on our website defend Hames, Others argue that an 80-year-old has no business driving a school bus.

Drivers are required to pass several tests to renew their certification, including a physical. Hames passed his back in 2005. AARP, though, says certain human functions do have a tendency to decline as people age, including vision, hearing, reaction time and cognitive and motor abilities.
So should the law change? State Rep. Carolyn Justice thinks a change may be needed.

"I, as a legislator, was surprised to find that folks 80 years old are driving school buses," Justice, a Hampstead Republican, said. "Maybe we'll discuss having them re-examined every year. Maybe we'll just have to decide an age cut-off."

For now the state will have to rely on current standards for testing drivers that were recently changed. A representative for Transportation Services at the Department of Public Instruction in Raleigh said the state recently changed bus driver certification to a three-year renewal cycle instead of the old five-year cycle.

As for the drivers in New Hanover County, out of the 306 drivers employed, 41 are between the ages of 60 to 69 years old, 15 are between the ages of 70 and 79 and there are two drivers in their 80s, including Hames and a woman a few months older than him. The other 248 drivers are under the age of 60.

The Physics/Energy of a High-Speed Crash

Physics of a High-Speed Crash: 70 MPH vs. 85 MPH

So, Texas wants to raise the speed limit to 85 mph. What do I think? Well, to tell you the truth, I usually drive 5 mph under the speed limit. I change this driving habit when my wife is in the car. Then I go the speed limit.

But the real question (actually there are two big questions) is what about safety? This is actually a pretty tough question to answer. The problem is that collisions depend on so many things. If this is too difficult a question to answer, change it. That is the physicist way.

Simplified Car Model

To explore the difference between crashing a car at 70 mph and 85 mph, I will use a model. This car doesn’t have a crumple zone, it has a huge spring on the front. Here is a diagram.

Now, I am going to take this spring car and crash it into a fixed wall. When that happens, the spring will compress. There are two questions. First, how much does the spring compress? Second, what is the maximum acceleration of the car during this collision? I like to look at the acceleration because that is a good indication of possible injury.

Work Energy

The work energy principle says that the work done on an object is equal to its change in energy. If I take the spring and car as my system, then there is no work done on it during the collision. The car will decrease in kinetic energy and increase in spring-potential energy. This can be written as:

Here I am calling the “1″ position right before it hits the wall and the “2″ position when it hit the wall and stops. This means that K₂ will be zero (because it is stopped) and U₁ will be zero because the spring is not compressed yet. The kinetic energy and spring potential can be written as:

For the spring potential energy, k is the spring constant. A higher k means a stiffer spring. Also, s is the distance the spring is compressed. Putting these expressions into the work-energy principle, I get:

That tells me how much the spring on the car is compressed. This would be like the amount of damage that was done to the car. Oh, I know a real car isn’t just like a spring – but this model will give us something to work with.

Force and Acceleration

What about the acceleration of the car as it crashes into the wall? Here is a force diagram for the car while it is crashing.

The two vertical forces (gravity and the road) clearly are not too important. They don’t do work (because they are perpendicular to the motion) and even if they did, the two forces would cancel. What about the wall? Since the spring is compressed, it pushes on the wall. Forces are an interaction between two objects. This means that if the spring pushes on the wall, the wall has to push on the spring with the same force. I can write the magnitude of the force the wall exerts as:

The more the spring is compressed, the greater the horizontal force on the car and thus the greater the acceleration of the people inside. So, the greatest acceleration will be:

And using the value for the maximum compression above, I get:

So what does this mean? It means that if I increase the initial speed, the max acceleration on impact increases by the same factor.

How About Some Values

I think I can do this without picking a mass of the car. Suppose that I have a car going 70 mph (31 m/s) and it crashes into a wall with a spring compression of 1 meter (I just randomly picked that). What would the value for m/k be?

Now I can use that for the maximum acceleration during a collision. Here are the values for 70 mph (31 m/s) and 85 mph (38 m/s)

Ok, I am happy. First, this is the acceleration at the maximum compression for a spring. However, my special spring doesn’t bounce back. Bouncing back would have a much greater acceleration than just stopping (because of the change in direction of velocity). But I guess it stops at that instant, so maybe that isn’t so bad.

The other problem is that the useful acceleration data really needs a time. A human can withstand super high accelerations as long as the time interval is short enough. So, what is the acceleration as a function of time? Acceleration depends on position, but position depends on velocity and velocity depends on acceleration. How about a quick numerical plot? First, this is the velocity of the car as it collides.

And here is the acceleration (as a function of time) for the car:

How bad is this acceleration? This is my favorite table that used to be on Wikipedia’s g-force page.

This says that if you are driving and crash into a wall, you would accelerate “eyeballs out” and could take about 28 g’s for less that 0.01 seconds. This is bad. Looking at the above graph, you would be over 28 g’s for about 0.04 seconds. Note to self. Don’t crash your car into a wall if you are going 70 mph even if the car has a huge spring on it.

UPDATE: I was wrong (as pointed out in the comments).  The table above says that the time is in minutes, not seconds.  Dooh!  Anyway, looking again at Wikipedia’s human tolerance page – it lists 50 g’s as pretty much fatal.  So, this is still bad.

Here is a plot of accelerations for different starting velocities.

The faster you go, the worse the acceleration when you crash into that wall (which you totally should not do). But a couple of key points:

•  
• This is just a model using a spring to simulate the crushing of the car.
• The above graph shows the acceleration of the car. The person inside would have a different acceleration. Just imagine an air bag inside. The person would actually move forward more than the car (and decrease the acceleration). The person is not rigidly attached to car (at least I hope not).
•  
• Driving is dangerous. Driving is especially dangerous if there are walls in the road. I would just avoid any road like this. 
•  

•   Maybe You Can Relate to These Tests at 30mph

Maryland to Curb Car-on-Truck Aggression

 

 

 

Maryland launches safety effort to curb car-on-truck aggression

 

Motorists responsible for 80 percent of wrecks involving trucks, state says

 

  UPS on-road-supervisop Luis Jaramillo talks about tractor trailer blind spots with Bala Akundi with the Baltimore Metropolitan Council (above) during a press event highlighting dangers of aggressive driving. (Karl Merton Ferron, Baltimore Sun / July 17, 2013)

 

On his way to an event at M&T Bank Stadium Wednesday to help launch an anti-aggressive-driving campaign, Luis Jaramillo was cut off.
Three times.


"You have those 'Oh, boy,' moments and your life can flash in front of your eyes," said Jaramillo, a driver supervisor for UPS in Laurel. "As big and as brown as we are, to a lot of drivers we're invisible."

State and federal transportation and law enforcement officials have begun a summer initiative as part of the Smooth Operator program aimed at motorists who tailgate, speed and cut off big commercial vehicles.


More than 50 law enforcement agencies across the state will be part of the campaign, which also will include billboards and social media.


In the past five years on Maryland roads, 299 people died and 12,951 people were injured in crashes involving a large commercial truck or cross-country bus, said State Police Capt. Norman "Bill" Dofflemyer, who commands the commercial vehicle enforcement division.
Spurred by their desire to get ahead of slower-moving trucks, motorists abandon safe practices they have been taught. The problem is exacerbated when road rage becomes part of the mix, he said.

"The idea of teaching the other guy a lesson is not worth it and is totally unacceptable," Dofflemyer said.


Last year, in 80 percent of accidents involving a car and truck, primary fault belonged to the car driver, state statistics show. During that time, police officers issued 400,000 tickets and warnings for aggressive driving.


Professional truck drivers say it's what they can't see that often leads to trouble on the highway. Blind spots, which angle out from the truck's side mirrors to the back bumper about three lanes wide, often prevent them from seeing approaching traffic.


Another blind spot exists at the back of the truck.
"If you can't see a truck's side mirrors, the driver can't see you," said Louis Campion, president of the Maryland Motor Truck Association.
Even if the truck driver sees a problem developing, he or she is often powerless to prevent it. A car traveling at 60 mph with perfect brakes can stop within 50 yards — half the length of a football field. An 80,000-pound tractor-trailer with perfect brakes requires 75 yards — one more yard than Joe Flacco's longest toss at an ESPN college football contest.


"We have to be better than the drivers around us," said Jaramillo of Eldersburg. "The biggest thing we can do is anticipate what people will do — because they do it."

Federal Fatality Counts 'just doesn't add up'

 

        Federal bus fatality count 'just doesn't add up'

 

Associated Press

The sleepy driver of a motor coach carrying members of the First Baptist Church of Eldorado, Texas, on a sightseeing tour in fall 2003 weaved erratically for miles before swerving off the interstate and striking a parked semi-truck. The impact crushed the front of the bus and ripped loose seats.

This crash in Tallulah, La., killed eight people and made national news. An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which monitors safety and investigates crashes, blamed the fatigued driver — and raised broad safety concerns about inadequate federal oversight and poor seat design.

But if lawmakers or the public searched for the deaths in that Oct. 13, 2003, crash in the official statistics of motor coach accidents presented by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), they would not find them.

In its 2007 report, "NHTSA's Approach to Motor Coach Safety," the agency said two occupants of motor coaches died in 2003. The agency, which is responsible for keeping track of accidents and fatalities, updated that number to three in testimony March 30 before the Senate's Surface Transportation Subcommittee.

• STORY: Bus crashes, fatalities worse than gov't reports

A USA TODAY review of federal accident data, news reports and interviews with local law enforcement authorities discovered at least 14 accidents and 32 motor coach occupant deaths not included in NHTSA's official tally of motor coach crashes from 2003 to 2009.

Bus safety advocate Brad Brown of Beaumont, Texas, whose daughter, Ashley, 16, was among the two members of a girl's soccer team who died in a bus accident March 30, 2006, says he isn't surprised. The number of deaths he sees reported in news stories always seemed high compared with the official statistics.

"When I just think about the deaths that I know about and I look at the annual data that NHTSA reports, it just doesn't add up," Brown says.

Issues with data

When NHTSA calculates motor coach fatalities, it relies on the massive Fatality Analysis Reporting System, or FARS, which holds detailed records of every fatal crash in the country.

The system contains no official definition for motor coach, so statisticians must rely on a crude approximation for these buses known as "Cross Country/Intercity Bus." Motor coaches are sometimes listed under other categories.

To some extent, NHTSA officials are hostage to the information they receive from local authorities. The agency has tried for years to improve the data reporting, holding training sessions for state officials who code the data. Mistakes still occur.

In the case of the Tallulah crash, the accident is listed under the category "Unknown Bus Type." The NTSB labeled the bus a motor coach in its investigation and in a recommendation to NHTSA.

The accident that killed Ashley Brown reveals another issue with the FARS data. The bus carrying her soccer team was a slightly smaller bus the NTSB labeled "mid-size." The NTSB says these buses perform trips nearly identical to the ones by motor coaches and have similar safety deficiencies.

Investigators found 33 occupant deaths from 2000 through 2008 on these buses. None of these cases was included in the NHTSA motor coach data, the NTSB said. Nine additional deaths in these buses occurred in 2009, USA TODAY found.

"It's shocking to hear that this accident is not accounted for in determining whether to make changes in how we regulate transportation," Brown says of his daughter's crash.

Twist of the knife

Jessica Weishair, 16, a high school sophomore from Pelican Rapids, Minn., was on her way home from a band trip to Chicago on April 5, 2008, when the school's rented motor coach went off the road and rolled. She was flung from the bus and crushed beneath it.

Officials who coded the accident information listed the vehicle as a transit bus like those used to transport people in cities, although it was a motor coach manufactured by Van Hool. The accident was not included in NHTSA's motor coach statistics.

As a result, the death was not among those cited in NHTSA's controversial proposal last year to require seat belts on motor coaches.

Weishair's father, Kim, has campaigned for improved bus safety since the accident. He says he thinks Jessica would have lived if her bus had been equipped with seat belts. When told his daughter's crash hadn't been counted in motor coach accidents, he said he was stunned.

"It really takes that knife that's sticking out of your heart and twists it a little bit more," Weishair says. "It's not going to bring her back, but I do want her counted in these statistics."

Marathon's Luxury Motorhomes on Wheels

  " Marathon Coach is the world’s largest manufacturer of luxury bus conversions "

Marathon Coach is the world’s largest manufacturer of luxury bus conversions. Its business is building leisure type buses for the ultimate in creature comfort. Prevost, a company based in Quebec, Canada, provides Marathon with a passenger bus chassis that Marathon employees convert into a luxury coach. Marathon offers two styles of coaches: the H3-45 that is 45’ long and 12’-1” tall, and the XLII that is 40’ or 45’ long and 11’-7” tall. The interior of each coach is customized so that no two Marathon coaches are alike. The Prevost chassis carries a 500-horseower Detroit Diesel Series 60 engine, Allison World six-speed automatic transmissions, and 20-kilowatt Kohler auto-gen generators. Beside custom coaches, Marathon also builds corporate coaches, customized specialty trailers and transporters. Marathon has sales and service offices in San Antonio, Florida and Dallas, Texas. It has been in business since 1983.

Sample floor plan

Marathon has six to eight basic floor plans for its coaches. The interior floor plan provided in this article shows the layout of a typical Marathon coach. From available floor plans, a customer selects anything from flooring to window treatments. Because of the number options that Marathon provides, a customer usually has to visit the Marathon plant two or three times to ensure that his or her specifications are met. Some customers may first lease a Marathon coach to see what it’s like. If the customer likes it, he or she will have Marathon build a customized one. The resale value is good for a previously owned coach, so in many ways, buying a luxury motorhome is like buying a house. Marathon also has spec coaches that are built for trade shows; however, these coaches aren’t sold.

When a Prevost passenger bus shell arrives at Marathon’s manufacturing facility, it comes with virtually nothing inside except foam walls and flooring (often referred to as bowling alleys by industry insiders). Also, some of the windows are different from those on a normal passenger bus. Marathon employees then begin to customize each coach to the customer’s specifications. An electric generator, plumbing, and other equipment are installed, which accounts for about 50% of the actual work. The rest is decorating and furnishings. All of the engineering and customized designs are on Marathon’s computer systems in Coburg, along with inventory records for necessary parts and supplies.

Besides the equipment mentioned above, other standard features of a typical Marathon coach include:

• stereo systems in the front, rear, and outdoor entertainment compartments;
• global-positioning mapping systems with pilot and co-pilot screens;
• TechLink® (Marathon's intelligent electrical network);
• full-size refrigerators;
• built-in washer/dryer units;
• standard convection/microwave ovens; and
• European-style cabinetry.

Another standard feature of a Marathon coach is a satellite dish. There are two types: a stationary dish that has to be manually pointed at a satellite; and a follow-me (or in-motion) satellite that rotates automatically to find the signal. Long-term leased coaches are set up with a follow-me satellite that has a GPS (Global Positioning System) that locks onto the signal. A white dome on top of the roof covers this type of satellite. Tora Takagi’s coach has four receivers for four TVs. Satellite dishes also have track feeds to each receiver because CART drivers and teams need to view timing and scoring during a race weekend.

One amenity Marathon coaches offer is a slide-out. (Slide-outs are side compartments that can be extended when a coach is parked to provide more living space.) Salon and bedroom slide-outs are available for both styles of Marathon coaches. Jeff Gordon has a triple slide-out for the front left of his Marathon coach, plus slide-outs for both sides of the bedroom. His slide-outs cost about $300,000. A single slide-out is typically 10’ x 3’, so about 30 sq. ft is added with each one. A mechanism in the flooring makes the slide-outs level with the rest of the flooring. The interior is then designed around the slide-outs.

More exotic items that have been included in some custom coaches are hot tubs, saunas, built-in treadmills and corporate conference rooms.

Marathon’s biggest market is Saudi Arabia where a sheik is Marathon’s largest single buyer. Most of the rest of Marathon’s business is with private owners, such as Tim Allen and other Hollywood stars. Auto racing represents the next largest business segment. Marathon got started in auto racing in 1995 by providing coaches for drivers. Besides CART, Marathon also provides coaches for NASCAR, NHRA (for example, John Force) and the IRL.

Marathon Coaches in CART

Inside Alex Zanardi's 2001 Motorhome

This year in CART, Marathon has five motorhomes for Takagi (subleased from Charlie Sheen), Michael Andretti, Newman-Haas, Team Players, and Tony Kanaan. Also, Mo Nunn’s team has a 53-ft. Marathon trailer for media and hospitality. In the IRL, Marathon provides two Marlboro coaches, one Team Penske coach, two Kelley Racing coaches, and some others that have short-term leases (one year or less). CART drivers and teams select when and where they would like to lease a Marathon coach based on convenience. For example, if a CART driver or team doesn’t want to drive to a hotel during a race weekend, they may choose to lease a coach for a short period.

The Newman-Haas coach is a VIP model used strictly as an office; it has no beds or shower. (Carl Haas prefers to stay at a hotel.) The WorldCom coach is a VIP one for the media.

CART drivers can specify what they want in their coaches, based on their contracts. Andretti ordered a coach to his specs that included the video equipment he wanted because he’ll keep his coach for a long time.

Maintaining the Coaches

John is a trouble-shooter for Marathon and is in charge of maintaining its motorhomes at CART races. He can maintain the interior of Marathon coaches, but his expertise is with the chassis – something that he’s been doing it for a long time. John goes out to the racing customer where he/she might be. He estimates his travel at about 60% of this year’s CART races, down slightly from last year’s 75%. The bulk of his travel time is from May, starting with the Indy 500, through Labor Day when he’s on the road about 85% of the time. He lives in Cherry Valley, California (close to Palm Springs) with his wife, Francia.

He works on air conditioning units and other problems that may arise with a coach. Power requirements (often provided by a portable generator) can be tricky and unreliable. Road America, for example, has regular motorhome electric service. However, the track doesn’t provide water so motorhomes will used bottled (drinking) water or water from provided by fire hydrants on the premises. Trucks provided by the different tracks go through the paddock on race weekend to collect sewage discharge from the vehicles.

John said that setting up a satellite TV dish can drive a person nuts because it has to be aimed at a satellite with no ground objects in its path. He told the story of an incident at Portland where a driver parked the coach in the same place in the paddock for a long time. Over the years, a tree had grown that eventually blocked the satellite signal. Because the coach was parked in the team’s favorite spot, the driver decided to cut the tree down instead of moving the coach.

John works on engines, too. Many problems, however, can be corrected by giving instructions to the driver over the telephone. The engines in the Marathon coaches are very reliable and generally last from 500,000-1,000,000 miles. The engines have to be able to take a lot of stop-and-go driving. Peter Murphy, a long-time driver for the Newman-Haas team, drove the team’s Marathon coach for 15 years before the engine expired, driving an average of over 25,000 miles per year. This year, John estimates that there will be about 23,000 miles of driving to go to each CART track.

If John needs repair parts, he calls the office in Coburg. Some Marathon employees are on call 24/7 at the plant, so when emergencies occur, help can be provided and spare parts can be sent out immediately, if necessary. John uses FedEx a lot to have parts and supplies shipped to him, wherever he may be. Race weekends are usually fairly hectic, so he either goes to the local FedEx office to pick up the ordered parts, or he has them delivered right to the track.

Paddock Parking

In planning for a race, CART does the logistics for each coach. Billy Kamphausen, CART’s Director of Logistics, and others lay out where the motorhomes are to be parked in the paddock and then make adjustments as the coaches arrive. The CART staff knows who will generally arrive first at a track, based on experience that they have with the coach drivers.

John said that it can take an hour for a coach driver to get his vehicle into a track’s paddock area. Because CART drivers arrive at the tracks the same way as the coaches, they usually don’t want to have to drive back and forth to the track from a hotel, so that’s why many of them have coaches parked in the paddock.

Racetracks charge anywhere from $1,500 - $3,000 to park a motorhome at a track, depending on a variety of factors (e.g., electric hook-up). At Road America this year, the Herdez team had a hospitality tent with a motorhome, so the team was probably charged $3,000. Tracks also charge teams for sewage dumping and other charges.

Different types of tracks present different types of challenges for coach drivers and maintenance crews. Weather usually isn’t a factor except on a hot day when an air conditioning unit may fail. Temporary street courses present TV and parking problems for John. Getting sufficient power to a coach can also be a problem. At Long Beach, for example, the coaches are in a parking lot, so a lot of cable has to be run to provide power. At Road America, one the other hand, there are many power hookups, so getting electricity isn’t such a big deal. Portland, in contrast, doesn’t have much equipment. At the former track on Belle Isle in Detroit, tow trucks had to be brought in sometimes because the coaches sank in the dirt where they were parked in the paddock.

When asked about Mexico City, John said he wasn’t sure which coaches would be going there this fall for the inaugural race. He didn’t think any driver coaches would be making the trip, but he thought some hospitality coaches would go (e.g., Herdez). He said the problem is the long drive from Fontana, CA to Mexico City. He thought that the coaches would probably go to Mexico City by first going east through Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas before heading south through Monterrey to Mexico City. If a coach were to experience a mechanical problem, John said the problem would be easier to fix while driving through the southwestern US for most of the trip because parts can be shipped faster.



 

Cost

The basic Prevost bus shell that Marathon receives costs $275,000. The H series coach (one of which Andretti has) is made of fiberglass. The H Series model coach starts at about $320,000. A typical Marathon coach without slide-outs is about $1M upon completion, but can go as high as $1.7M. Slide-outs run $150,000 for one on the front left side of the coach and $75,000 for one side of a bedroom slide-out. Marathon also sells pre-owned coaches starting at about $200,000.

Coaches can be rented for just one race. The cost is $1,000/day with a minimum of five days, so a minimal rental is $5,000. Sometimes customers will rent a coach for just few races in a row. Alex Zanardi, for example, leased a Marathon coach for seven races in a row last year. The interior photo accompanying this article is very similar to Alex’s except the sofa on the right of the photo was beige to match the rest of the furniture. (The author was in Alex’s coach at the 2001 Chicago race and can attest to the quality and beauty of a Marathon coach.)

A Marathon coach can cost $125,000-$150,000 a year, depending on a variety of factors, such as the amenities desired, contract term, and whether or not the person requesting a coach is an existing customer. Variable expenses include the salary of the coach driver and coach washing charges.

The length of leases varies. Andretti has a long-term lease with a full-time driving team. Takagi also has a long-term lease and a driver. Jimmy Vasser has leased his Marathon coach since 1996. If a customer has a short-term lease, John tries to drive the coach to the track when possible.

When it comes to making coach payments, it’s difficult to know who’s picking up the tab. There are many different ways payments are made. For Marathon coaches used in CART, payments could come from the team, driver, and/or sponsor. Also, a driver could make a payment and be reimbursed by his team.

The Future

Marathon hopes that business will be good next year in CART. However, most CART drivers haven’t yet signed with teams. As far as its CART racing business is concerned, Marathon won’t know what kind of year 2003 will be until the first of the year.

" Motor Carrier Management Information "

 

            Motor Carrier Management Information 

 

 

Bus Accident Statistics

Bus travel is one of the safest forms of transportation. However, many buses lack essential safety features like seatbelts, which allows great potential for serious injuries and fatalities to occur when a bus accident does occur. Therefore, it is important to speak with a bus accident lawyer after being injured in a crash to ensure that your rights are protected. The provided bus accident statistics were compiled from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS).

National Bus Accident Statistics

During 2008, 311 people were killed and 17,207 people were injured in U.S. bus accidents. During 2009, there were:

• 13,395 bus accidents total for the United States
• FARS reported the 221 of those accidents were fatal and MCMIS reported a total of 231 fatal bus crashes in the U.S.
• 254 people were killed in these bus accidents throughout the U.S.
• 15,399 people were injured in bus accidents in the U.S.

Bus Accident Statistics

During 2008, out of the 311 people that were killed in fatal bus accidents nationally, 39 were in California.  In 2009, there were:

• 1,140 injuries involving bus accidents in California
• 2,816 fatal motor vehicle accidents, 23 of which involved buses

Wrongful Death Claims

When a bus accident takes a life, the victim’s family is entitled to pursue compensation by filing a wrongful death claim. This civil lawsuit can be filed to hold the negligent party liable. Liable parties in wrongful death cases may include the bus operator, owner, a transit authority, a governmental entity or even the manufacturer of an auto product found to be defective. The party deemed responsible for the fatal accident may be held liable for damages that include lost future wages, medical bills and funeral expenses.

Personal Injury Claims

Those injured in a bus accident may file personal injury claims against the negligent party. Damages that may be recovered in this type of civil lawsuit may include compensation for medical bills, lost wages, physical pain and mental distress.

Driving Instructors' Own Standards (USA)

Driving Instructors' Own Standards in the USA 

By Eddie Wren, of Drive and Stay Alive, Inc.

After passing the compulsory driving test, the 

vast majority of people never take any further 

driver training throughout the remainder of 

their lives, despite the fact that driving is the

most deadly, frequent activity they will ever 

undertake.

Ask the majority of these individuals how 

good they are at driving and an equally large 

majority will tell you that they are 'good', or

words to that effect.

So why, then, does the USA have such an 

appallingly poor rate of deaths, as a 

proportion of the population, when compared to other developed nations?¹  For 2003, for

 example, the nation had a per capita death 

rate of 14.66 -- slightly more than two and a

 half times worse than the leading countries,

which had rates in the 5.8's.  In other words, 

for every 100,000 members of America's

population, 14.66 people are killed in road 

 crashes each year. That might not sound like

much but the result is the equivalent, in the

number of deaths, to a tragedy such as the

 World Trade Center massacre happening

 here every 23 days.

Clearly, the overall standard of driving is not

 the only contributory factor in the USA's

 43,000 annual road deaths  -- road and

 vehicle 'Engineering' form one key factor, the

 preventive effects of law 'Enforcement' are

 another, but basic driver training is a vital 

element in the 'Education' which forms the 

third of the most commonly cited 'E's of road

 safety.

  

Yet if one asks virtually any driver in the

 States whether they thought the driving test

 was difficult, a large proportion will say the

 exact opposite -- that it was in fact very easy.

  And if one compares the driving test in this

 country with that in many of the countries

 that have much better safety records, it is 

clear that the driving test here is significantly

 less demanding than it is elsewhere.

Does this matter?  

Sadly, commercial driver training in any 

country is driven by people's desire merely to

 pass a test, with scant regard for safety in the 

longer term, so they want the minimum 

number of lessons at the least possible

 expense. If the test were to be made more 

difficult, it becomes an inescapable fact that

 more lessons would be required in order for

 people to pass.

Logically, this will improve the standard of 

each individual's driving, but there is a truly 

vital element that has not yet been mentioned

 -- the standard of driving instructors.

  

In an article in the Sacramento Bee -- July 3, 

2005 -- it is mentioned that California state 

qualifications for driving instructors (quote) 

"are basic: a high school education, a driver's 

license, 60 hours of training and passing a 

written test. DMV officials last year dropped 

the special behind-the-wheel test for

 applicants, saying it duplicated the test for a 

driver's license. Drug tests are not required. 

Criminal convictions do not automatically 

disqualify a job candidate."

  

On the face of it the training aspects in 

California might sound acceptable, but once 

again comparisons are called for.  In Britain,

 for example -- the country which has had the

 safest roads more times than any other 

country in recent years -- the average training

 period for a new driving instructor lasts

 several months and involves three demanding tests² which are all carried out by 

national examiners from the Driving 

Standards Agency:

• Knowledge of traffic law and safe driving 
  
  
  (computerized test);
  
  
• A test of one's own ability to drive (to much
  
   higher standards than an ordinary driving
  
  test);
• A test of one's actual ability to instruct 
  
  (with a test examiner role-playing as the 
  
  student driver).
  
  

British driving instructors are also graded -- 



the highest level being grade 6 -- and by law 


are re-tested, usually every two years.

By comparison, the Sacramento Bee article 

stated:

The job of driving instructor in California 

today is easy to get, and not highly 

valued. Schools sometimes pay

 instructors beginning salaries

under $10 an hour, less than some 

supermarket baggers earn. Turnover 

rates among the state's 3,000 instructors 

are higher than 30 percent a year, an

 analysis of state data indicates. That

 forces schools to scramble continually

 for new instructors, at times scraping

 the bottom of the job-market talent pool.

Of course it is easy for politicians to claim that

 improved driver training standards would be

 too expensive or that improving the regime

 is outside their budgetary reach, but this is a

 deadly cop-out. The cost of crashes, both at

 local and societal levels, is truly enormous. 

The National Highways Traffic Safety

 Administration states that each person killed

 on America's roads costs the country around

 $1 million, so a hefty proportion of $43 

billion would become available each year if 

the annual death toll were to be cut

 significantly, for starters -- and this 

calculation of course omits the aggregate 

expense that could be saved each year by

 reducing the much higher numbers of people

 who are 'just' seriously injured.

Driving standards are not the only thing that

 can be enhanced in order to help reduce the 

annual carnage on America's roads. There are 

many road engineering features that could 

radically be improved, and similarly there are 

many aspects of road policing that could 

equally be enhanced.





published by Wyatt Olsen 


                                                                                        Sponsored by

The Greyhound Group