Good question. Brakes?

At this point, any news is mostly speculation, so it's tough to say. Trucks seldom go down the road on fire but I'm sure it can happen.

Hey Speeder, are you a ass**** in real life like you are on here? I happen to be one of those drivers behind the wheel, and you owe me and all the other professional drivers an apology. I happen to have taken many groups just like this one, kids who don't have much hope of ever attending any of the schools we visit, but they have hope and get to see the other side.I happen to work for one of the best around, with perfect records from all agencies. We get inspected each year by the State Police, have our logs and maintanence records gone over 3 times a year, and so far without ANY violations. We don't use retreads, we are well rested, and nobody has been injured as long as I go back, 7 years. So before you go making unfounded remarks where you know squat, think twice about it. THIS bus driver was guilty of one thing: being in the wrong place.

From Denis's local perspective he's not entirely incorrect.

I believe he was referring to a different segment of your industry.

Out on Long Island we had similar experiences with the Atlantic City and Connecticut casino tour operators.

Tour bus safety: Casinos look the other way, regulators overwhelmed | 89.3 KPCC

I'm glad that your busses are well-maintained and that you run a safe operation but you really need to learn to read. My remark, that you obviously misunderstood, was not referring to bus operators. It was referring to the idea that somehow the CA. AQMD or the EPA was responsible for this crash. That's a preposterous, off-the-wall remark that's really out in left field and ignorant, IMO. If someone suggested that in my presence, I would let them know how wrong and not bright it was.

When reading these printed discussions, it helps to read the posts immediately proceeding the one you are about to quote and make a personal attack over. There are things known as "context", preamble and so on that can help you to understand what's actually being said about what. My first knee-jerk reaction was to tell you to go fk yourself but I decided that we could make this a teachable moment. :)

And i agree, (said it above), that the bus driver does not seem to be even 5% at fault in this one. He was truly in the wrong place at the right time. It's a shame that it could not have been a Sheriff's bus full of child molesters on their way to San Quentin but life rarely works out that way.

I meant to quote post #12, not the one I did. It sure looked to me, you were trashing our industry, "meth smoking monkeys? No?

I apologize for the "meth smoking monkeys" remark. That was uncalled for. There are some less than stellar people driving tour busses out here, though. Many of the companies are based just south of the U.S. border in TJ and their standards and regulations are a bit different than ours.

I've read about some real problems on the east coast as well, mostly tour bus companies that take Chinese immigrants from Chinatown in NYC to casinos up and down the coast. There have been some pretty horrific crashes.

If you are in that industry and run a clean business and play by the rules, I commend you. I really mean it.

Speeder - you need to read. I was not suggesting regulators were responsible for the crash, I was asking if the resulting fire was caused by a need to be green.

There was a charter bus accident recently in which the driver of one bus swerved to miss a couch lying in the middle of the interstate, and he lost control and/or swerved into something else he didn't know was in the next lane and sent it and/or himself across the median and head-on into something and killed a few people.

I know the first question for many is "what was a couch doing on the interstate?" but my first thought was "how poor was this guy's thought process or training that he thought the best course of action was to swerve the bus to miss the couch?"

Either he didn't have time to check his mirrors or he had no idea what go could wrong by swerving to miss something at interstate speed.

I'm not a trained bus driver, but my first reaction to seeing a couch in front of me at that speed is to just hit it if I didn't have time to check my mirrors and change lanes without losing control. I can't imagine that a bus hitting a couch would endanger the passengers.

Of course, that opinion is from not having seen the couch. Maybe it was a huge length of one of those giant conversation pits and the guy thought it might launch the bus or make it roll. But I'd still just brake evenly and hit it if I were driving.

I once encountered a recliner in the left lane of the LIE while at speed in my RX7.

Had a cramp in my sphincter for the next hour.