News: NYC Tour Bus Driver had Criminal Record
(Long Island, N.Y.) Since Saturday’s accident involving the flipping of a tour bus headed for lower Manhattan’s Chinatown reports have surfaced blaming the forty-year-old driver from Brooklyn. The biggest question authorities face is how he managed to obtain a commercial driver’s license while having multiple violations for driving with a suspended license. As of today, fifteen people have died in the wake of the crash.
The driver’s original defense, that he had been clipped by a tractor-trailer, was in conflict with statements given by passengers. The driver of the tractor from the Webster Trucking Company of Connecticut/Massachusetts along with several other drivers claims the vehicle drove by at a significant speed. Since the crash there has been nothing to prove the driver’s claims.
Police have interviewed the driver today and have since pulled records documenting his previous run-ins with the law. In 1995 his license was suspended for failing to respond to two tickets and one of his license violations was during his parole. He served two years in prison for manslaughter in a 1990 stabbing and three years for grand larceny because he forged Police Athletic League checks for $83,905.
In addition to these offenses, he had an incomplete driver’s log spanning for several days before the accident, though he had been a driver for the company for six months. As of today, he has not been charged for Saturday’s accident. He passed a breathalyzer given to him at the scene of the crash.
The co-defendant in his grand larceny scam was an ex-PAL worker who served five years probation for her involvement in the crime. The thirty-two-year-old woman from Brooklyn claims that the driver pretended to be a cop and persuaded her into giving him blank PAL checks. The driver had also been charged with the possession of three police radios and for trying to get on public transportation without paying.
The passengers of the crash are speaking against their driver. The overwhelming majority of the passengers were Chinese and have been communicating with translators to give their version of the events. They blame their driver for speeding and driving recklessly and claim he hit rumble strips on the road after they questioned him about his driving. They claim he appeared angry and was nodding out.
Allegedly, passengers found their driver asleep at 3am in the parking lot of a casino where he had been sleeping since eleven the night before. Six of the passengers are still in critical condition at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, four of whom are still on respirators. One passenger has suffered from two broken legs while another suffers from severe facial disfigurement.
The Mohegan Sun Casino caters to Chinese spenders and estimates that twenty percent of its business comes from them. Up to 44,000 busses visit the casino each year. The fare from New York City’s Chinatown to the casino is only $15 roundtrip for a three hour bus ride each way.
The driver of the bus also held a job as a poll worker in Brooklyn during a previous election and has applied for state licenses as a security guard. The black box recorder on the bus will be examined for evidence, but may not yield results due to the advancements in technology. The bus equipment dates back to 1999 and surveillance cameras inside the bus had been turned off prior to the crash. The bus company has had violations in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut and has been inspected twenty-six times in the last two years, leading to five violations of driver-fatigue.
