Bus company has long list of safety violations

Posted at: 03/30/2009 10:41 PM | Updated at: 03/31/2009 7:20 AM
By: Jeremy Jojola, KOB-TV, and Joshua Panas, KOB.com

After a passenger bus crashed in New Mexico in December, killing two women, Eyewitness News 4 decided to take a deeper look at the bus company and its drivers.

It was a terrible place to die.

For Kathleen Garcia, her last moments alive were spent on remote U.S. 54, in cold, wet weather, surrounded by the wreckage of what was supposed to be her safe ride back home to Denver.

"She didn't die immediately. She suffered at the scene before she passed away," said Ruben Hernandez, the attorney representing Kathleen Garcia's family.

The Los Paisanos bus was loaded with 50 people, bound from El Paso.

A Torrance County police report found by Eyewitness News 4 says just before the crash, passengers heard the bus driver complain about running 30 minutes behind schedule. They say he was "going too fast." In fact, the state "discouraged travel" on U.S. 54 that evening.

When the driver tried passing another car on the slick road, passengers say he slammed on the breaks to avoid a road closed sign. That's when the bus slid out of control.

"You couldn't do a worse job for your passengers in the public than this guy did. This is about as bad as you can get," said attorney Walter Boyaki, who is also representing Garcia's family. 

The bus turned over, and the passengers were caught up in a nightmare of flying bodies and baggage.

UNM Hospital in Albuquerque was flooded with 48 injured passengers. They were the lucky ones. Garcia was killed along with another woman.

And now, her family is suing Los Paisanos, claiming the driver was reckless.

"This company has a real problem with safety and it has a real problem with safe drivers because it looks like they hire whoever they want and they don't care what the speed limits are," Boyaki said.

Eyewitness News 4 spent weeks going over the company's safety inspection records. In one year, they show New Mexico's motor transportation police found 60 safety violations for things like bad tires, cracked axles, and false driver log books. Drivers were also pulled over 42 times for speeding.

After running each driver's record individually, we found that many of them have a problem on the roads. Driver Juan Cordova was pulled over five times in a speeding bus within a two year period. Arturo Padilla was also pulled over five times.

They're among 19 Los Paisanos drivers that have been pulled over for speeding in New Mexico over the last several years.

Some of the records we couldn't check because two drivers have Mexican driver's licenses, which are allowed by the state, even for licensed bus companies.

Despite the company's problems, motor transportation police say "the company is in good standing as far as safety is concerned."

In El Paso, at Los Paisanos headquarters, a reporter for Eyewitness News 4 waited in the lobby for the owner, Uriel Chavira, to get his side of the story after he wouldn't return our calls back in Albuquerque, but he still wouldn't comment.

For now, Garcia's attorneys say they're having a hard time even getting a response from the company.

"Not a phone call saying were sorry, nothing," Boyaki said.

As for the driver in that crash, he hasn't been cited.

The investigation, according to the police report, continues.

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