Bus Inspections Get Lax Oversight Despite Crashes Months after their state-certified vehicle inspection station was cited by federal authorities for failing to notice defects in a bus that crashed in North Texas, killing 17 passengers, brothers Alam and Cesar Hernandez shuttered their firm. But that didn't mean they were out of the vehicle inspection business. Instead, they opened another station in the same Houston neighborhood and continued to inspect buses like the one involved in the accident. And they did it with the approval of the Texas Department of Public Safety. The Hernandez brothers' story underlines a phenomenon that highway safety advocates say has long existed with deadly consequences - the lack of oversight for the businesses that perform state inspections of buses and other large commercial vehicles. Records examined by The Associated Press show that three of the deadliest bus crashes in recent years raised questions about the commercial vehicle inspection programs in Texas, Illinois and Mississippi and prompted calls from the National Transportation Safety Board for better oversight. Forty people died in those wrecks, yet the agency to which the recommendations were directed, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, has refused to act. Anne Ferro, the FMCSA's administrator, declined through a spokeswoman to comment. The agency has previously termed additional scrutiny of state programs unnecessary. FILE - In this Aug. 8, 2008 photo, A Texas state trooper makes photographs at a bus accident scene on U.S. 75 North bound that killed several people in Sherman, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File) Close The inaction has rankled safety advocates, who believe government regulators aren't attentive to the needs of bus travelers. "If you can't afford to take a plane and have to take a bus, you are going to be subject to second-class safety standards, both in terms of equipment and oversight by the federal government," said Jacqueline Gillan, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. Federal regulations require that commercial vehicles be inspected annually. Those inspections can be conducted by state personnel, private garages or even the companies operating the vehicles. Passing a roadside inspection also can meet the requirement as long as it occurs within the previous year. More than half the states have no prescribed inspection requirements, leaving it open to the motor carriers themselves. And even those with approved private garages are not required to subject those companies to oversight or quality assurance. Safety legislation approved in the Senate on March 14 as part of the highway funding bill would force the federal government to evaluate state inspection programs, but the legislation has stalled in the House. Former FMCSA head John Hill said the agency doesn't have the resources to monitor state commercial vehicle inspections. States typically employ people to do that, he said. "If the person chairing the NTSB were the head of the FMCSA, I guarantee he or she would talk differently," said Hill, now a trucking industry consultant. Documents recently obtained by the AP shed new light on the crash in the North Texas city of Sherman, one of the worst in U.S. history. NTSB investigators determined that a blown tire caused the bus carrying members of Houston's Vietnamese Catholic community to a retreat in Missouri in August 2008 to careen off the highway. But they also found evidence calling into question the inspection conducted by the Hernandez brothers' business, 5 Minute Inspections, eight days earlier.