If your buses travel to NYC and you receive motor vehicle violations which require you to appear in NY Criminal Court to answer the Summonses, be aware of the fact that as corporations, you must be represented by Legal Counsel and may have to have a representative of your company appear in Court as well.

Our law firm specializes in all transportation matters for bus companies and we are admitted to practice in NJ and in NY.  We can make the appearances for you, usually without a representative from your company appearing, and negotiate the best possible settlement of the violations charged against your company.  If the violations are equipment related, i.e. brake lights, warning triangles,first aid kits, leaking oil or transmission fluid, etc., proof that the repairs have been done within 24 hrs. is generally accepted to permit a dismissal and waiver of penalties.

Please call our firm for legal respresentation if you receive any Summonses in NYC (all 5 Boroughs).  Additionally, we can handle all of your NJ Municipal Court appearances in North Jersey.

Jerry A. Casser, Esq. (Fairfield NJ Transportation attorney) www.jcasser.com

If your buses travel to NJ or NYC and you receive motor vehicle violations which require you to appear in NJ Municipal Courts or NYC Criminal Court to answer the Summonses, be aware of the fact that as corporations, you must be represented by Legal Counsel and may have to have a representative of your company appear in Court as well.

Our law firm specializes in all transportation matters for bus companies and we are admitted to practice in NJ and in NY.  We can make the appearances for you, usually without a representative from your company appearing, and negotiate the best possible settlement of the violations charged against your company.  If the violations are equipment related, i.e. brake lights, warning triangles,first aid kits, leaking oil or transmission fluid, etc., proof that the repairs have been done within 24 hrs. is generally accepted to permit a dismissal and waiver of penalties.

Please call our firm for legal respresentation if you receive any Summonses in NJ or NYC.

Jerry A. Casser, Esq. (Fairfield NJ Transportation attorney) www.jcasser.com

If your buses travel to NJ or NYC and you receive motor vehicle violations which require you to appear in NJ Municipal Courts or NY Criminal Courts to answer the Summonses, be aware of the fact that as corporations, you must be represented by Legal Counsel and may have to have a representative of your company appear in Court as well.

Our law firm specializes in all transportation matters for bus companies and we are admitted to practice in NJ and in NY.  We can make the appearances for you, usually without a representative from your company appearing, and negotiate the best possible settlement of the violations charged against your company.  If the violations are equipment related, i.e. brake lights, warning triangles,first aid kits, leaking oil or transmission fluid, etc., proof that the repairs have been done within 24 hrs. is generally accepted to permit a dismissal and waiver of penalties.

Please call our firm for legal respresentation if you receive any Summonses in NJ or NYC.

Jerry A. Casser, Esq. (Fairfield NJ Transportation attorney) www.jcasser.com

In today’s economic environment, a bus or limousine company’s ability to recover the cost of repair for damage to its vehicles is more important than ever. Insurance companies are not voluntarily making payments and they have to be pushed very hard to do so. When your claim is being handled by an attorney, they realize that you mean business, and the insurance companies’ costs will rise if the matter goes into litigation. Therefore, they will take the claim more seriously.

Our law firm specializes in first party property damage claims for buses (coaches, school buses, minibuses, vans) and for limousines (sedans and stretches). We are known in the bus industry as subrogation or property damage recovery attorneys. We work on a contingent fee basis, so no recovery, no fee. However, please understand that we do not take cases where it is clear that your driver is at fault. As a consequence, we recover for the damage in virtually all cases, and frequently recover for loss of use of the vehicle.

The recoveries that we may obtain on your behalf go straight to your bottom line – very important today. So, if you need a subrogation attorney to recover for your company’s damages arising from motor vehicle accidents in NJ, contact us through the website address noted below. A majority of our cases are in Essex, Passaic, Bergen, Hudson, Union and Morris Counties, but we are not limited geographically in NJ unless the case arises in South Jersey and involves too small a sum of money to justify litigating, i.e. $2,500.00 or less.

Jerry A. Casser, Esq. (Fairfield NJ Transportation attorney) www.jcasser.com

Charter bus operators in the U.S. and Canada have been spared from having to purchase apportioned license plates after a proposal requiring the action failed to pass.

 The United Motorcoach Association (UMA), along with the National Tour Association (NTA) and Motor Coach Canada (MCC), partnered in a campaign to speak out against the International Registration Plan (IRP) proposal to eliminate the exemption granted to charter bus operators and force most of them to buy apportioned license plates. 

In a pre-ballot survey, 50 of the U.S. states and Canadian provinces that are members of IRP — the organization governing vehicle registration of out-of-jurisdiction buses and trucks — approved the change to the exemption, thus prompting an official vote. The elimination proposal needed the support of 75 percent of IRP members to be approved; however, the vote failed to reach the support benchmark and was not passed. 

Collaborative letters were sent out to voting members from Victor Parra, UMA president/CEO and Lisa Simon, NTA president, urging members to vote against the proposal citing the negative impact to travel and tourism and the higher costs that would have to be endured by motorcoach operators to obtain apportioned license plates. 

 A second letter was also sent by Parra outlining safety statistics of the motorcoach industry and asking members to put their confidence in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s CSA program to monitor and enforce motorcoach safety and vote “no” to IRP’s proposal.

“Based on the pre-ballot survey, this proposal was expected to pass easily, but for the past month, we’ve lobbied hard on this issue with our partners from the MCC and NTA,” said Parra. “IRP was hoping to get states searching for new sources of revenue to support the elimination of the exemption without thinking about the overall consequences of their decision.”

 The partners reacted quickly and sent communications to state/provincial directors of tourism, governors and directly to the voting IRP members, according to Parra. “Both NTA and MCC helped greatly in this effort. Thankfully we were able to turn this around and the result was enough “no” votes to kill the proposal,” he said.   Reprinted from Metro Magazine.

 Jerry A. Casser, Esq. – NJ Transportation Law Attorney (www.jcasser.com)

May 25^th, 2011 - The Greater New Jersey Motorcoach Association announced its Board of Directors and Officers for 2011-2012 at its Annual Meeting held at Resorts International in Atlantic City, NJ.  Serving as President is Tim Stout, Stout’s Transportation, Trenton, NJ; Vice President is Mark R. Waterhouse, Classic Tours, Lakewood, NJ; Secretary is Mitchell Sussman, Starr Tours, Trenton, NJ; Treasurer is Joseph P. Fernandez, CPA, West Islip, NY; Other Board members are; David Benedict, David Tours & Travel, Philadelphia, PA; Thomas Dugan, Safety Bus, Pennsauken, NJ; Scott E. Henry, Martz Lines, Wilkes-Barre, PA; Nate Karp, Greyhound Lines, New York, NY; Wayne Klein, Klein’s Bus Service, Inc., Douglasville, PA; James Murphy, Saddle River Tours, Wallington, NJ; Thomas JeBran, Trans-Bridge Lines, Bethlehem, PA.; Tom Taylor, Lakeland Bus Lines, Dover, NJ;. Executive Director is Andrea C. Malamut, Cherry Hill, NJ and Legal Counsel is Jerry Casser, Esq., Fairfield, NJ.  

Jerry A. Casser – Transportation Law Attorney (Fairfield, NJ) www.jcasser.com

Note: This was proposed in December 2009 – apparently nothing has happened and the Agency is awaiting comment from the industry and other interested persons.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) plans to propose rulemaking early next year to require seat belts on motorcoaches.

The DOT has released its Motorcoach Safety Action Plan, which lays out concrete steps for improving motorcoach safety issues such as driver fatigue and inattention, vehicle rollover, occupant ejections and oversight of unsafe carriers.

The comprehensive action plan proposes enhanced regulatory oversight of new and high risk motorcoach operators, as well as the increased use of new technologies. To address driver distraction, it proposes to initiate rulemaking to prohibit texting and limit the use of cell phones and other devices by motorcoach drivers.

It also discusses requiring electronic on-board recording devices on all motorcoaches to better monitor drivers’ duty hours to address fatigue, and enhanced oversight of unsafe carriers.

In addition, the action plan proposes to better protect motorcoach occupants by requiring the installation of seat belts and discusses additional measures such as the establishment of performance requirements for enhanced roof strength, fire safety and emergency egress. It also calls for safety improvements using technologies such as electronic stability control to prevent rollovers.

We’ll keep on top of these issues and let you know as soon as something has been approved.  In the meantime, if you have specific questions on safety issues, please feel free to contact our firm.  There is a Contact Me link for my Website to the right of this Article and you can email your questions.

Jerry A. Casser – Fairfield, NJ Transportation Law Attorney - www.jcasser.com

When your bus goes into a repair facilility for repair, has it ever occurred to you to check to see if the owner has insurance liability coverage?  Most bus operators would not worry about it, actually they would never think about it because they would probably go to a large repair facility.  But the small bus operator, and especially the minibus operators, would probably go to a small shop for repairs.

The small repair facility, with one or two bays, most likely rents from someone else, and works on a shoestring, so he might not have insurance.  This is crucial if the shop (garage) goes up in flames overnight with your bus inside.  If there is no insurance, who will pay for a new bus and compensate you for lost income?

I just finished a case in which my client’s bus went up in flames in a repair facility and there’s no insurance.  We obtained a Judgment against the owner of the repair facility for more than $50,000, but have little hope of collecting until he tries to set up business again.

Our firm specializes in property damage recovery and subrogation in NJ for buses, limo’s and other commercial vehicles.

Jerry A. Casser – Fairfield, NJ Transportation Law Attorney – www.jcasser.com

A Transportation Subcommittee chaired by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) held a Hearing to consider recommendations to improve bus safety.

The recommendations, which came after two serious bus accidents last month, include putting seat belts on buses, equipping buses with stronger roofs and windows, requiring onboard devices to monitor driver fatigue, and improving government oversight of bus companies.

Many feel that the accidents that occurred last month resulted from safety compromises and shortcuts within the bus industry.

Super Luxury Tours, the bus company involved in the NJ Turnpike crash that took place last month, has since had its interstate operating authority suspended by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration pending completion of the investigation of the circumstances and cause of the accident.

Two days earlier, another bus traveling from Foxwoods Casino to NYC had a more serious accident in the Bronx, killing 15 passengers. Less well known was a bus crash on March 21 in New Hampshire which injured nearly 25 people who were travelling from Quebec to Boston.

Those who questioned the suggestions presented at the Hearing said that many of them are already in place. There were also questions about the potential cost of implementing the safety measures. Estimates coming out of the Hearing suggested that it would cost $13,000 to $15,000 to equip buses with seat belts, as well as another $75,000 per bus to meet the other safety recommendations.

Source: Jersey Journal, “U.S. Sen. Lautenberg heads hearing on recommendations to improve safety of tour buses,” Mike Frassinelli, 30 Mar 2011.

Update:  I checked with my experts in bus seating and the cost to retrofit a bus for seatbelts is about $30,000.

Jerry A. Casser, Esq. – Fairfield, NJ Transportation Law Attorney -www.jcasser.com