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Flaming Bolt shuts two lanes on the turnpike

Bolt bus on fire

Tyler captured the flaming, exploding Bolt bus on the eastbound turnpike in West Newton. State Police report two lanes are shut - and that no one was injured.

Kaboom! Russ Nelligan captured the bus exploding:

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Comments

Comments about how this is different from another bus company in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

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Because the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration hasn't shut down Bolt yet. Unlike another bus company.

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How many people did Fung Wah kill again? Seriously injure?

Oh, that's right ... 0

MegaBus accidents have killed nearly a dozen. Why are they not being shut down?

Oh, I know - because they bought legislators just like Peter Pan did!

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fung_Wah_Bus_Transportation

Fung Wah buses have been involved in several safety-related incidents. In 2005, the company was given a federal safety rating of 73 out of 100, 100 being the worst, and 75 or above considered at risk of being unsafe and subject to crashes.[12] Ian Grossman of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (United States Department of Transportation) reported that Fung Wah drivers rated in the worst 2 percent of drivers nationwide based on regulatory violations, and nine out of 71 Fung Wah drivers were suspended after inspection between 2004 and 2006.
August 16, 2005: A New York-bound bus caught fire on Interstate 91 near Meriden, Connecticut. Though the passengers later criticized the driver for being unhelpful and untrained in evacuating the bus, all passengers were eventually evacuated and no injuries were reported.
September 6, 2006: A bus rolled over in Auburn, Massachusetts and caused minor injuries to 34 passengers.Excessive speed was cited as a factor and the bus company was fined.
January 3, 2007: In Framingham, Massachusetts, a New York-bound bus lost two of its rear wheels. No injuries were reported.
February 14, 2007: The driver of a New York-bound bus lost control in a winter storm and hit a guardrail on the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90) in Allston, Massachusetts. No injuries were reported.
March 23, 2007: A New York-bound bus got stuck on a concrete barrier in front of a tollbooth on the Massachusetts Turnpike at Route 128 in Weston, Massachusetts, when the bus drove up on a cement lane divider. The driver had entered an automobile-only lane and tried to change lanes. No one was injured in the incident, but the bus was taken out of service and passengers boarded another Fung Wah bus that arrived later.
June 23, 2008: A bus loading passengers was struck by a dump truck at the corner of Bowery and Canal Street in New York’s Chinatown. The force of the impact pushed the bus onto the sidewalk and into a bank. As the result of the accident, a sign attached to a light pole fell, injuring a 57-year-old woman; the woman later died as the result of a heart attack. Several people, including two police officers, were treated for minor injuries. State Department of Transportation inspectors found the dump truck, owned by CPQ Freight Systems, had eight mechanical issues including faulty brakes which led to the accident.
February 25, 2013: The company pulled nearly its entire fleet off the road with 21 of 28 buses after inspectors from the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities found multiple structural cracks in several buses. The company reduced their service from every half hour to hour, and used rental buses in place of the fleet.
February 26, 2013: As a result of the structural damage discovered the day before, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) ordered Fung Wah to "immediately cease passenger service" indefinitely and to park its remaining seven buses.
March 1, 2013: The FMCSA formally cancels the motor carrier docket (MC 405969, USDOT 954187) and operating authority of Fung Wah after Fung Wah blocked access to safety records. As such, Fung Wah cannot charter buses to meet service.

http://gothamist.com/2014/12/17/fung_wah_will_terrorize_roads_once.php
The company's had a number of dangerous and/or deadly incidents over the years, including a 2007 crash in Pennsylvania that resulted in two fatalities and a Massachusetts highway crash in 2006 that injured 33 passengers. As recently as 2013, two pedestrians were fatally run over by a Fung Wah bus in Chinatown

http://thedailycricket.net/2011/04/09/fung-wah-bus-crashes-3-missing/
April 9, 2011 - An excellent parody

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Okay.

How is FungWah responsible for a wayward dump truck? Or people jumping in front of the bus? Explain.

A parody is nice - the reality is that MegaBus has somehow escaped scrutiny despite killing people, and Bolt continues to escape that scrutiny (likely for the same reasons that Fung Wah has been targeted - i.e. Peter Pan and Friends).

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Gothamist is wrong about the 2007 Pennsylvania crash. That was not a Fung Wah bus. That was OK Travel Bus.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/nyregion/21bus.html

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Was the explosion in the seating area? What caused it.

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It says no injuries; I don't see how there could be a seating-area explosion and no injuries. Also, the picture is clearly a fire in the engine area of the bus.

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Why isn't that a possibility?

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people have a disturbing lack of critical thinking

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Is Bolt the new Fung Wah? (Seriously though, haven't rode with them, wouldn't know.)

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Greyhound and Peter Pan. It's their response to the wave of low cost carriers like Fung Wah and Megabus.

Disclaimer - When it comes to travel to and from NYC, I've always been an Amtrak loyalist - despite the scheduling and coordination issues with Metro-North, and have never taken any of the low cost bus services like Bolt.

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Bolt is co-owned by Greyhound and Peter Pan. The Bolt buses built by Prevost (the burning bus is a Prevost) were supplied by Greyhound while the ones built by MCI were supplied by Peter Pan. Drivers are members of the same Amalgamated Transit Union locals as the parent companies and are paid the same.

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This raises a question however. If Bolt is co-owned by Peter Pan, then why did they have to wait for a relief bus (scheduled run or otherwise) from NYC instead of getting a Peter Pan bus out of Boston?

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Guess your a jinx, next day Amtrak has a major wreck in Philly

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Dallas-based Greyhound, the nation’s biggest commercial passenger carrier, operating more than 1,300 buses, including BoltBus and Yo Bus, has no federal safety alerts.

The company, which hasn’t had a full safety review in more than four years, was involved in at least 123 accidents in the past two years, involving four fatalities and 63 injuries.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/06/08/bus-company-regulation-ti...

I'd expect Greyhound to be getting thoroughly investigated soon.

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Unless our or New York's Congressional delegation specifically requests that the NTSB conduct a "special safety investigation" of Greyhound and their subsidiary companies.

This is for the following reasons:

First, the NTSB is almost as underfunded as the FMCSA.

Second, the law that created the NTSB mandates that they investigate any and all incidents, however minor, that involve aircraft - yes, even incidents like the Piper single engine plane sliding off a runway with no injuries and no damage. The result of this is that they have to carefully pick and choose which incidents in other modes such as highway, rail, marine, and pipeline/hazmat they can investigate due to the resulting budget constraints.

Third, even when the NTSB conducts an investigation and issues recommendations, they have no legal authority to mandate or require that agencies or companies actually adopt their recommendations. As an example of how this can be a real issue, consider the recent woes of Washington Metro which culminated in the rear-end collision on their Red Line that happened a few years back. Had the NTSB or the Federal Transit Administration been able to force WMATA to adopt several previous NTSB recommendations concerning their trains and control systems, at best, the crash wouldn't have happened, at worst, the crash would have been far less severe.

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I was being cheeky ;)

Lucky Star got shut down during the crackdown, perhaps deservedly so, but I highly doubt we'll ever see the bigger carriers like BOLT or Megabus ordered off the road for the amount of time Lucky Star did and Fung Wah still is in spite of all the crashes, deaths, injuries, and egregious safety violations.

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Injuries have been minor. Crashes not so bad, actually.

Peter Pan's owner whined to several of his cocktail party buddies in public office. That's why Fung Wah was sanctioned, and Lucky Star shut down. MegaBus has a serious body count and a lousy record and no such shut downs.

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To whom who only knows the narrative that the good, noble government swooped in and save us from the terrible, terrible Chinese-American bus companies. The much-maligned Fung Wah, at the time of their shutdown in 2013, had no incident since 2007 (and DO NOT SAY 2008 - unlike some media outlets, how do one fault Fung Wah for an out-of-control garbage truck?).

Basically, the Chinatown buses by 2013 had cleaned up. They were more than well on their way of their growing pains in understanding how to run a bus company from their beginnings of a bunch of vans shuttling relatives between the Chinatowns.

But then the crackdown happened. First in 2012 when dozens of Chinatown bus to other cities. Then in 2013 the original two companies between Boston and NYC. All cited a deadly incident... owned and operated by an American company that just pick up from Chinatown. Somehow that means one should go after the Chinese-Americans owned companies rather than the company that killed people.

Simply put, the reason why Fung Wah and Lucky Star are down is not because actually less safe than the other bus companies. But they enforced the rules harder.

I will give that their citations is probably legitimate. I'm not saying they made stuff up on Lucky Star and Fung Wah. Just that if they were enforcing that rigorously, I would bet the Greyhound and Peter Pan with their subsidiaries like Bolt Bus shouldn't be driving around either.

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Lots of violations, some scary incidents, no action taken.

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Nah, they will shut down Lucky Star again. Delay Fung Wah another year.

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Flaming Bolt bus

Christine Cuddy watched the bus-B-Q.

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WCVB reports the entire eastbound turnpike is closed. Wonder if that's as accurate as their hospital locations...

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Mass State Police @MassStatePolice
· 54m 54 minutes ago
All lanes Rte 90 EB closed at 124mm #Newton. #NewtonFD on scene now.

Left lane has since been re-opened.

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I hope no one was injured! That's my worst nightmare!

Gothamist says the bus basically exploded! No injuries reported as of yet, but HOLY SHIT of the video with the windows blasting out into the other lanes:
http://gothamist.com/2015/05/11/video_bolt_bus_explodes_on_massachu.php

Statement from Greyhound (owners of BOLT):

In regard to the Boltbus incident, I can confirm that the incident occurred at approximately 5:00 p.m. EST in Newton, MA on Hwy I-90 Eastbound. The bus was traveling from New York to Boston with 47 customers onboard. Once the driver noticed smoke, the driver pulled over, evacuated the bus and called local authorities, who are currently investigating the situation. All 47 customers that were onboard are unharmed and were able to retrieve all their belongings.

A relief bus has been sent from New York to transport all customers to Boston. The relief bus will arrive at approximately 6:00 p.m. EST.

The exact cause of the incident is currently being investigated. We are fully cooperating with local authorities and the local fire department on the investigation and conducting an investigation of our own. Any questions about the potential cause of the fire should be directed toward them.

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State Police report.

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Wow! Cell vid too by Max Eriksson

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A charter went up just last month. Only that driver had the college students get back on the bus and try to get to a rest stop, so it could get going really good.

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I'd suggest you consider a different worst nightmare, since road vehicle engine fires are not very dangerous.

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Wow, really? Maybe we don't have as nearly as many fatalities as say, China or India, but after watching the video of the windows flying out, don't you think that's a bit dangerous? Many people rely on these crappy buses for transportation and there is little to no oversight. Picturing the potential panic situation of people trying to get off safely in a situation like this, these people are all very lucky that there wasn't a stampede. Not to mention the other people driving on the Pike during this.

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Buses of all types account for 1% of all highway vehicle fires, and 2% of all fatalities. Trucks of all types account for 8% of all highway vehicle fires, and 12% of all fatalities.

By contrast, normal passenger vehicles account for 68% of all highway vehicle fires, and 59% of all fatalities.

Even accounting for the larger numbers of passenger cars on the road versus buses and trucks, it's clear that the probability of being involved in a fatal crash due to fire while riding a bus or operating a truck is far lower than riding in a passenger car.

Source: http://www.tkolb.net/FireReports/VehicleFires02to05.pdf

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"In regard to the Boltbus incident, I can confirm that the incident occurred at approximately 5:00 p.m. EST in Newton, MA on Hwy I-90 Eastbound...A relief bus has been sent from New York to transport all customers to Boston. The relief bus will arrive at approximately 6:00 p.m. EST."

That relief bus must have been moving through Connecticut!

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the next scheduled run from NYC, and they planned on squeezing additional passengers onto it.

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The Reddit post (here) makes it seem like they did not get their belongings:

[in response to a question about lost luggage]: Thankfully only had a backpack. I think a few people actually retrieved theirs from the cargo, which was incredibly stupid. The driver should have made everyone get as far away from that bus as possible ASAP.

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The Comintern wanted us to distrust our buses!

So they made one blow up!

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...the joke isn't funny if you keep repeating it.

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here and also here; look for comments by "ViciousCycle" and "mish4"

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The guy that jumped the fence and grabbed an Uber, that is.

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