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The surveillance footage is frightening.
It’s 6:15 on Monday morning in Flushing – still dark in the World’s Borough, with the a.m. rush just a few minutes from kicking into high gear. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Q20 bus ambles along Main Street as it prepares to make a right turn onto Northern Boulevard. The driver slowly negotiates the turn, but before the public transit vehicle completely clears the corner, a second bus – a Dahlia Group Inc. charter – blurs into the picture and blasts the rear of the Q20, coming to a stop only when it slams into a building.
In all three people are killed, three more are critically wounded, and 11 others suffer less serious injuries.
Once again we are left with a single, three-letter dagger. Why?
In the hours and days following this Main Street massacre, we learn that the tour bus driver, Raymond Mong, 49, who died at the scene, should not have been allowed behind the wheel. Period.
According to several published reports, Mong should have been banned from driving buses in the Empire State because of a 2015 drunken driving conviction in Connecticut.
“But because the state relies on bus companies to self-report their drivers’ histories — and Dahlia Group Inc. didn’t bother to do that — driver Raymond Mong was at the wheel at 6:16 a.m. Monday plowing into an MTA bus,” the New York Daily News wrote.
For a period following that DUI conviction, which resulted in his being fired by the MTA, Mong was forced to use a breathalyzer device to start his own car.
But Dahlia still let him drive?? Ridiculous.
If you have been convicted of a DWI or DUI you forfeit your right to earn a living by driving a bus. Not a two-year penalty period, nor a five-year one. FOREVER.
Monday’s tragedy reminded us of a bill that U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Flushing) recently reintroduced. The No School Bus Drivers with DUIs Act would prohibit elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools that receive federal education funds from employing school bus drivers who have been convicted of, or plead guilty to, drunk driving or a driving-related felony.
“Unfortunately, there is no universal requirement that school bus drivers have a record free of DUI convictions,” Meng noted. “Just this past May, a school bus driver from Wyoming was arrested for driving a bus with kids on board while under the influence, and after her arrest it was discovered that she had a prior DUI conviction. Congress must act to ensure the safety of our children, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support my common sense legislation.”
We need to immediately pass this common-sense piece of legislation, and then apply it to drivers of ALL buses.
Thousands of lives each year are in the hands of these individuals. They need to be held to a higher standard, as do the companies that hire them.
If not, “accidents” such as Monday’s massacre in Flushing will just become commonplace.
