Three Tickets by NJDOT (year 2000 version)

On December 11, 2000, the following letter and enclosures (to follow) was sent to Governor Christine Todd Whitman, State of New Jersey, P. O. Box 001, Trenton, NJ 08625

Dear Governor Whitman:GSS Tours is scheduled for a municipal court “appearance” in Atlantic City Wednesday, December 20. Three tickets were issued Friday, December 1, for problems with our P#3 motorcoach.

This is the newest version of Big Brother hiding behind the disguise of flag-waving in the name of “safety”. Or, it may be said in the case of New Jersey, it is Big Sister.

This is totally unwarranted and unfair. I have enclosed my explanation.

Sincerely yours, John Pierron
.

RE: three tickets by NJDOT

DOT 000948
DOT 000949
DOT 000950

Perhaps a decade ago, the NJDOT “red-stickered” one of our new buses, and the action cost us more than $1,500.00 and no small collective amounts of aggravations. The next day, two representatives of the Newark (NJDOT) office re-inspected the bus (for allegedly faulty brakes). They admitted the inspection was 100% in error, and no repairs need be made. But they coyly implied that due to office politics, I would have to pursue a protest and request for reimbursement on my own. Subsequently, a state assistant attorney general, or somebody in similar position, advised me by letter that we could NOT recover any losses (two days of sub-chartering other buses plus attendant expenses).

About two years later, I was told that the first letter was in error. I COULD contest the NJDOT inspection. As is the case in most small businesses, I just didn’t have the time to devote to continuing the effort.

This is why public employees can bully the private citizens so easily and effectively. We just don’t have the legal staffs you have.

The file from perhaps a decade ago is now cold; I don’t know what basement shelf it’s on.

But Friday evening, December 1, 2000, I had new reason to protest to Trenton: the “random” inspection in Atlantic City of a dozen or more buses, including ours. The GSS Tours’ driver was issued three tickets and compelled to arrange for IMMEDIATE repairs (amounting to $160.00, an amount destined to be dwarfed by what the city court in Atlantic City apparently has in store for us and other bus companies.)

The situation ought to be viewed in its total implications between the State of New Jersey and GSS Tours and other small bus companies.

The problems are these:

Friday evening, December 1, in Atlantic City, our bus was among at least a dozen ordered to drive two blocks to New Jersey Avenue to be part of a NJDOT random inspection. Subsequently, our driver was given three tickets, two for inoperative brake tag axle, right and left, and one for a bald tire.

Our driver was approached while in the “lanes” of SHOWBOAT HOTEL AND CASINO, dropping off his passengers from Philadelphia, who were just arriving for a six-hour casino stay. I did not understand that NJDOT inspectors could come onto private property to initiate their “random” inspections. I subsequently was advised that this has occurred on a regular basis, although an official of the NJDOT responsible for these random inspections told me they only approach drivers on “public” property. Obviously, his statement is untrue.

Earlier this year, bus drivers were being stopped at Hansen’s (Atlantic City bus parking), and their buses inspected right at Hansen’s. There was a protest; the on-site inspections were stopped, and subsequently, confronting drivers at Hansen’s was resumed. An NJDOT rep told me Hansen’s is “public property”. Huh?

I do not protest the accuracy of the citations. If one wants to, he or she can find violations on just about any bus at just about any time. I protest the methods employed by New Jersey to arrive at the gross ticketings and subsequent huge fines. I do not say they were inaccurate, although I’m well aware, in my own right, that they DO make mistakes. However, this protest centers on the quantity of the ticketing, not the quality.

I protest the methods employed, the alleged need for immediate repair, and the procedures surrounding random inspections. Although I am not a lawyer, I have put on the shark’s cloak to cite, below, certain legal rulings pertinent to random inspections and sudden searches. The mere fact that I do not have a lawyer should not, it is hollered, compromise my rights and the rights of other bus companies to see a full protest and contest of the random inspections, both inside New Jersey law and in light of federal rulings that say that you cannot set up random inspections willy-nilly. Before presenting an appropriate and recent case, I have to emphasize that New Jersey attempts to answer the random situation by finding something wrong with a great majority of the buses (such appeared to be the case December 1-2, according to our driver). I do not question the ethics of the investigators; I need only point out that facts are facts. The facts speak clearly. Yet we cannot find out certain facts that would show how bus companies are confronted with inspections without ammunition to answer the protests. And the NJDOT has a lengthy history as a bully (under the guise of safety).

Let’s go back to my original complaint. You have to recognize my complaint; it is valid, and, contrary to the treatment we received a decade ago, we have every reason to be granted a reprieve, for several reasons. My concern for New Jersey as a bully should not prejudice my contest.

Although bullies just LOVE to be bullies.

Years ago, one of our buses was red-stickered at Liberty State Park while our passengers were going by ferry (from the NJ side) to Ellis Island.

The NJDOT inspector abruptly told our driver our bus was not going to move another inch; it would have to be towed, due to faulty brakes. The inspector said we had no option, and he would see to it that we did not move off the parking area or we would face further ticketing.

From Philadelphia, I phoned the Newark office and explained that I had a new bus and I could not conceive of a situation in which brakes would be red-stickered. I finally was told I could “ride shotgun” in following the bus (in my car) as it was driven, that same afternoon, from Liberty State Park to Burlington, where our bus was garaged at the time (where Academy Bus now keeps some of its fleet, close to Exit 5 of the NJ tpk).

Frantically, that day, we had to charter a bus from Coachways (Atlantic Express) to go up and pick up our group after their return from Ellis Island, and return them to the Philadelphia area. We had to get ANOTHER bus to cover work the next day, since the red sticker still was on the bus when it was “re-inspected” the next morning. I wish I could find the file on this, as it was a lulu. Some day I will.

I more or less insisted that the NJDOT re-inspect the bus; this took place at 8:00 a.m. (the day after). The two inspectors, in concert with the Coachways mechanics, agreed that the brakes were in perfect shape, and they only could conclude that any grease that allegedly had been viewed as on or around the brakes was unrelated to the condition of our bus brakes and, in any case, of no significance to the inspection.

I was forced to pursue my further protest without any help from the NJDOT, whose supervisors apparently didn’t want to open up an intra-departmental squabble over the competency or lack thereof of its inspectors.

This clearly was an improper use of state power . . . . . Big Brother doing too much to protect the public, victim of all these bad bus companies and their bad buses.

Let me interject here that New Jersey’s hand-inside-vest pontificating on behalf of safety, if you’d ever have the guts to test it, would find that safe/unsafe buses have far less to do with mechanical shortcomings, mechanical violations; they have quite a bit more to do with the bus DRIVER. I know New Jersey has sustained several major bus accidents in recent years (the one at Christmastime was a major example of this). You may feel free to include the fatal accidents in your study; I have no fear that you will find that bus accidents, by and large, are caused by the DRIVER, not his equipment. Yet you continue the bully tactics, week after week, your nose in the air, under this guise of safety.

If I ever find it, I will produce a letter from a Trenton (state) lawyer who advised me there was no state vehicle open to a citizen (i.e., GSS Tours) to contest the mistakes of state employees. I did continue to protest this in one circle or another for several months, as the inspection cost us more than $1,500.00. I guess I should now say $4,300.00, as I should be allowed to add MY hourly cost of (six hours at) $500.00 per hour, which happens to suddenly coincide with the fee levels of those lawyers and consultants engaged in Bush-Gore legal activities in Florida during the past five weeks.

We graciously will waive this $500.00 per hour fee, however.

But the incident from years ago has annoyed me ever since.

It was prime annoyance Friday night, December 1, 2000.

Your NJDOT inspectors, according to information given me last week, are not allowed to go onto casino or other private property and order bus drivers to drive to a random inspection site where more than a half-dozen inspectors, along with state troopers, wait. However, this was precisely what was done Friday night, December 1.

I spoke with Vince Schultz, Chief of Commercial Bus Inspection and Investigation, NJDOT, Trenton. He said he is not the “Vince” who formerly inspected our buses (this was Vince Bartalone), when we were garaged in New Jersey.

I don’t dislike Vince Schultz, and while I never met him, I found the other Vince to be fair and a good guy. If he found a violation, he advised me by phone, and gave me time to take care of the problem without losing any work (and without losing any money in lost work).

Vince Schultz would not give me a list of bus companies ticketed Friday night; he said he was “not at liberty to give that out”. I asked whether such state action is a public record; he did not answer, but he gave me an address for the USDOT in Washington to request the information in writing. I am guessing but I bet the USDOT would not reply to me, or if they would, not by December 20, 2000, the date of our “COURT APPEARANCE REQUIRED”.

Why can’t New Jersey provide me with a list of bus companies stopped on December 1? You should not stand in the courthouse door preventing me from preparing a more complete defense, and concurrent indictment of NJ bully tactics. Likewise, you cannot prejudice my protest because I call the NJDOT a bully. After all, in the first place, that is the truth.

To assist me and other bus companies in this formal protest, should we be denied a list of all random bus inspections in New Jersey, companies stopped, companies ticketed, companies fined, amounts of fines? You will learn that it is a crock.

In fact, this is part of the problem for a small bus company just as similar Big Brother bullshit (sic) is for many small businesses. We do not have the cash to hire a lawyer (not even at LESS THAN $500 per hour), and so, in this case, the NJDOT has us and other bus companies forever in its sights, always over a barrel, always coughing up the fines money. So does the Municipal Court in Atlantic City.

You have all the lawyers and you have the Judges.

Who is representing the bus companies against the state legislature, the courts, et al?

I cannot trust your court system, frankly. One month after (1999) we obtained our newest bus, it was parked on the city lot in Wildwood on a Sunday afternoon. A 13-year-old (kid) threw a rock at the windshield, cracking it. The boy was apprehended, and I appeared for his juvenile court hearing in Cape May. The judge did not believe my statement, in writing from ABC Bus, that the repair would cost $2,002.00. He found in our favor to the tune of $1,000.00. That in itself is arrogance on the part of the New Jersey judiciary. That Cape May judge is incompetent. So far, through the court, we have been reimbursed one time, for $30.00. So, as far as GSS is concerned, we are still in arrears on this court appearance to the tune of $1,972.00, plus incidental costs, inconveniences and aggravations. Again, unfair treatment in New Jersey.

Bill Clark, of Ultra Club Coach, Philadelphia, received two tickets earlier this fall and was found guilty and fined $1,000.00 and $500.00. For a small company, you simply cannot afford to be so grandiose in funneling big bucks into the coffers of New Jersey courts and state budgets.

But this is how New Jersey conducts fund-raisers.

You may think this is just “tough” on your, GSS. Too bad.

The NJDOT has struck fear into the bus companies of New Jersey and environs for many years. I recognize some of the personnel are nice guys and are only “doing their job”. It is, however, the measure of the inspections and the subsequent huge fines that are abhorrent.

We have been stopped in New Jersey in the past, but only given a pink sheet ordering us to have our mechanic effect repairs within, I think, seven days. And then we would send the pink sheet to Trenton, having complied with repairing the cause of the violation.

Not all violations require atomic bomb reaction by the NJDOT.

This is precisely where you, Governor Whitman, and the NJDOT stand beside the American flag and the quest for safety. No offense to the American flag, of course. However, this is part of the problem: safety in many of the instances is NOT at risk. Come into the 21st century.

In the case of our bus, two tickets were issued for “inoperative” brakes on the right and left tag axles. In fact, your state trooper could have “tested” the ability of the driver to stop this coach, according to code, as he still was able to successfully depress the brake pedal AS WELL AS implement the Telma Retarder, which slows the coach for maximum passenger comfort, AS WELL AS PASSENGER SAFETY. Had the NJDOT conducted the random inspection and given us a pink sheet, we would have (immediately) adjusted the brakes, and NOBODY would have been able to notice the difference, before or after.

The bald tire also is a peculiar citation, inasmuch as the tire, although due for replacements, was serving its peculiar role in bus support. While “bald tire” would sound, to the non-bus person as the end of the world, it also is a controllable situation. No competent bus company would be driving with a bald tire on a drive wheel, or the front, and we weren’t, either.

In the past, “violations” such as the above were treated of no greater moment than non-burning marker lights and such, and the NJDOT merely directed us to correct the problem, and send the form to Trenton to confirm that we had performed the needed correction. Again, it was not the end of the world. I’m sure most bus company owners would agree that this kind of inspection was welcomed, as it actually was a cost-saving assist.

What you are doing with these weekly “random” checks is to red sticker and ticket just about every violation you can find. We are required to have each bus inspected twice a year. Yet, you are adding MORE inspections to the requirements by your sudden searches. At first glance, admirable. Upon reflection, overkill, Governor Whitman. Overkill in the hand-inside-vest guise of safety. Check whether other states are camping at popular tourist spots, lying in wait for the unsuspecting bus companies concentrating on showing their passengers a good time. We never have experienced any such sandbag by another state, and we can speak from 15 years with buses.

While we were given the right December 1 to have the problems corrected on the spot, our bus did not depart from the SHOWBOAT unti 2 1/2 hours AFTER the scheduled “out” time. Coastal Coach had four mechanics on hand to accommodate the infractions, but they didn’t get around to us until well after midnight. Our passengers were extremely upset, and frankly did not blame us; they blame YOU. The bus departure showroom area at SHOWBOAT was a madhouse all night, with many bus passengers protesting loudly without any measurable relief.

We do not share the blame with you. This was completely your pox. But you want us to foot the bill. It’s a New Jersey and Atlantic City fund-raiser.

Our passengers had ridden Philadelphia-Atlantic City on a luxury motorcoach, enjoying maximum comfort, with no suggestion that they were riding on an unsafe bus. The passengers told our driver of the personal problems they faced due to the delay, such as baby sitters and the like. In its own context, is not the passenger disruption a safety problem itself, as people due to return home at 2:30 a.m. arrive instead at 5:00?

Of course.

These “random” inspections, which may be in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution (citations below), are enormous cost for most bus companies. For example, many bus companies perform “doubles”, i.e., they take one group to AC, and then go back and get a SECOND group for later arrival. In fact, only those companies doing “doubles” are “making ANY money” with the AC trips, and even these require a lot of driver-driving to accomplish. They are priced entirely too cheaply and after you pay for fuel, the driver and the exorbitatn parking fee, you have little left for “profit”, especially considering the ever-increasing cost of bus insurance year after year.

If a company is taken out of service in the midst of a double, the bus owner frantically must locate another bus company, often late at night, or even after midnight, to pick up the passengers, if the timings even can be met. I wonder how many times passengers’ plans had to be canceled, due to the above little happenstances.

Why does a bus company “take” the work? There are several reasons. Yet some companies have stopped going to AC, due to the random searches. When we go to Myrtle Beach or Pigeon Forge, we don’t have to worry about a bus inspector. This doesn’t mean the other states are lenient; it simply means New Jersey is a crock. A bully. And don’t be offended; WE are the ones offended, by Big Brother, Big Sister, the bully.

I don’t know what the position of the casinos is, regarding these unannounced, sudden searches, but they have the New Jersey Casino Control Commission to worry about, so perhaps they have enough regulation, as it is.

Speaking of regulation, you, as a Republican, ought to be ashamed of yourself, fostering these weekly and sometimes even daily inspections. In the mid-1980′s, according to the General Accounting Office, the Code of Federal Regulations contained 50,000 “pages”!!! Fifty-thousand pages. Certainly, that was a huge amount, thanks to the sharks of this nation. (The sharks overrun the Congress, the state legislatures and the City Councils of America, creating new laws and generating new and additional fees for themselves.)

While this, in itself, is an out-of-control disgrace to the people of the United States, seemingly powerless to quell the ever-increasing trends, it is representative of the random searches of the NJDOT that the Code of Federal Regulations has grown, today, to more than 135,000 pages of words, words, words, laws, laws, laws, regulations, regulations, regulations.

That’s nearly three times as many lines of regulations as 15 years ago.

C’mon, people, you gotta stop this. Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, for God’s sake, and ours, you gotta stop this.

That cited above is federal, of course; however, I would imagine similar comment is due at the state level.

And you gotta stop these random searches. Even if they are not un-Constitutional, they stick out as unfair to small business, especially, and secondly, unfair to the “little people”, the people who jump at the chance to ride a bus to Atlantic City, and receive, from the casino, not infrequently MORE in coin and other bonuses than the cost of the trip itself. I imagine that more people arrive in Atlantic City by bus than by limousine. They say some of those arriving by limousine go home in a bus, but that’s another story.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the bus company enjoyed some of the “riches” of the poor bus patrons, the ones not arriving by limousine? The word “poor” is used simply to emphasize the fact that the bus charter industry primarily is made up of small bus companies, none of whom is listed among the Fortune 500, generally serving people who do not ride in limousines.

Now, the one thing I never have done in life and 20 years in this business is pay for a shark.

I won’t do it in this case, either. So, please, Atlantic City judge, don’t tell me to get a lawyer. The American public should not be forced to be so beholden to the sharks.

I recognize this leaves me at a distinct disadvantage, inasmuch as the courts and legal system just love to have situations that are fee-generating.

In other words, I am raw meat for the Judge in Atlantic City.

Perhaps, however, the Judge ought to consider a recent ruling of the United States Supreme Court.

No, I don’t mean Bush vs. Gore.

I mean CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS et at v. EDMOND et al.

God love Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. She wrote the majority opinion, released November 28 (2000).

I recognize it does not bear DIRECTLY on the bus charter industry. However, it DOES bear INDIRECTLY, and strongly so. And this is why you should initiate an inquiry. Does a critical challenge of CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS v. EDMOND say that the New Jersey law you signed is, in fact, invalid, and never should have been enacted, or applied?

Are you bus profiling?

How many church buses have you red-stickered this year, due to random searches? How many school buses are subjected to random searches? How many of them are red-stickered? How many church parishinoers are forced to wait for another bus to come and pick them up hours after the scheduled departure? How many school children are stranded for a while until another school bus can be obtained to cover the work of the (ho ho) red-stickered school bus? (Ho ho because I only can wonder how many and how often the NJDOT hammers church buses and school buses.)

When I spoke last week with Vince Schultz, NJDOT chief (supervisor), he told me random searches are provided for in a bill you signed into law in 1995 (NJSA 48:4-2.1 C, or something like that). I searched on the Internet for such a law, or regulation, and only could find NJ laws dating to 1997. The prior years seemed to be closed off, or, perhaps, never entered in the NJ state database. You don’t want small business owners checking on NJ laws, eh?

So, even though I am not a shark, and unable to consult law books to check on good ole NJ 48:4, I can submit to you that your random searches carry with them both harm and consumer inconveniences, and need for reform, and violation of the U. S. Constitution as per CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS v. EDMOND.

The Indianapolis case the Supremes ruled on the midst of Bush-Gore had to do with drugs.

One could say that drugs are as compelling, or more compelling, an issue as charter buses.

By a 6-3 vote, the Supremes ruled AGAINST police departments setting up roadblocks and detaining drivers at random to search for drugs.

The facts indicated, and the Supremes recognized, an “unacceptably” large number of innocent citizens were being detained and searched at random, a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Of the 1,161 motorists stopped over a four-month period, 55 were found with illegal drugs.

The Supremes thought the successes did not justify the inconveniences.

The Philadelphia Daily News, in a December 2, 2000, editorial ironically one day after the “Friday night NJDOT random inspections in Atlantic City”, said it was clear that the war on drugs has become an overzealous assault on innocent people’s rights.

GSS Tours et al: “innocents”.

I consider Darrell Tyrone Argro an innocent. As driver of our 1995 motorcoach that night, he stood ready to demonstrate to your state trooper that his bus was in no imminent danger. I submit that our motorcoach was in no greater danger to the driver and his passengers than the personal cars of your state troopers, which, if subjected to random inspections in-between annual or semi-annual official inspection times, are as bound to have mechanical difficulties as our buses.

Thus, the resulting danger to the state trooper and his or her passengers in his/her personal automobiles theoretically is as great as that for our bus passengers. I cringe at the thought that I might be driving my car in New Jersey and be on the same highway as a state trooper in his private car.

You may say that we, bus owners, have a right to sue to challenge the laws and regulations that allow for these random inspections.

First, a pox on you for even thinking this. (I’ll forget the idea that you might have thought this.)

A lawsuit by bus owners simply would be further fodder for the sharks, and would take years to resolve.

In the Indianapolis case, the Supremes ruled AGAINST the police even though the police operated during daylight hours and identified their checkpoints with lighted signs reading: “NARCOTICS CHECKPOINT _______ MILE AHEAD, NARCOTICS K-9 IN USE. BE PREPARED TO STOP.”

In New Jersey, there is no such “warning” for drivers, including bus drivers. Under the random nature of the NJDOT search, and the method of approaching bus drivers right inside the casino, I don’t suppose a warning would be that “helpful” (so as to evade the inspection, however unjustifiable that inspection may be).

The searches are conducted under the cover of darkness sometimes; that is apparent. Are we not entitled to the same “warning” as motorists in Indianapolis (even before the random searches were found to be improper) and would a warning do any good, because you’re likely to find something wrong, regardless?
The “random” nature in Indianapolis was to the effect that once a group of cars had been stopped by the police, other traffic was allowed to proceed unheeded, without interruption, until all the stopped cars had been processed or diverted for further processing. Thus, some cars were stopped; others were able to drive right by the inspection point, already swollen with inspectors and their prey.

Justice O’Connor held last month that since the Fourth Amendment requires that searches and seizures be reasonable, a search or seizure is ordinarily unreasonable if there is an absence of wrongdoing.

She cited CHANDLER v. MILLER (520, U. S. 305, 308 {1997}), which should mean something to the sharks.

She recognizes special cases. I would not know if the NJDOT is one, but drugs are just as much a scare word as safety.

I submit that the typical bus taking casino passengers to Atlantic City is not guilty of “wrongdoing”. I submit that generally speaking, the typical bus is a safe bus. Even at the moment of the NJDOT inspection.

I submit that generally speaking, the typical bus is driven by a safe driver.

Certainly, it may have mechanical shortcomings, but they are not compelling. You have to apply reason. Officials in some states, New Jersey included, apparently cannot abide this.

In this regard, I recall the (private) comment of a major airline supervisor of mechanics, who had no axe to grind. He said nearly every airplane he worked on went into the sky on a daily basis requiring some kind of required (unfulfilled) maintenance. However, he assured me the pilot could still fly the plane, and land it, despite the inherent bruises. Thank goodness the passengers didn’t know.

Governor Whitman, New Jersey must recognize that you have an obligation to the public to make sure the buses are “safe” but you do not have a right to stop everything on wheels for, frankly, non-”fatal” shortcomings.

This is Big Sister at its most gross.

Your (apparently) WEEKLY inspections are further confirmation that, when all is said and done, down through the years, the NJDOT has been a bully.

I can recall, when we got our first bus in 1986, listening to a bus mechanic/executive (who, by the way, still performs this work IN Atlantic City!), warning us that the NJDOT inspectors were “tough”. We did not have a problem with that, as we had a new bus. We soon learned that new bus, smooooooooo bus, if the NJDOT inspector wants to find something, he WILL find something.

I do not mean to be unfair. Only the NJDOT, up till now, has been allowed to be so. On many occasions, the violations are accurate (although usually classic overkill). I protest the “extent” or severity of the typical violation as being paramount in its red-stickering. Our experience at Liberty State Park was a cruel exception, never assuaged by the great Garden State.

Justice O’Connor wrote: “Securing the border and apprehending drunken drivers are law enforcement activities, and authorities employ arrests and criminal prosecutions to pursue these goals. But if this case were to rest at such a high level of generality, there would be little check on the authorities’ ability to construct roadblocks for almost any conceivable law enforcement purpose. The checkpoint program is also not justified by the severe and intractable nature of the drug problem.”

Admittedly, I am not a lawyer. But I can read. And I have every reason to conclude that there is “little check” on what you and the NJDOT are doing “randomly” all over the state.

There are definite similarities between the drug case and the NJDOT random inspections for safety, etc.

The ruling has enough weight in it to suggest that the New Jersey statute you signed in 1995 runs safety to the wall.

The average and typical bus owner does not run his or her buses to constitute a danger to the passengers and the society at large.

Oh, surely, there are junkers out there.

Ticket them!

But you also should include the church and school buses at a proportionate rate.

Save some of your red stickers for THEM!

In my discussion with Vince Schultz, I asked why there are no “random searches” to sideline the many church buses that operate, especially on weekends, with myriad mechanical grease. He claimed that not only does the NJDOT ticket church buses but sees these buses coming to Atlantic City casinos, especially on the weekends. Huh???

I have no greater love for the Supremes than I do the sharks. Our society is overrun by legalities and regulations. We have too many. You have run amok.

Return to the pink sheets. Give bus operators a chance to keep their equipment in top shape.

Stop the exorbitant fines you have fostered. Stop these state fund raisers!

Are you aware of the amounts of the fines imposed?

They are just outrageous.

Do you think bus owners are wealthy? On the contrary, it frankly is a tough, tough, tough business, made even tougher by the constant need to have repairs performed. There are so many “parts” to a bus that once they age even a little bit, it is an almost constant problem of repair, repair, repair. Fortunately, it primarily is a periodic thing, but nevertheless, it is expensive in its own right. You, as Governor of New Jersey, should be sensitive to the costs you are, unnecessarily, inflicting on the small business owner.

A bus owner cannot afford to be paying huge fines to a municipal court for what, frankly, often are not-at-risk situations, not safety catastrophes. Just because a bus has brakes in need of adjustment does not mean the driver cannot stop the bus any time he wants, as effectively as conditions warrant. Granted, you cannot allow the situation to exacerbate, but neither can that airline mechanic I spoke about. So, he keeps his planes in the air. And we keep our buses on the road. And safe.

Safe.

Except in New Jersey.

So where does New Jersey stand on this? I’ll answer for you: you are over-regulating.

The public at large does not realize that Washington has more than doubled the Federal Code since the mid-’80′s. Much of the public doesn’t give a damn; still more of the public, otherwise educated, does not realize how much the regulators are costing them. An organization called the Competitive Enterprise Institute has estimated that the total federal regulatory burden is $700,000,000,000 (as in $700 BILLION). That’s bigger than Canada’s entire economy, and equal to a hidden fee of about $7,500 a year for the typical two-earner family. And a great share goes to the sharks, who easily can afford the $7,500 share THEY have to pay. The rest of us cannot.

These regulations, right and left, are, in fact, additional taxes.

It is simple to promulgate under the safe haven of “safety”.

You charge us for this, and you charge us for that. So much of it is unnecessary. You are just finding new ways to collect taxes. A state fund raiser. And at some point, a shark made money from it. And a Judge feels he or she is protecting the public from the unsafe buses.

So, hand down the fines and the huge fines.

And, of course, that’s the important thing. Especially . . . enriching the sharks.

As I understand it, last month you and the Attorney General released 91,000 pages of state documents on racial profiling in New Jersey.

Now, was that 91 pages, far more than thishere plea?

No. That was 91,000 pages!!!!!!!!!!

More than half the Federal Code.

Please answer the following questions.

1. How many buses were ticketed Friday night, December 1, 2000? Please list them, and their addresses.

2. How many buses that night were placed out of service? Please list the infractions that led to the red-stickering.

3. How many buses that night were inspected and, because of this, detained so that their passengers were delayed in returning home?

4. How many inspectors were engaged in the Atlantic City inspection that Friday night (and of course I also include early Saturday to conclusion)?

5. How many state troopers were engaged in the same inspection?

6. What was the payroll in gross wages for the inspectors, supervisors and troopers? Please itemize by job category.

7. How many inspections of this kind were conducted in New Jersey in 1999? This year so far? Please itemize by location, not those just in Atlantic City.

8. What fines amounts have been assessed this year? For what infractions? How many fines?

9. Does New Jersey provide any “warning” of CHECKPOINT ________ MILE AHEAD”? This would be moot if you didn’t randomly inspect.

10. What legal tests have been made of the pertinent NJ law? Were such “tests” made before CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS v. EDMOND (which would be logical)? Have there been any other challenges by bus companies to these random inspections? What are they, or were they?

11. According to the U. S. Supreme Court, is a drug inspection of lesser concern than one for drunk driving? Is drunk driving a greater concern than allegedly unsafe buses? These are mentioned in CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS v. EDMOND.

12. Is NJ operating with “individualized suspicion” (see same ruling)?

13. Unless you have a payroll to meet (need to handle the expense of, say, eight inspectors and however many state troopers) and the safe haven of safety enforcement, would you consider the average charter bus as evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing? If so, your law, in this additional instance, is violative.

14. Is it not appropriate to have the State of New Jersey review its random inspections? A reading of CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS et al. v. EDMOND et al. is powerful in its multi-implied “indictment” of your New Jersey law, the aforementioned NJ 48:4-2.1 C or whatever Vince Schultz was stating.

Should not bus companies be granted the facts in this matter? Should small businesses, including bus companies, most of which have just a few coaches, be compelled to “sue” for relief? And, if successful in this challenge, should they not see their cases expunged and their fine money returned to them.

I believe I can speak for many of the bus owners of the northeastern United States: you can resolve bus profiling with one sheet of paper.

Governor Whitman, just say STOP.

Please.

Above was mailed to Governor Whitman December 12, 2000. For response(s), see other documents in the GSS Tours website. Thank you.