{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://johnlewis.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-john-lewis-and-sen-sherrod-brown-urge-dot-act-bus-safety", "Rep. John Lewis and Sen. Sherrod Brown Urge DOT To Act on Bus Safety", "2016-11-16", "2016", "2016-11", "Democrat", "House", "GA", "John Lewis", "L000287", "johnlewis.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON \u2013 Following a series of recent high-profile bus crashes, Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) recently sent a letter to the Department of Transportation (DOT) urging completion of several overdue rules to improve motorcoach safety.\u00a0\nAccording to the most recent statistics available, nearly 300 people are killed and 22,000 people are injured in bus crashes every year.\u00a0 In October of this year alone, 13 people died and 31 were injured in Riverside County, California, when a bus hit a truck.\u00a0 A charter bus driver was killed and 43 senior citizens were injured when a motorcoach collided with a tractor trailer in Georgia.\u00a0 In Maryland, six people were killed and ten people were injured when a school bus and a Baltimore transit bus crashed.\u00a0 Common-sense, proven safety measures could help prevent deaths and severe injuries in crashes across the country.\n\"Too many people die unnecessarily, when simple safety measures could make the difference between life and death,\" said Rep. Lewis.\u00a0 \"These rules could save thousands of people from the anguish and despair of losing their loved ones or suffering disabling injuries.\u00a0 We need to make sure that all buses traveling on our highways are safe for the millions of Americans who depend on them for transportation and for the millions more who drive next to them.\"\n\u201cOctober\u2019s bus crash in Riverside County, California is one in a long line of tragic accidents that underscore the importance of enforcing motorcoach safety standards,\u201d Sen. Brown said.\u00a0\u201cDOT must finalize\u00a0commonsense safety measures for all motorcoaches\u2014seatbelts, stronger roofs, and safer windows\u2014to help prevent deaths and minimize injuries. The time to act is now.\u201d\nRep. Lewis and Sen. Brown began working together in 2007, after a fatal bus crash on Interstate 75 in Atlanta that killed seven people, including five members of Ohio\u2019s Bluffton University baseball team.\u00a0 Together, they introduced the Motorcoach Enhanced Safety Act, which called for new regulations requiring seatbelts, increased roof strength, anti-ejection measures, and rollover avoidance.\u00a0 This bill was passed\u00a0and signed into law in 2012 as a part of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21).\nHowever, none of these critical safety rules were issued by DOT before the due dates set in the legislation by Congress.\u00a0 Some are still overdue.\u00a0 Others, like the rule requiring motorcoaches to add seatbelts, only apply to new buses, and not existing ones.\u00a0 This still leaves thousands at risks.\u00a0 The bus involved in an October bus crash in Riverside County, California,\u00a0 killing 13 people was not equipped with seatbelts, proven to save lives.\nThe Lewis-Brown letter calls on DOT to provide a clear timeline for finalizing and implementing these important rules.\u00a0 DOT has issued Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on roof strength, emergency exits, window retention and release, and anti-ejection glazing, but has not provided updates, though these rules were required to be issued by 2014.\u00a0 DOT also has not made a decision about fire prevention and mitigation standards in accordance with a study completed in November 2015. \u00a0\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://johnlewis.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-john-lewis-and-sen-sherrod-brown-urge-dot-act-bus-safety"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9250249713659286, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}