Quinn acted after the National Transportation Safety Board decided against launching its own investigation into two Megabus incidents: a pedestrian fatally hit near Union Station in Chicago on Tuesday and a high-speed wreck Aug. 2 on Interstate Highway 55 near Litchfield in southern Illinois that killed one Megabus passenger and injured dozens of others when the bus carrying them from Chicago crashed into an overpass.
In a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Quinn asked the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to investigate Megabus "to ensure that all proper procedures and precautions are in place regarding vehicles and drivers in accordance with state and federal law.''
The federal motor carrier agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, regulates safety pertaining to the large commercial truck and motor coach industries.
"We believe that a full federal investigation into the operations and history of the firm would provide a baseline for any policy changes or other considerations that might logically result from what is learned about these crashes,'' Quinn wrote to LaHood, who is a former congressman from the Peoria area.
Federal transportation officials were not immediately available to provide the Tribune with a response to Quinn's request.
Illinois State Police officials said the highway crash near Litchfield may have been sparked by a blown tire that caused the bus driver to lose control. But investigators said other issues are being analyzed, including the high center of gravity on the double-deck Megabus fleet. Megabus officials said after the crash that the bus was manufactured in 2011 and passed a company inspection days before the incident.
Meanwhile, Chicago police are still investigating the incident at Adams and Canal streets in the West Loop Tuesday in which a Megabus driver making a turn struck Donna Halstead, 76, with its side mirror while the neighborhood resident was trying to cross the street in a crosswalk. Halstead was knocked to the pavement and later died.
The bus driver, Shemeka Hudson, 32, was ticketed for failing to yield to a pedestrian in the crosswalk.
©2012 the Chicago Tribune
