Why are bus coaches not required to enter inspection stations as trucks are?

Question

Most bus coaches emit as much if not more pollutants than trucks! They should be monitored closer and pulled from service if necessary.

Answer 1

The trucks are being weighed, to check that they are not overweight. Trucks cannot carry more than a specific amount of loaded cargo. Engine emmissions tests are NOT conducted at weigh scale stations.

Buses are tested every six months .

Jim B. Toronto.

Answer 2

Some states IE: Maryland, do require busses to enter weigh and safety inspection stations.

Busses get a free pass most of the time because, in the case of Grayhound, etc, the people on the bus would raise so much h**l about being held up ( with state representatives) that someone in the inspection station would eventually catch h**l about it. That's the main reason most states don't mess with them to begin with. As for private motor coaches, There aren't enough of them to make the state any money from violations and they don't have seperate rules for them.

The two answers below this one are incorrect. Busses do have to run by very similar rules as trucks and busses can definately be overloaded and a bus driver is also required by law to do a pre-trip inspection of his vehicle.

Answer 3

Others are correct, the scales are just that...scales for weighing the trucks. Once in awhile, a truck will get pulled in and the DOT will do an inspection on the truck. Buses are governed by a different set of rules than trucks. Buses are kept in between trips at a terminal where they are checked (if there is an accident, each passenger can file a lawsuit and that adds up to a lot of money for the bus company so they are pretty good at safety inspections) whereas the tractor trailers are supposed to be checked out by the drivers before each trip begins...not all drivers do this. The trucks usually only see a garage when something is wrong and then it is only that something that is checked. A good DOT man can ALWAYS find something if he wants to whether it is a bus or a truck, but the odds of finding stuff is more on the trucks than buses.

Answer 4

Inspection stations are for checking vehicle weights, not safety or pollution requirements.

Answer 5

Those areas along the interstates are weigh stations for trucks. They do random inspections of trucks for safety reasons, but primarily they are scales to insure that truckers do not run overloaded. Buses are not registered by weigh as trucks are, so they are not required to stop.