ELDORADO, Texas (ABP) — About five months after a bus crash claimed the lives of nine senior adults on a church-sponsored trip, members of First Baptist Church in Eldorado planned their first major out-of-town trip since the accident.
The church took a group of teenagers and young adults skiing near Durango, Colo. “We decided it was time to get out and do something, time to get on with our lives,” said Pastor Andy Anderson.
Getting to that point has been a slow process of healing. But in planning the trip, one decision was made easily, Anderson noted. “We chartered a bus,” he said. For the foreseeable future, he added, “we're totally out of the transportation business.”
Last October, a bus owned by First Baptist Church ran into the back of a parked tractor-trailer rig near Tallulah, La. The bus, driven by a church member, was taking 15 senior adults on a tour of historic sites. Five church members and three of their friends were killed in the accident. One of the injured passengers died several weeks later.
In addition to the trauma of death and injury the church endured, the congregation also faced fines from an agency church leaders had never heard of before — the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. And they discovered to their dismay they were considered motor carriers engaged in interstate commerce.
A representative from the federal agency arrived in Eldorado the day after the wreck. One month later, the church officially received notice it was charged with five violations of the agency's regulations and fined $2,280.
Most of the violations centered on record-keeping. The charges focused on the church's failure to maintain a medical records file on the driver and to have in place a substance-use testing program.
The church also was fined for operating a passenger-carrying vehicle without having $5 million public liability insurance. The church had $1 million in insurance.
At the time of the accident involving the Eldorado church, motor-safety administration regulations applied to private motor carriers such as churches and schools and for-hire carriers operating vehicles either designed or used to carry more than 15 passengers in interstate commerce.
In mid-December, the regulations became even more stringent. All safety regulations — except for requiring a commercial driver's license and a testing program for alcohol and controlled substances — now apply to “for-hire motor carriers operating vehicles designed or used to transport between nine and 15 passengers for direct compensation, in interstate commerce, when the vehicle is driven more than 75 miles from the driver's normal reporting location,” according to a statement from the agency's consumer and public affairs office.
For churches, that raises more questions than it answers. If no money changes hands but a church takes a busload of members across state lines, is it interstate commerce?
“Interstate commerce occurs whenever transportation across a state line occurs,” said David Longo, public affairs officer with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
If a church transports people across a state line in a vehicle designed or used to carry 16 or more passengers, then it is a private motor carrier subject to the agency's safety regulations, but not its record-keeping requirements, he said.
The relevant question is whether the church is a for-hire motor carrier, Longo added.
“If no fee is collected by the church either directly or indirectly — such as through a total package charge — the church is not operating as a for-hire motor carrier. Furthermore, if the transportation service is not available to the public at large, the church is not operating as a for-hire motor carrier. If the church only operates a vehicle designed or used to transport nine to 15 passengers, and it is not operating for-hire, it is not subject to FMCSA regulations,” he said.
The key is not whether the driver is paid or a volunteer; rather, what matters is whether the church is compensated for interstate transportation.
But even then, the matter is not clear-cut. Apparently, it depends — at least in part — on the size of the vehicle and whether the church is providing transportation to the general public.
Longo was presented with the following hypothetical situation: “A youth group goes to an out-of-state summer camp 200 miles from home. Participants pay the church in advance for lodging, food and camp conference fees. While 99 percent of the teenagers are church members, a few are friends or relatives of the members participating. They travel in church-owned 12-passenger vans.”
This group does not fall under the federal agency's regulations, he said.
“The church is not being paid for the transportation, and the transportation is not available to the public at large. Thus, the church is not operating a for-hire carrier. Since the 12-passenger van is not being operated for compensation, it is not considered a commercial motor vehicle and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations do not apply,” Longo said.
That explanation left leaders of First Baptist Church of Eldorado puzzled about why the regulations applied in their situation, particularly since four of the five charges against the church concerned record-keeping violations.
But for now, the Eldorado church is choosing to use charter bus transportation rather than trying to decipher federal regulations.
“When it comes to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration … I'm not sure we've learned all that much. We still don't understand what the rules are,” Anderson said.
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