Fung Wah driver wedges bus atop barrier
A Fung Wah bus driver on his second day on the job abruptly tried to change lanes yesterday and wedged a bus full of passengers atop a concrete barrier at the Weston toll booths on the Massachusetts Turnpike.
No one was injured in the accident, the third this year involving the discount carrier.
At 8:30 a.m., the bus bound for New York tried to get out of the "auto only" lane.
"I go the wrong way, you know," the driver, Zhongoiang Whu, 27, of New York, told WCVB-TV. "I see the sign is 'auto only.' "
Whu was ordered off the road after State Police inspectors found his driving logs to be in violation of federal rules. He was also cited for failure to use caution while entering a toll booth, a misdemeanor.
Sergeant Carol MacDonald, a State Police spokeswoman, said that when Whu backed up and tried to drive into a tollbooth to his left, the bus' rear wheels became suspended atop the concrete barrier separating the lanes.
Passengers told reporters at the scene that the driver then tried to get the bus off the median by revving the engine, only to produce smoke from the rear wheels.
Passengers later boarded another Fung Wah bus for the rest of their trip. Traffic on the Pike westbound was backed up for more than a mile as the bus was towed away.
"We will be looking forward to getting the incident report from the State Police, and we'll be evaluating that to determine if further action is needed on our part," said Ian Grossman, spokesman for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which regulates interstate bus companies.
Officials with the state Department of Telecommunications and Energy, which regulates intrastate buses in Massachusetts, did not return phone calls yesterday. In the past, the agency has tried to bring the Fung Wah into compliance while also admitting their agency has little jurisdiction over interstate bus lines such as Fung Wah.
The 10-year-old bus line has come under scrutiny from federal and state officials for a series of safety and other violations. The bus line, which originally used vans to shuttle Chinese workers between New York and Boston for restaurant jobs, now offers $15 one-way trips between Boston and New York, a route popular with college students and bargain hunters.
But a string of incidents -- including a rollover on an Interstate 290 ramp in September that injured 34 passengers -- have continued despite company promises to improve driver training and bolster compliance with federal safety standards.
Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com. 