Criminal charges are being filed against the owner of a bus service involved in a May hotel shuttle accident.
Police said on Monday the driver of the shuttle bus that slammed into a tractor trailer making a U-turn on Loop Road didn’t have the proper license at the time of the accident. On Tuesday, police said they are charging Mike Toye, the owner of MTI Limos and Shuttles, for allowing her to drive without the proper license.
“Mr. Toye will be charged with allowing a person to drive an unsafe vehicle,” College Park Police Sgt. Keith Stanley said.
State officials who regularly inspect airport and hotel shuttle buses said the rear brakes weren’t working properly on the shuttle.
“This vehicle was not in tip-top condition,” said Lt. Pete McCaleb with the state Public Safety Department’s division of carrier compliance. “Had we seen this particular vehicle … (and) it was in the condition it was in, it would’ve been out of service.”
Investigators determined that the bus Boles was driving had no brake fluid, and the metal belts of the tires were showing through the outer rubber.
John Page, a long-time transportation safety professional trained in accident reconstruction, is has been hired to independently investigate the wreck for MTI, although he is still waiting to get access to the damaged bus.
Reached by phone on Monday evening, he challenged McCaleb’s assessment that the brakes on the bus were faulty.
“It appears that the young lady drives two-footed,” Page told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “In the midst of the panic, she pressed the gas and the brakes at the same time. That overpowers the rear wheel brake system.”
Charges were announced Monday against shuttle driver Yolanda Boles and 18-wheeler driver Mario Cochran. Neither Boles nor Cochran could be reached for comment.
Boles is charged with operating a commercial vehicle with improper license, as well as three counts of serious injury by vehicle, operating a vehicle with improper tires and operating an unsafe vehicle.
Speeding charges are also pending against Boles, whom investigators determined was driving over the 45-mph speed limit at the time of the wreck.
Cochran, the driver of the USA Truck 18-wheeler Boles hit, was charged with making an improper left turn for initiating that U-turn from the right lane, and with three counts of serious injury by vehicle. Police on Tuesday changed Cochran’s first charge to improper U-turn.
“If everyone had just followed the law, all of this could have avoided,” Stanley said.
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