Staten Island Tour Bus in Fatal I-90 Crash Had Clean Safety Record, Investigation Ongoing

The tragedy on I-90 spotlights persistent perils in America’s discount bus industry and the limits of regulation to protect city-bound passengers.

Every summer weekend, the dark blue and white tour buses on I-90, loaded with city dwellers in search of cooler air and majestic vistas, are a familiar sight. On June 14th, just after midday, one such journey turned calamitous when a coach carrying more than forty people—most of them New Yorkers—veered off the highway near Pembroke, some 25 miles east of Buffalo. The vehicle, operated by Staten Island-based M&Y Tour, Inc., overturned, killing five and injuring dozens in a grim tableau of shattered glass, scattered belongings, and passengers ejected onto the grassy embankment.

Authorities say a distraction, not drink or mechanical failure, prompted the crash. All five fatalities were adults; the vehicle also carried children as young as one. Passengers, largely of Indian, Chinese, and Filipino descent, were returning to New York City after an outing to Niagara Falls. The incident mobilised a small army of first responders, air ambulances, and translators to navigate linguistic barriers at the crash site—a microcosm of the city’s diversity and vulnerability.

The bus had set off under the auspices of M&Y Tour, Inc., a company with nine vehicles, 20 drivers, and, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), a satisfactory recent safety score. There had been no reported accidents involving the company in the past two years—a record that now offers little comfort.

For New York City, the episode exposes the thin line between bargain travel and risk. Discount tour buses are the backbone of affordable intercity mobility, particularly for ethnic communities and lower-income residents. Many, distrustful of astronomical Amtrak fares or unreliable regional flights, turn to these loosely knit bus operators, which ply routes to gambling halls in Pennsylvania, factory outlets in New England, and tourist traps upstate. Without them, upward mobility and simple recreation would be harder to attain for the millions who lack a car or the means to charter costlier alternatives.

The I-90 crash also throws into relief the paradox of regulation. M&Y’s satisfactory rating followed a September 2024 compliance review by the FMCSA, whose oversight—while extensive on paper—often boils down to a box-ticking exercise. Interstate bus licenses are notoriously easy to obtain; safety grades are predicated on infrequent audits and self-reported records. In this respect, M&Y is scarcely an outlier. Enforcement is hamstrung not only by shoestring federal budgets but by the portable, sometimes ephemeral, structures of bus firms themselves—rarely more than an LLC registered to a house, as in M&Y’s case.

Beyond immediate sorrow, such episodes reverberate through the city’s social and economic arteries. Many passengers aboard discount tour buses are recent immigrants, students, or service workers for whom a trip to the waterfalls is a precious indulgence. Their reliance on these services mirrors larger questions about the city’s ability to ensure equitable, yet safe, mobility. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, around 1.5 million New Yorkers live in so-called “transit deserts.” Private buses fill these gaps—but as the latest catastrophe attests, at a hidden cost.

National figures paint an unflattering picture for America at large. According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), intercity bus travel is statistically safer than driving a car, but lapses tend to be spectacular and deadly. In 2018, more than 230 people died in bus crashes nationwide. Lax seat belt usage exacerbates the toll—by most accounts, few passengers aboard the M&Y coach had buckled up, though lap restraints have been federally mandated on new motorcoaches since 2016.

Overseas, enforcement is both brisker and better funded. In the European Union, expanded checks and steeper penalties have driven down coach fatalities. In Japan and South Korea, high-profile crashes prompted huge investments in technology: speed governors, automated driver alerts, and compulsory rest periods are now the norm. America, in contrast, leaves much discretion—and risk—in the hands of individual operators.

Adding complexity, the market’s bottom-scraping fares are both a blessing and a menace. A Chinatown-to-Niagara-Falls roundtrip may cost as little as $60, yet neither bus companies nor passengers are likely to demand robust safety innovation when the real differentiator is price. Unions have warned of gruelling shifts for drivers, while stretched firms are incentivised to cut corners on maintenance and vetting in the name of competition. Regulators have little appetite for overhauling a sector that is at once vital and perennially marginalised.

A wake-up call for oversight, but will it last?

Fatal bus accidents reliably occasion promises of reform—a raft of NTSB inspectors, somber politicians, and pledges to review “best practices.” After a spate of fatal Chinatown bus crashes in 2011, New York lawmakers made noises about stricter vetting and firmer sanctions. The results, judging by the city’s persistent roster of under-capitalised and itinerant bus firms, have been tepid. The public shrugs, distracted by the plague of car congestion, subway dysfunction, or the next app-based transport fad.

Still, there are rational reforms within reach. Federal authorities could mandate real-time monitoring of drivers’ attention levels using telematics, widen grant programs for safety retrofits, and—most critically—expand the frequency of unannounced audits. Insurers, too, could play a muscular role; higher premiums for operators with opaque ownership structures or dodgy track records would quickly sort the wheat from the chaff.

The politics of bus safety rarely inflame passions at City Hall or in Albany, but perhaps they ought to. New York’s unique polyglot fabric and reliance on mobility at all price points make the problem more acute. For all the grim familiarity of the latest headlines, the broader question is who, if anyone, will champion the cause between now and the next calamity.

The Pembroke tragedy is a reminder that, for many New Yorkers, the pursuit of a day’s leisure can carry unadvertised risks. Automated oversight and stiffer regulation may pinch the low-cost model, but the alternative—accepting that safety is the passenger’s own gamble—bodes ill for the city’s social contract. The challenge for regulators will be to curb peril without choking off opportunity, ensuring that a cheap seat to the falls is not also an unpredictable bet with fate. ■