ALBANY – Some members of the state’s limousine safety task force said the illegal stretch limousine involved in the 2018 Schoharie crash could have been prevented from operating under laws on the books at the time, possibly saving the lives of the 20 people killed.
David Brown, president of Premiere Transportation, an Albany company that operates limo, private car and bus services, said there needed to be better communication between state agencies like the Department of Transportation, which regulates stretch limousines, and the Department of Motor Vehicles, which overseas vehicle registrations and inspections.
“(The) laws were out there to get this guy — if we increased the communication, that would be beneficial to everybody,” Brown said.
The task force, which held its first meeting last week, was formed as part of an effort to strengthen the state’s oversight of the limousine industry. The board is planning to hold a public hearing and issue recommendations to the governor and the legislature on how to improve limousine safety in New York.
The Hussain family that owned the limo, a 2001 Ford Excursion that had been stretched to 34 feet by a limo coach builder in Missouri, had purposely misled the DMV on its registration forms in order to evade stringent DOT inspection and certification rules for large stretch limos .
But despite the fact that DOT had been aware the Hussains were renting out the limo in defiance of state law, it wasn’t until 2018 that the DOT asked the DMV to suspend the Excursion’s registration, which was reinstated just weeks before the crash after Nauman Hussain, who ran his father’s small limo business, paid a $500 fine.
Brown noted that in the wake of the crash, the State Police confiscated the license plates of 59 SUV-style stretch limos like the excursion that didn’t meet state safety standards. Brown said the state could have taken the plates of the Excursion as well.
“This was done before any of the (new) laws were to put into place,” Brown said. “So what I am looking at is better communication.”
The crash was the worst highway transportation disaster in the United States in more than a decade. All 17 passengers and the driver, along with two bystanders, died. State and federal investigators say brake failure led to the crash, which happened after the driver lost control on a steep descent down Route 30 in the Schoharie County countryside after apparently getting lost.
The limo, which weighed nearly seven tons, was going more than 100 mph when it reached the bottom of the hill and the intersection with Route 30A. The excursion slammed into an SUV in the parking lot of a restaurant and gift shop that had been packed on a warm and sunny fall weekend afternoon.
The initial collision caused the parked SUV to strike two bystanders in the parking lot, killing them instantly. The limo then slammed into a ditch, sending the passengers, who were not wearing seatbelts, flying in all directions. The driver was crushed between his seat and the steering column. All aboard died from blunt force trauma.
The task force includes industry experts like Brown, who assisted the State Police and the National Transportation Safety Board in their investigations into the crash, along with two family members of victims of the Schoharie crash and another deadly limo crash that happened on Long Island in 2015 .
One of the family members is Kevin Cushing, whose son Patrick, with his girlfriend, Amanda Halse, died in the Schoharie crash.
Cushing helped push for new state limo laws and helped get federal legislation that had been drafted by the families of the crash victims. Cushing wants the task force to examine how those laws are being enforced – and what consequences they may be having on legal limo operators.
“Are they enforceable, and how are they being enforced?” Cushing asked the board. “And what impacts have they had on this industry?”
The limo had been rented on the morning of Oct. 6, 2018, by Axel Steenburg of Amsterdam to celebrate his wife Amy’s 30th birthday. Cushing and Halse were among the friends and family members of Steenburg invited to ride in the excursion to take them to a brewery in Cooperstown.
But Steenburg was unaware the DOT had repeatedly cited the Excursion for bad brakes and other critical safety issues for most of the year and that the Hussains had defied a DOT order that the limo not be used to drive passengers for hire until the violations were fixed.
Steenburg could also not have known that the driver of the excursion that day, Scott Lisinicchia, was not properly licensed or cleared medically to drive passengers and had been ticketed by the State Police just two months before after being pulled over in the excursion bringing a large party to Saratoga Race Course on Travers Day.
Several task force members said they supported looking at giving the DOT the ability to attach GPS devices on limos that are ordered off the road to alert authorities if they are put back in use.
Another task force member is Ronald Barton, a retired DOT inspector who worked in the state’s bus safety inspection program that covers stretch limousines. Barton has been critical of the DOT’s handling of the Excursion before the crash, and his concerns led to State Sen. James Tedisco requesting a State Inspector General probe into the DOT’s oversight of the illegal limo. Barton says the Excursion should have been taken off the road immediately instead of being issued paper violations and given multiple chances to get it in compliance by the DOT.
Barton said the task force would benefit from learning about the status of the IG investigation.
“They have not interviewed me. I’ve got some important documents,” Barton said before DOT Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez, who is co-chair of the task force, interrupted him.
“Sir, if you could keep your comments focused on what the task force is charged with,” Dominguez said.
“Exactly,” Barton replied. “What I’m trying to do is, I’m trying to shorten the task force’s job of focusing on putting in new legislation when everything was in place prior to this accident. Nobody has owned up to what they didn’t do before or after this accident.”