Notwithstanding Any Insurance Coverage Which May Be In Effect, And In Addition To An: Fill & Download for Free

Do you have more than $2000 available for when you get caught?When people ask a question like this, they usually think about traffic infractions. I think after reading my answer you will realize that it's cheaper to take a cab or public transit or get an electric bike (they don't require you to have a license, can reach 20 mp/h, and you can transport them in front of the bus on the bike rack). The electric bike is the option I used when I couldn't afford to drive my car. I now keep a bike inside my car to avoid expensive parking fees in urban areas and having to look for parking there.Driving without a license for any reason is a misdemeanor violation (most routine citations are infractions) that may result in: arrest and spending time in jail for an indeterminate amount of time, impoundment of vehicle (initial tow + $40/day (this number seems to go up often) storage if you fail to retrieve vehicle within 4 hours (San Francisco has a grace period) + whatever amount of fees you owe to DMV that placed the hold on the license). If convicted, your license could be revoked and you could serve additional time in jail.The officer can impound your vehicle for 30 days, which will cost you an enormous amount of money.Specifically for Los Angeles, your daily storage fee is $37, but you also have a 10% tax and other fees. You will get hit with $118.50 in charges as soon as your car arrives at the lot. Los Angeles Official Police GaragesWow... I really don't want to get towed in LA!Apparently, you can sign over the title to get out of fees and it becomes painfully obvious why that is an option. Bruffy's Tow storage fee calculator is the page for one of the official police garages.If I read this right, and I am very afraid I am...The first day of impound will cost you: $118.50 + 40.70 + 115 == $274.20. Unlike in San Francisco, there is no 4-hour grace period. Storage charges begin to accrue one hour after your car gets dropped off. And I wouldn't be picking up the car at midnight since I may need to arrange money to pay for all this, so add $40.70 for the second day of storage. My grand total would end up at $314.90 just for picking up the car the next day, if it were possible.I called a tow company in Los Angeles to confirm this. 30-day impound in Los Angeles will cost $115 + 118.50 + 40.70*30 == $1454.50According to what the person told me on the phone, it's more like $1525.50, so I might be missing some other $70 release fee. Yep, this one, which applies whenever you let the lot keep your car more than than 72 hours.:Civil Code Section 3074:"The lienholder may charge a fee for lien-sale preparations not to exceed seventy dollars ($70) in the case of vehicle having a value determined to be four thousand dollars ($4,000) or less and not to exceed one hundred dollars ($100) in the case of a vehicle having a value determined to be greater than four thousand dollars ($4,000), from any person who redeems the vehicle prior to the disposal or is paid through a lien sale pursuant to this chapter. These charges may commence and become part of the possessory lien when the lienholder requests the names and addresses of all people having an interest in the vehicle from the Department of Motor Vehicles. Not more than 50 percent of the allowable fee may be charged until the lien-sale notifications are mailed to all interested parties and the lienholder or registration service agent has possession of the required lien processing documents. This charge shall not be made in the case of any vehicle redeemed prior to 72 hours from the initial storage."If LAPD impounds your car, you will pay a minimum of $1525.50 just for the cost of 30-day impound in addition to whatever tickets you will get issued and whatever fees you will have to pay to DMV to get the vehicle releasedI once got caught with a suspended license because of expired registration that led to failure to appear (FTA). I actually got notice by mail the day before that my license was suspended. The police were kind enough to let me call someone to drive my car home with me because this was the first time I was officially notified by police my license was suspended. They took my actual license and informed me what will happen if I got caught again. My alternative was to get introduced to the county jail less than a mile away.If you happen to drive with a suspended license, especially if it's for DUI, and with no insurance, you are asking for big trouble as far as tickets are concerned.You may not realize that you no longer have insurance coverage, but your insurance company may point to something like this (page 39 of my policy):D. After this policy is in effect for 60 days, or if this is a renewal or policy, “we” will cancel only:(1) For nonpayment of premium;(2) The driver's license or motor vehicle registration of the named insured or of any other operatorwho either:(a) Resides in the same household as the named insured; or(b) Customarily operates an automobile insured under the policy;has been under suspension or revocation during the policy periodIf you cause a collision without insurance and without a valid driver's license, the penalties will be much higher and insurance company may decline to cover the damage caused by an unlicensed driver. Then the other driver may come after you personally. I carry a high limit uninsured motorist policy on my old car so I don't have to deal with suing people like you personally, but my insurance company will be happy to come after you directly.I confirmed with my insurance company that if a person who borrows my car has a suspended license and gets involved in an accident, my policy would remain in effect, but the loss would not be covered.I have yet to confirm a couple of other things. :)Here is the FAQ on the law: California Highway Patrol - Suplemental PagesAnd here is the law:V C Section 14602.6 Vehicle Impoundment Suspended Revoked or Unlicensed Driver HearingVehicle Impoundment: Suspended, Revoked, or Unlicensed Driver: Hearing14602.6. (a) (1) Whenever a peace officer determines that a person was driving a vehicle while his or her driving privilege was suspended or revoked, driving a vehicle while his or her driving privilege is restricted pursuant to Section 13352 or 23575 and the vehicle is not equipped with a functioning, certified interlock device, or driving a vehicle without ever having been issued a driver's license, the peace officer may either immediately arrest that person and cause the removal and seizure of that vehicle or, if the vehicle is involved in a traffic collision, cause the removal and seizure of the vehicle without the necessity of arresting the person in accordance with Chapter 10 (commencing with Section 22650) of Division 11. A vehicle so impounded shall be impounded for 30 days.V C Section 14607.6 Impoundment and Forfeiture of Motor VehiclesImpoundment and Forfeiture of Motor Vehicles14607.6. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, and except as provided in this section, a motor vehicle is subject to forfeiture as a nuisance if it is driven on a highway in this state by a driver with a suspended or revoked license, or by an unlicensed driver, who is a registered owner of the vehicle at the time of impoundment and has a previous misdemeanor conviction for a violation of subdivision (a) of Section 12500 or Section 14601, 14601.1, 14601.2, 14601.3, 14601.4, or 14601.5.

I wrote this article some time ago:Don't Insure for the Mortgage Amount (Regardless of What the Bank Says)Author: Bill WilsonEvery agency has experienced this to one degree or another: A client buys a house and the replacement cost of the dwelling is considerably less than the mortgage amount. The insurer refuses to issue a policy with a Coverage A amount greater than the replacement cost, but the lender insists on a policy limit equal to the mortgage amount.Here's a typical situation:"We need your help! We're getting beat up by lenders insisting that we insure a home for the loan amount rather than replacement value. In our area, selling price values are soaring but replacement values are steady. People are refinancing with lower interest rates, starting a vicious battle between the loan officer (representing the lender) and us (representing the insurance company)."Here lies the problem: the loan officer will absolutely accept nothing short of the loan amount and they become angry and very threatening if we don't do exactly as they demand. The insurance companies demand some type of proof as to why we are requesting an increase (and a refinance is not the reason)."A typical situation is as follows: The bank faxes our office a request to change the mortgage clause and increase coverage to the loan amount. We respond that we need an appraisal showing replacement value from them to increase coverage. They normally supply an appraisal which agrees with our current coverage. We then advise them that we cannot increase coverage as we currently insure at replacement value and that their appraisal agrees. Now the trouble starts. We normally receive multiple calls from the loan officer calling us illegal, unprofessional, not serving our client, threatening to take the business away from us, and on and on. The calls start at the CSR level, then move up to the personal lines manager, and sometimes moves up to me, the owner, with each one of us explaining the same thing."This problem is only getting worse and I'm afraid it could get a lot worse. I'm concerned that banks will use this issue as leverage to rewrite our policies into their markets."I contacted the local insurance department office and he advised I could lodge an individual complaint on each situation with them. We're getting about 7 to 8 requests per day of which 1 or 2 can get real ugly."The lender's position is understandable, but misguided. Clearly, they want to protect their investment. That investment consists of two components: (1) the real estate (land, home, outbuildings, etc.), and (2) the loan itself. Insurance is the mechanism designed to protect against the pure risk of loss to the real property. However, the loan itself is a speculative business risk...that's not the function of insurance.As an example, let's say the purchase price and loan amount for a home is $200,000...for the sake of simplicity, we'll forget about any down payment. This $200,000 represents market value, not insurable value. The cost to rebuild the home itself might be $140,000, with the $60,000 balance being the value of the land and other structures. The purchase price includes the value of land, all structures, and even other property that may not be covered by a homeowners policy.The purchase price may also include the "value" of the location. I once looked at two new homes, both built from the same floor plan by the same contractor. The asking price for one of the homes was 50% higher than the other based SOLELY on the location of the home in a "preferred" neighborhood. The cost to rebuild the homes would be virtually identical.Under a homeowners policy, the insurance company would never pay more than $140,000 if the home was completely destroyed unless required to by a state's valued policy law (which is another reason for not insuring the loan amount). There has been no damage to the land or the "location value" (or at least the policy isn't going to pay that amount), so it would largely be pointless to insure the property for more than the structural replacement costs.It does not serve the bank's interest in any way to be the mortgagee on a policy with a policy limit equal to the loan amount because neither the insured nor the bank will ever collect that amount. The policy will only pay an amount based on the valuation method included in the contract. Again, this is the case if no valued policy law applies...if it does, then the insured could actually profit from the loss by insuring the loan amount rather than the replacement cost of the property. This would violate one of the fundamental tenets of insurance and, conceivably, could create a moral hazard.If an insurance company issues a replacement cost (or, worse, an ACV) policy with a limit greater than the actual cost to repair or replace, they may be in violation of the insurance laws in most states. I'm pretty sure all states require that rates/premiums be adequate, not excessive, and not unfairly discriminatory. What these banks are asking is that the insurance company issue a policy with an excessive premium (payment for coverage the insured can never collect without a total loss and triggering of a valued policy law, which has a likelihood of maybe 1-3%) and that's probably illegal.For example, TENNESSEE has an "Unfair Competition and Deceptive Practices" statute regarding loan amounts that exceed the value of a building or structure:"Lenders of money - Extenders of credit."(a) No person who lends money or extends credit may:"(8) Require, in connection with a loan or extension of credit secured by real property, that the debtor procure insurance for the protection of the property for an amount that exceeds the replacement cost of the structures existing on the secured property at the time of the loan or extension of credit or, in the case of a construction or improvement loan, insurance which exceeds the value the structures are expected to have upon completion of the construction or improvements."This law was enacted by an initiative of IIABA's state affiliate, the Insurors of Tennessee, in response to the situation described above.So, as you can see, a lender should not be permitted to demand an insurance limit that exceeds the value of the property insured as defined by the insurance contract. The insured or lender should never receive more than the actual value of the damaged property. In addition, "over-insuring" the property could be illegal, by statute or contract.Note: For another excellent article on this subject, and specific to FLORIDA law, check out Insuring for the Mortgage Amount on the Florida Association of Insurance Agents web site. As the article explains, Florida Administrative Code prohibits a mortgage lender from requiring insurance in an amount that exceeds the replacement cost of the home:"4-167.009 Mortgage Fire Insurance Requirements LimitedNo mortgage lender shall, in connection with any application for a mortgage loan in this state which is secured by a mortgage on residential real estate located in this state, require any prospective mortgagor to obtain by purchase or otherwise a fire insurance policy in excess of the replacement value of the covered premises as a condition for granting such a mortgage."Another state that has responded to this situation via insurance department directive is GEORGIA. According to Georgia Directive 98-PC-1, Establishment of Property Values and Corresponding Insurance Amounts on Mortgaged Properties Insured in Georgia (June 26, 1998):"Land values may not be included in the computation when determining the amount of appropriate homeowners insurance because homeowners insurance does not insure the land on which the home is located. Therefore, such activities are in violation of O.C.G.A. 33-6-5(6)(A) which provides as follows: 'No person shall knowingly collect any sum as premium or charge for insurance, which insurance is not then provided or not in due course to be provided subject to acceptance of the risk by the insurer by an insurance policy issue by an insurer as permitted by this title.'"The directive goes on to say that agents engaged in this practice can be fined from $1,000-$5,000 for each act and/or have his licensed suspended, revoked or placed on probation. Any insurer in violation of the law may have its certificate of authority suspended, revoked or placed on probation.Following the publication of this article, we heard from several other states who have similar "over insurance" laws besides Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee...below is a summary listing of the other states we're aware of with "over insurance" prohibitions.ArizonaARS 44-1208. Loans secured by real estate; prohibited practices; insurance. Except for consumer lender loans regulated pursuant to section 6-636, for any loan that is secured by real property, a person shall not require as a condition of the loan that the borrower obtain property insurance coverage in an amount that exceeds the replacement cost of the improvements as established by the property insurer.[Note: The statute covers only real property (not mobile homes) and does not include commercial buildings. For more information, go to: http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ars/44/01208.htm]CaliforniaCalifornia Civil Code § 2955.5 says, in part:(a) No lender shall require a borrower, as a condition of receiving or maintaining a loan secured by real property, to provide hazard insurance coverage against risks to the improvements on that real property in an amount exceeding the replacement value of the improvements on the property.(b) A lender shall disclose to a borrower, in writing, the contents of subdivision (a), as soon as practicable, but before execution of any note or security documents.(c) Any person harmed by a violation of this section shall be entitled to obtain injunctive relief and may recover damages and reasonable attorney's fees and costs.(d) A violation of this section does not affect the validity of the loan, note secured by a deed of trust, mortgage, or deed of trust.ConnecticutStatute 360-757 originated with public act PA 84-212 which prohibits a mortgage lender from requiring a prospective home buyer to obtain a fire insurance policy in excess of the home's replacement value, as a condition of granting a mortgage loan on residential property located in the state and secured by such a mortgage. The act was effective on October 1, 1984. On October 1, 2000, the statute was broadened by PA 00-95 to include flood insurance, extended coverage insurance, or any combination of insurance, including fire insurance.IllinoisPublic Act 093-1021 Effective August 24, 2004:Section 5. The mortgage Insurance Limitation and Notification Act is amended by adding Section 17 as follows:Sec. 17. Insurance coverage.(a) No lender shall require a borrower, as a condition of receiving or maintaining a loan secured by real property, to provide hazard insurance coverage against risks to the improvements on that real property in an amount exceeding the replacement value of the improvements on the property.(b) Any person harmed by a violation of this Section shall be entitled to obtain injunctive relief and may recover damages and reasonable attorney's fees and costs.(c) A violation of this Section does not affect the validity of the loan, note secured by a deed of trust, mortgage, or deed of trust.MassachusettsGeneral Law, Chapter 183, Section 66 says, in part:A bank, lending institution, mortgage company or any mortgagee doing business in the commonwealth, when making a mortgage loan, shall not require, as a condition of a mortgage or as a term of a mortgage deed, that the mortgagor purchase casualty insurance on property which is the subject of the mortgage in an amount in excess of the replacement cost of the buildings or appurtenances on the mortgaged premises.MichiganMORTGAGE LENDING PRACTICES (EXCERPT)Act 135 of 1977445.1602a Property/casualty Insurance as condition to loan; limitation on amount required; amount as condition of sale, transfer, or assignment. [M.S.A. 23.1125(2a)]Sec. 2a. (1) Except as provided in subsection (2), a credit granting institution that requires a mortgagor to maintain property/casualty insurance as a condition to receiving a mortgage loan shall not require the amount of the property/casualty insurance to be greater than the replacement cost of the mortgaged building or buildings.(2) A credit granting institution may require an amount of property/casualty insurance that is required of the credit granting institution as a condition of a sale, transfer, or assignment of all or part of the mortgage to a third party. This subsection does not require that the credit granting institution anticipate a sale, transfer, or assignment at the time the mortgage loan is made.History: Add. 1995, Act 214, Imd. Eff. Nov. 29, 1995MontanaIn 2009, SB 375 amended MCA 32-1-430, 32-3-604, and 32-10-401 to provide that a “lender may not require insurance on improvements to real property in an amount that exceeds the reasonable replacement value of the improvements..”New HampshireRSA 417:4 printed 01-12-2006 from NH Insurance Dept websiteXVI. COERCION IN REQUIRING INSURANCE.(a) No creditor or lender engaged in the business of financing the purchase of real or personal property or of lending money on the security of real or personal property may require, as a condition to such financing or lending, or as a condition to the renewal or extension of any such loan or to the performance of any other act in connection with such financing or lending, that the purchaser or borrower, or the purchaser's or borrower's successors shall negotiate through a particular insurance company or companies, insurance agent or agents, broker or brokers, type of company or types of companies, any policy of insurance or renewal of a policy insuring such property. This provision does not prevent the exercise by any mortgagee of the right to approve on a reasonable nondiscriminatory basis only insurance companies authorized to do business in this state, selected by the borrower.(b) There shall be no interference either directly or indirectly with such borrower's, debtor's or purchaser's free choice of an agent and of an insurer which complies with the foregoing requirements, and the creditor or lender may not refuse the policy so tendered by the borrower, debtor or purchaser. Upon notice of any refusal of such tendered policy, the insurance commissioner shall order the creditor or lender to accept the tendered policy, if the commissioner determines that the refusal is not in accordance with the foregoing requirements of this subparagraph. Failure to comply with such an order of the insurance commissioner is a violation of this section.(c) Whenever the instrument requires that the purchaser, mortgagor, or borrower furnish insurance of any kind on real or personal property which is being conveyed or which is collateral security to a loan, the mortgagee or lender shall refrain from disclosing or using any and all such insurance information to its own advantage and to the detriment of either the borrower, purchaser, mortgagor, insurer, or company or agency complying with the requirements relating to insurance.(d) Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, a creditor or lender of a loan secured by an interest in real property shall not require the borrower to keep the mortgaged property insured under a property insurance policy in a sum in excess of the value of the buildings on the real property.(e) Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, no creditor or lender shall require as a condition to closing a loan that the borrower provide an original insurance policy at said closing; provided, however, that the creditor or lender may require the borrower to produce at closing a binder showing the borrower as a named insured and creditor or lender as mortgagee, and confirming that insurance has been issued, is in force, and will remain in full force until a copy of the final policy is delivered to the creditor or lender or until the creditor or lender has received notice of cancellation in accordance with the policy conditions.(f) No insurer may automatically write insurance on a debtor who has contracted credit based on the principle that the insurance is applicable unless specifically rejected by the debtor, unless the premium or such other identifiable charge as may be applicable is paid in full by the creditor.New JerseyNJAC 3:1-13.1Insurance tie-in prohibition(c) No lender shall, in connection with any application for a loan secured by a mortgage on real property located in New Jersey, require any mortgagor to obtain by purchase or otherwise a fire insurance policy in excess of the replacement value of the covered premises as permitted under N.J.S.A. 17:36-5.19 as a condition for granting such mortgage loan.New York3 NYCRR 38.9 Limitation on excess insurance and required disclosures(a) Limitation on excess insurance.No mortgage banker or exempt organization shall require any mortgagor, in connection with the granting of a mortgage loan, to obtain a hazard insurance policy in excess of the replacement cost of the improvements on the property as a condition for the granting of such mortgage loan.North Carolina58-63-25 "Unfair methods of competition" or "unfair and deceptive acts or practices"The following are hereby defined as unfair methods of competition and unfair and deceptive acts or practices in the business of insurance:(13) Overinsurance in Credit or Loan Transactions. In connection with a loan or extension of credit secured by real or personal property or both, requiring the applicant to procure property and casualty insurance against any one risk which results in coverage which exceeds the replacement value of the secured property at the time of the loan or extension of credit. In connection with a secured or unsecured loan or extension of credit, requiring the applicant to procure life or health insurance against any one risk which exceeds the amount of the loan. In connection with a loan secured by both real and personal property, requiring credit property insurance, as defined in G.S. 58-57-90, on the personal property. For the purposes of this subsection, "amount of loan" shall be deemed to be the amount of the principal and accrued interest to be paid by the debtor including other allowable charges.PennsylvaniaHere is a paper written by our Pennsylvania association on this issue relative to PA laws.Rhode IslandCHAPTER 27-5 - Fire Insurance Policies and Reserves - SECTION 27-5-3.2§ 27-5-3.2 Property insurance. No person, bank, or lending institution doing business in this state, whether acting under state or federal authority, which includes but is not limited to (1) a bank, savings bank, or trust company, as defined in this title, its affiliates or subsidiaries, (2) a bank holding company, as defined in 12 U.S.C. § 1841, its affiliates or subsidiaries, (3) mortgage companies, and (4) any other individual, corporation, partnership, or association authorized to take deposits and/or to make loans of money under the provisions of chapters 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 25.2, and 25.3 of title 19, making a mortgage loan, shall, as a condition of the mortgage or as a term of the mortgage deed, require that the mortgagor carry property insurance on the property which is the subject of the mortgage in excess of the replacement cost of any buildings or appurtenances subject to the mortgage; provided, that if a mortgage is sold, transferred, conveyed, or assigned, it shall be the responsibility of the holder of the mortgage to notify the insurance producer issuing the property insurance policy in writing of that sale, transfer, conveyance, or assignment. This notice shall be made in writing and shall be sent to the insurance producer within thirty (30) days of the sale, transfer, conveyance, or assignment by registered mail. In the event that the holder of a mortgage shall fail to notify the insurance producer who issued the property insurance policy that is in force, in writing, of that sale, transfer, conveyance, or assignment within thirty (30) days, the holder shall indemnify and hold the insurance producer harmless.VirginiaThe question posed was if a bank could force the consumer to have an insurance policy with the insured amount being the loan value even if this exceeds the value of the building. Under Virginia Banking code banks are not allowed to do this. The statutes does not reference personal or business loan so we would assume it applies to both.VA Code- 6.1-2.6:1. Fire insurance coverage under certain loans not to exceed replacement value of improvements.A. No lender shall require a borrower, as a condition to receiving or maintaining a loan secured by any mortgage or deed of trust, to provide or purchase property insurance coverage against risks to any improvements on any real property in an amount exceeding the replacement value of the improvements on the real property.In this section, 'property insurance coverage' means insurance against losses or damages caused by perils that commonly are covered in insurance policies described with terms similar to 'standard fire' or 'standard fire with extended coverage.'In determining the replacement value of the improvements on any real property, the lender may:1. Accept the value placed on the improvements by the insurer; or2. Use the value placed on the improvements that is determined by the lender's appraisal of the real property.B. A violation of this section shall not affect the validity of the mortgage or deed of trust securing the loan."Wisconsin632.07  Prohibiting requiring property insurance in excess of replacement value. A lender may not require a borrower, as a condition of receiving or maintaining a loan secured by real property, to insure the property against risks to improvements on the real property in an amount that exceeds the replacement value or market value of the improvements, whichever is greater.For an example of a related article regarding flood insurance prohibitions on this practice, "Flood Insurance Mandatory Purchase Guidelines".Last Updated: May 17, 2014Source:https://www.independentagent.com/Education/VU/Education/VU/Insurance/Personal-Lines/Homeowners/Conditions/WilsonMortgageAmount.aspx

Because they are dinosaurs. (Not just Greyhound, but all of them.) They hit a series of extinction-level events some thirty to fifty years ago, and the few (including Greyhound) that weren’t killed off were left for dead.And today, the motorcoach industry is so overripe for disruption as a result, that it can't even be considered a 'mature industry' when you think about it.They’re like daily newspapers and hotel franchising companies: they’re what I’d call ‘post-mature’ industries. Everything about them, and their operating model, is so past its prime, so no-longer-workable, and has accumulated layer upon layer of brokenness along the way, that, if — in this case — you wanted to own a nationwide motorcoach carrier, you’d be better off starting one from scratch and getting it right this time around than you would be if you could buy out Greyhound.One way or another, you’d be starting over from scratch, anyway. With a new carrier, you’d be limited to your investment costs. With Greyhound, you’d have to buy it at the current owners’ valuation, then completely gut it — wiping out the value of it in the process — and rebuild it from scratch, effectively paying for it twice (at least), but with a lot of uncertainty as to what value you’d be able to place on the end result.We looked at a hypothetical buyout of Choice Hotels three years ago, and arrived at the same conclusion. No matter how you ran the numbers, first you’d have to buy enough of the stock to get control of the company and its system. Then in order to fix its problems, you’d have to kick more than half of its franchised hotels out of the system — but what would the company then be worth, once you do? And afterward, can you get that many new hotels built, and franchisees signed, to replace them? And meanwhile, over the several years that it would take to do that, where are Choice’s now-existing customers going to go? And will you be able to get them to come back afterward? You’d be better off to just start a new hotel chain, from scratch.It’s like the municipal sanitary sewer system in Tegucigalpa, Honduras after Hurricane Mitch: engineers who went over it as part of an aid program after the hurricane concluded that it was in such bad shape to begin with, even before the storm, that the only way to proceed would be to just junk the entire system and start over.What happened to Greyhound and these other dinosaurs, you ask?The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and associated legislation.I hate to say it, because I don't like assuming the presence of racism in events or occurrences where it is possible that an undesirable event or occurrence may be due to some other cause (some people do do that, and it annoys me), but that seems to be one of three watershed events that would account for it.Whether or not in response, specifically, the simple fact at the time was that the industry had a lot of Southern good-old-boys running it, and it was also at this time that bus travel went from being regarded as a respectable, economical personal travel alternative, to a means of 'hauling' the underclass -- both black and white.The management of many of the carriers anticipated white flight. You won’t be able to get nice folks to choose to take the bus anymore, someone apparently figured, so don’t even try. You had the kind of people running the carriers who assumed that decent white people wouldn’t want to ride on a bus on which the seating wasn’t segregated, and who didn’t know how to distinguish between good black folks and ‘undesirable’ blacks.So, they resigned themselves to the idea that their function in the future would be transportation for the underclass, of whatever race. Instead of promoting family travel and an economical way to get there for college students, single ladies, and retirees, and keeping up their rolling stock and facilities at a level conducive to that kind of customer base as they had always done before; they just planned on taking whoever they could get as passengers, and ‘hauling’ them . . .Even in more recent years, people who take the bus are regarded as losers in life, and no one takes the bus if they have any other way to get there.And when management views its own customer base that way, when you see your own customers as a bunch of animals who deserve no better, bad things happen.They let their terminals run down accordingly. Even when they build a brand new one (often with some public investment, in many places nowadays), they let it start running completely to crap as soon as it opens.The Richmond, Va., terminal, when it was built around 1998, was absolutely impressive. It was clean, there was a nice restaurant with a good selection, and the food was good and was fairly priced. Its one drawback was that it’s comparatively isolated: it’s not within walking distance of anything except the ballpark across the Boulevard from it — as far as location goes, someone was out to get it out of downtown, that’s what they achieved, and they let it go at that.(Indeed, most of the people who travel through there are transferring passengers. If you take a Greyhound to the Northeast from anywhere in the southeastern quadrant of the United States — and maybe some points west of Texas — you’re going to change buses in Richmond; and board one that will take you straight to Washington, D. C., if that’s where you’re going. Or straight to Baltimore. Or straight to Philadelphia. Or straight to New York, with a rest stop in Baltimore, or straight to Boston, etc. . . . And traveling from any of those Northeastern cities, you go straight to Richmond, and your connection there, to get to anywhere in the Southeast.)Still, Greyhound could come back with terminals like this — if they’d only keep them up.But within two years, the Richmond terminal was filthy, it was as nasty as any bus terminal anywhere, the food was ‘captive audience’ quality at ‘captive audience’ pricing, with not nearly as much to pick from. The one time in my life I got into trouble and tossed into jail for a couple of days, it was cleaner, nicer and while the portions were small, the food wasn’t any worse. And you had undesirables hanging out — winos, panhandlers, homeless people — despite the Richmond terminal’s isolated location within the city: just the kind of people that people avoid taking the bus to avoid being around; but these are people who are taken for granted, even by Greyhound, as the sort of people who hang around bus terminals. Where do they bring these people in from? I know most of them can’t afford a Greyhound ticket. They couldn’t have walked there from anywhere that was within walking distance (the ballpark is across the Boulevard, there’s a convenience store a quarter mile away, and the rest is industrial sites — it’s relatively isolated for an urban bus terminal), you’d have to have something waiting there for you in order to have it be worth the hike. Does the city round them up and dump them there? Walk out the front doors, and there is a line of taxis whose drivers solicit aggressively. Well . . . if you don’t have a ride coming, you have to get away from that voodoo hellhole somehow.What’s even more pathetic than public investment in privately-owned bus terminals (often done with good intention, to encourage public transportation; but sometimes to get them moved to a place where they’d be less of a nuisance, as was probably the case in Richmond)? How about when the city wants to run you out of town, as the city of Riverside, California decided to do with Greyhound? It actually happened: they considered bus riders a potential nuisance. (Frankly, it’s the same as with cheap motels: you don’t have problems on the coaches themselves as frequently as you might wonder; high-profile incidents involving crazies who should be more easily spotted at the terminal notwithstanding. It’s usually the local people who are permitted to hang out at the terminal.) But let’s face it — when the host of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno refers to your bus company as “a bad neighborhood on wheels”, your reputation as a carrier is probably less than stellar.They let their coaches deteriorate — for as long as they owned them. Nowadays, they no longer own them, they lease them, because that’s how ‘disposable’ they’ve become. But when they did own them, they had no shame around how junky they’d let them get and still run them. When I was a teenager back in the seventies, a driver admitted to me that “they keep them and run them until they’ve worn them out ten times” . . . And this was during the good days of Carolina Trailways, and Seashore . . .The industry became ripe for divestment. The goal became, and has been ever since, don’t have any more money invested in this than you have to, and have it continue to run. It’ll run forever and give you a halfway decent income if you keep your costs down, but you don’t want any capital tied up in it.Everywhere they ever had any capital tied up in it, they’ve worked at getting that money out.Two events would occur in the late '70's and early '80's to make large scale divestment, without completely liquidating the company and giving up the income from it altogether, doable. Both were well-intended and an opportunity, but they just did not work well together in the hands of stockholders and management looking for ways to get their capital out and reduce their investment in it.Deregulation.Regulation was getting to be a bit much by the late seventies: if you owned a coach line, the Interstate Commerce Commission had to approve your routes, stops, schedules and fares at the Federal level. Abuse certainly occurred. ICC operating authority, once obtained, was viewed as property: authority to operate on a certain route could be sold between private parties or companies. Some people even acquired operating authority on certain routes, even though they owned no coaches (of course, claiming they’d get some, although they had no intention of actually doing so), and leased it to a bus company (well . . . that’s how they went about getting the coaches). And because you are a common carrier if you own scheduled bus lines, and your license to operate was given to you as a result by a governmental finding — that you asked for — that the service you had in mind to offer is essential to the ‘public convenience and necessity’, it was hard to talk the ICC into letting you discontinue an unprofitable run.For Greyhound and the other established carriers, this kept stability in place — their routes were protected from competition, and the fares that they were permitted to charge assured that most of them would be very profitable — but it also locked in some very bad market responsiveness. They saw a lot of opportunity to be had for themselves if the regulations went away, and they could be free to eat a few competitors’ lunch, oblivious to the idea that new competitors might spring out of the woodwork and want to do the same to them. (Or even swoop down from the sky and do it, as the newly-deregulated, low-cost start-up airlines would do to the bus carriers.) And of course, they could cut some runs: if you weren't going to have but eight people on board for most of the trip, why tie up a 50-passenger coach that, purchased new, cost today’s equivalent of $500,000?They got their wish. Unfortunately, right at the same time, so did the airlines. Routes, stops, schedules and fares would thenceforth be regulated, if at all, at the state level. Once airlines started expanding, and especially as new low-cost carriers all but started popping up out of the ground, you could fly for not much more money than you could take a bus.This caused some disruption and uncertainty, while it lasted. For years, Greyhound had it too good for too long, and didn't mind sharing: the union-represented drivers were paid very well, and you had a professional class of drivers. Now, the unprofitable runs were gone, but so were the high profit margins on the more profitable runs.In late 1983, Greyhound -- in response to the lower margins it had to accept with the new competition from the airlines -- asked the drivers to take a small cut. (From $27 per hour to $25. In 1983 dollars. I know lots of people who wish they could make $25 per hour today.) The union wouldn't go along. They went on strike when the contract ran out, and the strike didn't succeed: Greyhound started cutting runs, and hiring non-union drivers, and ultimately broke the union.The emergence of new financing models.Equipment leasing: Back in the day, carriers had to buy and own their coaches. Equipment leasing, as an ownership model, began to occur in the late seventies.If you owned a bus line and wanted to put a few new coaches on the road, then for not much more than it would take to make the payments if you financed them, you could have the coaches painted in your livery, and you would not have to worry about selling them off when the lease term ran out. When you wore them out or the maintenance and repair costs on them started getting too high, you could just turn them back in and get new ones. Henceforth, Greyhound wouldn't own its coaches: insurance companies and doctors and lawyers with loose money in search of a passive investment would own them, and Greyhound would just pay the rent and operate them on its lines.If you own a bus line, the deal has its advantages. You didn't have to run ten-year-old coaches on your more marginal runs. Since newer coaches are more reliable, not nearly as badly worn, and aren’t so frequently in need of repair, you could eliminate a lot of jobs for mechanics who you’d otherwise need to coax another two years out of a fifteen-year-old diesel engine. And if you wanted to expand and your company had a good track record, the upfront cost of acquiring new coaches was much lower.But there's a flipside: you have to pay the lease on the coaches. You have to make the payments every month, no matter how few or how many people ride the bus. This made the breakeven point for many runs much, much higher, and further disincentivized continuing the runs that were more marginal.Leveraged buyouts: This caused Carolina Trailways and Seashore Trailways, the two Trailways carriers that dominated where I grew up, and for which I used to work back in the day, to die a miserable, painful death that was sickening to watch (When you hit the link, scroll down to read the history: the guy who built this website — a blog that was written in HTML back in the days before WordPress — and researched and wrote all the material on it doesn’t organize it very well).I worked for them at a time when their corporate owners, North American Philips, seemed to be committed to some serious reinvestment. Carolina built a nice new terminal in Raleigh to replace the ugly, old, badly designed art-deco barn next to Raleigh’s City Hall: the city wanted to knock the old terminal down and expand the City Hall. Seashore replaced their old terminal in Jacksonville, N. C. — located on a rowdy stretch of what was at the time the city’s infamous Court Street — with a nice facility that had been acquired by the local electric co-op and adapted for use as a bus terminal, complete with overpriced restaurant. They invested in some new MCI coaches, and Seashore acquired its Trailways affiliation.But in the end, it turned out that North American Philips was just shining it up in hopes of finding a buyer.It wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d found a buyer that wanted to run a bus company, but the people that ended up with the two companies promptly recovered their investment and then some by stripping and selling off everything of value, then holding the combined company (they merged the two of them) together with shoestring and baling wire until they were able to get Greyhound to buy it from them.Greyhound itself was acquired by a former Continental Trailways executive, in a deal so badly overleveraged that, even if he had been able to fill every seat on every coach, every run, he still would have not been able to pay the debt on it. He had made the deal to buy it hoping to quickly take it public in an IPO. What he hadn’t considered adequately in advance of making his move is, hey, Greyhound is leasing its coaches instead of buying them nowadays, so all of its assets are gone except for some terminals in questionable downtown locations that are hard to put a value on and may take you some time to sell at a decent price. No one is going to touch this stock with a ten-foot pole at a price that will bring you enough money to get you out of the hole you’ve dug yourself into.Needless to say, this gentleman had to eventually get his debt restructured — and did such a good job of refinancing that he was able to acquire his former company Continental Trailways in a leveraged buyout, as well, and merge the two. The combined company was itself overleveraged (albeit by only 200% instead of 300% as Greyhound was prior to the Continental acquisition), had problems with the drivers unions, and ended up in bankruptcy a few years later.This killed Trailways as a brand, or at least left it to a fate worse than death. Continental Trailways — officially, “Trailways, Inc.” — was the single largest member of the Trailways consortium, larger than all the other Trailways members combined. When Continental was merged into Greyhound, nothing was left of Trailways as a carrier except for some regional member carriers scattered around the country. These surviving member carriers changed the bylaws of the National Trailways Bus System to insure that never again would a Trailways carrier become that dominant, and that ‘too big to fail’ and be able to do that much damage if they went out of business, left the Trailways system, or were acquired — but in doing so, they made entry into the Trailways system so onerous for new carriers that it isn’t worth doing. They effectively insured that Trailways as a brand would survive only in fragmented, disconnected pieces, and can never again be the nationwide carrier that it once was.Trailways is now pretty much a network of charter carriers: less than a dozen of its current 50–60 member carriers have scheduled runs anymore (New York Trailways/Adirondack Trailways in New York state, and Burlington Trailways in the upper Midwest, are the biggest ones: Susquehanna Trailways, which operates along the I-80 corridor between State College, Pa. and Port Authority, is the only other one of any size.). Nearly all the rest that have scheduled service at all are local feeder lines for Greyhound.After a few more corporate owners (one of which took it into bankruptcy again), Greyhound is now owned by a British company that seems intent on restoring some respectability to it: they’ve upgraded the coaches as they replace them, and now have leather seats and free wi-fi. And they’re innovating a bit: they are now partnered with Peter Pan on BoltBus, which keeps overhead low by offering only reserved, curbside service, and a yield-managed pricing model (book it online at just the right time, and you can get your ticket for a dollar).Deregulation, low margins, and debt incurred through leveraged buyouts, has kept Greyhound cash-strapped through most of the last 30–40 years, and there has been very little reinvestment in that time. Upgrading the coaches is easy, if you’re leasing the coaches: all you have to do is rewrite the specs, and they calculate that into the lease payments. The terminals and stations are still . . . bus terminals. Port Authority in New York City, for example, was back in the day considered a typical, nasty, big city terminal that no one liked. Now, it’s about average — even though its condition hasn’t improved that much over the years, and even though it still has some problems. If anything, it has more to offer than most.Greyhound’s problem nowadays is that it doesn’t seem to want to have any money invested in anything. They continue selling off existing, dedicated bus terminals that they own, and placing their company owned (or leased) facilities in smaller locations (e.g., Raleigh), and using overburdened agency stops that draw complaints (e.g., Virginia Beach).Availability of their coaches is spread thin: the last time I took a Greyhound, it broke down in Durham (N. C.), the Durham ticket agent put us all in taxis to the Greyhound terminal in Raleigh to make our connection — which turned out to be another broken-down bus. They had to send another bus up from Fayetteville to replace that one and take us to New Bern after a six-hour wait — where the driver managed to get lost and not be able to find the station there. Not the kind of thing that has me in any hurry to take another Greyhound trip.The union is gone, the pay isn’t nearly that good anymore, and Greyhound will hire anyone who has — or can get — a CDL to drive a coach. That means anyone. On a trip to North Carolina from New York City some years ago, we pulled into Richmond and the bus made an unexpected stop prior to pulling into the terminal and unloading us . . . several blocks from the terminal. The driver got off and went into the store. I was wondering if there was some sort of problem, and thinking it had to be pretty bad if we couldn’t make it the remaining mile and a half to the terminal to deal with it. But there was no problem. The driver re-emerged from the store a few minutes later with a couple cartons of cigarettes. He made a personal stop, on our time, to buy some low-tax Virginia smokes to take back to New York with him.And that’s before we even go there about the one a few years back, out West, who had some sort of mental breakdown, and refused to travel further, quitting her job in some hick town in Utah and leaving a busload of passengers stranded. Twice. On the same run. The first time she did it, the local cops intervened and made her get back on the bus and continue the trip. In the next town, she abandoned the bus and its passengers, and vanished completely.Or the one earlier this year who pulled off into a rest area on I-80 in Pennsylvania, and checked into a motel next door to take a nap, leaving the coach -- full of passengers who had no idea what was going on -- just sit there. Availability of drivers is spread pretty thin, too, and safety issues have been raised over drivers exceeding their allowed hours, working irregular shifts, and not getting enough rest.Ninety percent of automobile drivers rate their driving skills as ‘above average’. And you’re asking people to take the bus instead, while you hire drivers who do things like THAT?But when your customer base is made up of losers in life who have no choices, and deserve no better . . .FirstGroup may be sincere in its desire to turn it around someday, but lots of days can come and go between now and then and in the meanwhile, Greyhound is run by people who don’t give a shit. They’ve long ago reduced the entire company -- the entire industry — to something its users have to use because they have no choice, there are enough of those people that their customer base is assured. Anyone else that might consider taking a bus isn’t going to put up with it, so they’re not making the investment in drawing any other customers. Want to fix it? You’ve got coaches and terminals across the country, and you’ve only got this much money to work with, and that’s all you’ll have each year, if even that much, for however long it takes — where do you start?Greyhound is a post-mature company. Seth Godin used to say the same thing, over and again, about American Airlines until they got bought out: the things about American Airlines that made American a post-mature company are probably the reason it couldn’t hope to continue on its own and had to end up in bankruptcy and be bought out. (And in looking through his material for just one of his blog posts on the subject that would serve as typical and succinct to explain just why Seth felt that way about AMR, two things happened: 1) I just gave up and linked the Google search instead, and 2) I came across this little gem for the first time, and no, despite the fact that Seth is one of my favorite bloggers and the marketing expert I respect most, I swear I don’t recall ever having seen it before I wrote what I’ve written here, that you’ve read thus far.)That’s probably why Greyhound launched BoltBus — of course, competition from Chinatown buses and curbside carriers might have been a factor, and they wanted to have their hat in the ring on that business model; but I’d bet that even Greyhound gets it that they may just have to junk Greyhound and start over.What’s going to happen next?I haven’t completed costing it out, but it’s truly amazing how little the initial investment it would take to completely disrupt Greyhound and the other major carriers.Here’s how I’d go about it:Start in a small geographical region, work outward: Our initial, Winston-Salem, N. C. base, would be capable of functioning as a self-contained regional carrier. Adding a second one in Greenville, N. C. (from which, by itself, we could cover all of the same routes as the now-defunct, Seashore Transportation Company did for several decades) would give us statewide coverage.Additional bases - each the base of a service area having a 200-mile radius - would give us a corresponding increase in coverage. Each additional base also allows a synergy in terms of allowing every station within the operating area of each base to sell tickets to any location within the operating area of any other.Not only does adding bases expand our service area (e.g., Bethlehem, Pa. and Macon, Ga., in the next map), but adding bases within our existing service area (e.g., Charlotte in the next map) allows us to offer more direct runs with fewer connections, simplify our operations at the nearby bases, and add to our driver base (hiring drivers in Charlotte and having them based there would allow us to make do with fewer drivers at the nearby Winston-Salem and Columbia bases).Once we have a base in Bethlehem, a station in Savannah, and stations in most major cities in between, we can offer express runs up and down the entire East Coast that only stop in major cities.From there, it's a simple matter of expanding westward with new bases, and new coaches. (It’s scalable. We will have to buy the first several coaches that we operate, but once we show that we can generate the cash flow consistently, expansion is a simple matter of hiring and training new drivers, establishing the bases and depot stops, and leasing more coaches.)There's no need to 'beat' Greyhound. As we expand, we'll simply render them irrelevant.Smaller coaches: These would give us the flexibility to serve communities that cannot be served profitably by a full-sized coach. Because these smaller coaches are not restroom equipped, we take care to schedule a rest stop every two hours or so en route. I’d bet, however, that communities who’ve been without scheduled Greyhound or Trailways service for ten to thirty years now, would be happy they’re getting a bus at all.The average number of people who are, at any given moment, on board a Greyhound bus is 27 — and that's when you calculate into the average runs in crowded Northeast areas where the bus stays pretty full. So, why tie up a half million in capital for a full-size coach, when you can put that many on board one of these for $72,000?For more heavily-traveled runs, you might want to have a 36-passenger coach available. With a lav — these coaches (the way I submitted the specs) are for longer, busier runs and would come restroom equipped. Still, the investment required to put two Greyhound full-sized coaches on the road would give us five of these to work with:Not quite what you’re used to seeing as prevailing industry standard now. (Or is it? Can you tell the difference by looking? Besides no leather?)But . . . if your typical passenger load is 27 passengers, I have it on pretty good authority that 36 seats isn’t, historically, an altogether bad size for a coach. Basic arithmetic has a little to do with it of course; but anyone my age or older might recall the sixties, when those ubiquitous General Motors 36-passenger coaches like you see below were the backbone of both Greyhound’s and Trailways’ fleets . . . (Both of these are GMC PD-4104’s, built between the early ‘50’s into the early ‘60’s. I think more of that model were produced than any other coach model ever made, before or since. Back then, that size was quite normal.)Be anal about stations and terminals, and the stuff that happens around them: If I appear to have thought about this for some time, and seem to have much of the business plan written up for it already . . . well, yes, I have. I came up with the idea for a bus company nearly twenty years ago; and was inspired to do just that, in the sort of place where some guys go for a different kind of inspiration altogether: a porn shop.That was literally where the Greyhound/Peter Pan station in New Britain, Connecticut was located: a cigar store with a section in the back, quite visible to waiting bus passengers, devoted to pornography; complete with the occasional porn pervert browsing through the material on display. My car was in the shop one week when I was living in Connecticut, and I had to catch a bus into Boston, so I was kind of stuck with it. I recall thinking, I don’t want to be around this shit — and while I'm going on a tear with it, let's look at a few other things I don't want to be around that you see all the time in even 'average' bus stations. Filth and dirt. Overpriced, low-quality food, if there's any food at all. Homeless people hanging out. Panhandlers. Creeps loitering in and around the restrooms. Uncomfortable seating. Location in bad areas of town. All the things that everyone hates about bus terminals, but that even motorcoach operators seem to think is quite normal, that 'goes with the turf', about bus terminals. And it seems to get worse and worse. And now, this . . .And I started making notes and outlining some ideas during the ride to Boston that very day.New Britain, Connecticut: How not to do it.We would only contract with reputable businesses for our agency stops, and insist as part of our agency agreement that they maintain their facilities in accordance with our standards. If you want your establishment to be one of them, it will be listed on TripAdvisor, and we do read your reviews. We’d regularly inspect our agency stops to insure that they are clean, comfortable, have reasonable accommodations for waiting passengers, and are managed in alignment with the way we operate our own stations and terminals.This goes for public facilities (the city-owned bus terminal in Winston-Salem, N. C., was in the news this past week because of a bedbug infestation), and shared Greyhound facilities, too. I’ve seen what Greyhound will let them get away with, and they can be the worst offenders.Not the sort of thing I want to see at my bus terminal.Good security is a non-negotiable. Passengers are absolutely entitled to a safe, comfortable wait, and you don’t see homeless people, panhandlers, or people who have no reason to be there loitering about. If I wouldn't want my fourteen-year-old niece waiting alone for a bus at your location, your location is not going to be a depot stop for my bus company.Good security is not negotiable — and this isn’t what I call good security. If your ticket window requires bulletproof glass, you’re probably selling tickets to people I don’t want as passengers. If that’s what it takes to achieve security in the part of town you’re in, you’re in the wrong part of town.I want it done right. I’m just weird that way. It’s clean, it’s comfortable, it doesn’t smell bad, you don’t mind being there, there is food and refreshments available, and it isn’t too badly overpriced . . .Bottom line: we would rather simply have a roadside or street stop, and provide only curbside service in a town, than to have a bad depot or station. At least, everyone knows to not expect too much from having to wait on the side of the road.Family-friendly: One thing you might pick up on in our advertising is how all of our advertising pics show families? Mommies and daddies taking a trip with the kids, like they do in Europe? Many of us just take it for granted that bus travel is for people who have no other way to get there, and that you're not likely to meet anyone worth knowing if you do have to take the bus for some reason.For this bus company, we'd be resurrecting our own twist on the old "You meet the nicest people on a Honda" blue ocean strategy from the sixties, that opened up a vastly larger market for motorcycles than previously existed among just the Harley riders and their hellraiser wannabes, when Honda motorcycles first made their appearance in the U. S.(Besides, we remember when bus travel wasn't just for the riff-raff . . . Maybe I’m getting old, but I come from a time when people remembered what it was like to actually like buses and bus travel. Lots of people still would, if you gave them half a chance. ‘Blogs’ didn’t make their appearance until about ten years ago, yet the web abounds with websites and bulletin boards and user groups made up of people who are into the history of buses.)And our buses, and terminals, must be pretty convenient, safe and comfortable, if families and nice old folks — people who have a choice and would find another way to get there if our fleet and facilities were run down and nasty — choose to use them.The old Southern good-ol’-boys who used to run the carriers in the sixties, and who were so traumatized by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, are all gone, retired or died off by now; but even today the mindset, even by more well-meaning, ‘liberal’ politicians, officials, and bus company executives, is that the bus is for people who don’t have cars.Let’s rethink that: The bus is for everyone. Even people who have a choice — especially people who have a choice. Now, what can we do to have them CHOOSE taking the bus?Instead of wandering the mall, how can we talk some of these retired folks into taking a day trip to the zoo? (Of course, putting the North Carolina Zoological Park on the schedule might help . . .)What kind of attractions are there in Boone that we can perhaps work with so that we can sell day trips there: get some people on a nearly empty outbound bus in the morning, who’d come home on an otherwise nearly empty inbound bus in the evening?I’d put one or two hotel sales people to work on this one.The airport is your friend, not your competitor: Making a point to offer scheduled service to large airports on our lines opens up an opportunity for a businessman in, say, Alamance County, to get to Raleigh-Durham International Airport for his flight.Service to airports opens up another opportunity. As we contemplated service to Newport News, Virginia and were stuck for an appropriate station location, it dawned on us: Newport News-Williamsburg International Airport is one of the few airports of its size, in any city the size of Newport News, that is located right in the middle of the city that it serves. And more to the point, the success and perhaps even survival of Newport News-Williamsburg International depends upon its ability to compete with Norfolk International Airport, which is not that far away. Why not just plan on putting the terminal there if they’ll let us?The airport is our friend, not our competitor. No one who can afford to fly to L. A. or Houston from the east coast is going to take the bus. And if you're not going that far away (say, between Newport News and Norfolk), the bus makes so much more sense.So, we consider not only large airports like Raleigh-Durham, Piedmont-Triad, Charlotte, Atlanta, and the Washington airports as we plan our routes; but also the smaller regional airports, such as Fayetteville Regional, Jacksonville (N. C.), and Richmond. For the opportunity to shag air passengers away from Charlotte, Greenville-Spartanburg should be willing to offer us much better terms and facilities than, say, the bus deck at Union Station in Washington, D. C. ($30,000 per year per 'slip', and I'll buy you dinner if you can prove to me that Greyhound pays that much).To solidify our market position in this area, we will be offering reduced rates from all airports to outlying, larger cities.Greyhound can fuss all they want about ‘competition’ from low-cost airlines. But Southwest Airlines doesn’t fly to North Wilkesboro, or Quakertown, or Waterbury . . .From us, you get the scenic tour: One thing about taking the bus that used to drive people nuts - even in the heyday of buses, at the height of their popularity - is that the bus stopped in every little hick town, which slowed down the trip and made getting where you wanted to go take longer.We can't avoid that: this company was developed and designed to serve smaller communities that Greyhound considers not worth having.So we're going to try and turn that into a selling point, create a new context for it, suggest an alternate way of looking at it. From us, you get the scenic tour. (Note the pics of small town Americana -- within the areas that we serve -- located here and there around our website.)I originally contemplated it as a Trailways carrier, but despite the access to the rich history and Trailways' place in 20th century Americana which we would love to have as part of our own, doing so doesn't appear to be workable.(Trailways now requires of new members — which they don’t recruit very diligently, and seem to not care too much if they never add another one —that your bus company has been in business for at least five years prior to applying for Trailways affiliation. By the time we’ve been in business for five years, we’re going to have so much invested in any brand we use in the meanwhile, that we’re not going to want to give that up, change all the livery and the signage and the website and the promotional material, paint all of the coaches red, and go Trailways. Nor do I like the requirement that if we expand scheduled service into a geographical area, we have to first obtain the consent of any Trailways carrier in that area — most of whom are charter carriers and should have no say in scheduled services. And if a carrier, even a Trailways carrier, who offers scheduled services wants to have his crappy operation protected from competition; well, that’s why Satan invented state utility commissions who regulate competition between motor carriers that operate within the state, and those carriers’ political connections on those commissions. I’m not signing up for something that requires me to suck up yet another layer of such regulation.)Still, anticipation of our market position as a would-be Trailways carrier while it lasted as part of the plan; with Trailways’ historic, Mom-and-apple-pie small town roots, opened up some added appreciation of this particular market position.Don’t be Greyhound-dependent: We'll work with Greyhound, and endeavor to maintain a positive relationship with them wherever possible. We're not going to get sucked into a stand-up fight with them where we can avoid it. It is to the much greater benefit of both us and Greyhound that we work together, and play and get along well together.Greyhound is famous for its ‘running dog’ mascot. We plan to use a black cat.But even if we don’t, the harm will be limited to slowing us down for a few years -- after which, we'll catch up to and surpass Greyhound with a vengeance.We contract our own stations, terminals and depots; and avoid sharing facilities with Greyhound unless: 1) the facilities meet our standards. and 2) we control the ticket counter - or at least don't stand to be hurt badly by Greyhound or a third-party agency engaging in favoritism toward Greyhound or another carrier against us in ticket sales from that location. (Most of our passengers - and ticket sales - to and from places where we’d use Greyhound as an agent, travel to and from smaller cities and towns not served by Greyhound. So if you approach a Greyhound ticket counter in one of those places, and want to purchase a ticket to a town served only by us, guess which carrier Greyhound is going to sell you a ticket on?)We’d have no "pooling" agreements with Greyhound, and do not intend to enter into any. Could we ask as part of such a deal that Greyhound not expand its service or not add any more runs to the area in competition with us? No - that would be illegal under federal antitrust law (unless the Surface Transportation Board okayed it): we'd just have to trust them, and rely upon a built-in disincentive in investing their money, equipment and resources into a line that would produce revenue that would have to be shared with us. With such an agreement in place, could we expand our service within the areas affected by the pooling agreement? Yes -- but why should we make the investment of funds, coaches, drivers and other resources, only to have Greyhound collect a percentage of the revenue even if they choose not to match the investment? Besides, the whole scheme smacks of the dystopian "Railroad Unification Plan" and the "Steel Unification Plan" in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Several companies that have gone into pooling agreements with Greyhound -- for example, Carolina Trailways, Seashore Transportation -- have since disappeared, and so have many of their runs.Eight mid-size coaches to start out, at about seventy-five grand a pop? . . . one convenience store (which would be a revenue source in itself), with a rear loading area, to use as a central base terminal? . . . It’s doable.There’s an opportunity in it. Right now, gas in the U. S. is cheap, by contrast to some recent years. And regardless of the price of gas in the U. S., we pay less for it than any other country on earth except Venezuela. Even Canadians pay three to four times as much. How long can that last? Eventually, U. S. gas prices are going to have to get in line with the others. We need to have some more public transportation options at the ready when that time comes.Much of the investment involved would be getting your ducks in a row in advance, just doing the work setting it up. The burn rate for the first year is more of a source of concern to me than the capital outlay . . .Your only competitors are people who don’t want to have any money invested in anything. They’ve already squeezed everything they can out of it, and can’t squeeze it any further without crushing it completely. They feel that doing so won’t expand their customer base significantly. But it’s been the late sixties since they’ve really tried. And since the customer base they’re left with has nowhere else to go — well, they’re not going to be easy to work with about personal needs, and individual attention, and refunds where appropriate.Greyhound and the other carriers have no idea just how vulnerable that they — and their entire business model — are.