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assigned the Mohegan Sun route count themselves lucky — they say that most casinos offer drivers no place to rest at all.

The low-cost tour bus industry, where drivers often work for little pay and long hours, has come under renewed scrutiny since a crash in the Bronx on Saturday killed 15 passengers on a chartered return trip from Mohegan Sun.

The cause of the crash still had not been determined as of Wednesday, but much of the focus has turned to the driver, Ophadell Williams. State and federal officials are examining his actions in the minutes and hours before the accident; Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has ordered an inquiry into how Mr. Williams, who had driving violations and a criminal record, was allowed to become a commercial bus driver.

Part of the answer may lie in the nature of the discount tour-bus industry, a motley collection of small outlets that operate largely out of sight of government regulators. Drivers, tour operators and watchdog groups say that many employees get no benefits, work long hours and are poorly compensated. Federal rules that restrict drivers’ hours are only sporadically enforced, and some drivers say they have felt pressure to take long-haul trips that often stretch beyond the legal limit.

When other drivers heard about the crash on Saturday, many said they immediately wondered if fatigue had played a role.

“The first thing that pops into my mind was, ‘How many hours was he working?’ ” said Brian Bailey, 53, a driver for Brush Hill Tours in Boston. “A lot of these drivers, we’re driving down the road, we wave to the other guy. We’re all in the same business. It affects us all the same way; it makes us more aware.”

At casinos in Connecticut and in Atlantic City, drivers are quarantined to designated charter bus parking lots, typically several miles from the casino itself, and they frequently take naps on buses. The casinos usually provide drivers with a $15 food voucher and a shuttle bus to the local food court; hotel rooms are not offered.

Mr. Bailey was sitting in his bus just inside the entrance to Foxwoods about 9 p.m. on Monday. He said his company encouraged drivers to eat, sleep and “rest, relax so you’re not stressed out.” Some drivers, he conceded, take the opportunity to gamble. “We have drivers who will spend their whole time in there pulling handles,” he said.

In his downtime, Mr. Bailey said he often caught up on “General Hospital” and grabbed food. “There’s nothing worse than being tired while you’re driving,” he said. “People don’t realize, you start dozing off, it’s not a good thing. Especially when you’ve got everybody’s life in your hands.”

Federal guidelines limit passenger bus drivers to 10 hours behind the wheel, within a 15-hour work day, and bus carriers face a fine if violations are discovered. But the hours, recorded in a handwritten logbook, are easily falsified, and even outstanding violations are often ignored: World Wide Travel, the operator whose bus crashed in the Bronx, had been cited several times by regulators for problems with its logs.

At Foxwoods on Monday night, a driver for World Wide Travel was preparing for a nap in his bus’s front passenger row. The driver had arranged a blanket and several small pillows atop a knapsack; later, he opened an overhead compartment to reveal a stash of blankets. “You see my bed?” he said with a smile.

The man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his company had instructed drivers not to talk to the press, said he planned to sleep for 90 minutes. He still had five hours until he had to start his return trip to Flushing, Queens.

Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHX5gHOW3zGEQsQeZgEf2hR0tf7OA&url=http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/nyregion/17drivers.html

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