This was an interesting Google find that you can locate by searching on: USDOT Ellora’s Cave and clicking on the fmcsa.dot.gov link on the first page.
The “OOS” (Out of Service) category column has an entry which states: New Entrant Revoked – Refusal of Audit/No Contact and the “OOS Date” (Out of Service Date) is November 17, 2008.
Per the MSCIP Step Chart, which explains the various possible explanations that appear in the “OOS” category column. While there is no perfect match, this appears to most closely match the description for Step #63.
But what does it mean?
I believe it may be about the Ellora’s Cave bus.
Ellora’s Cave Party Bus. Photo by Cait Miller.
Per the USDOT website:
Apart from federal regulations, some states require commercial motor vehicle registrants to obtain a USDOT Number. These states include:
[…]
• Ohio
Per that, it appears that any commercial registration in Ohio requires a valid USDOT number.
Note that this isn’t a USDOT number for the vehicle, but rather for the carrier. So if Ellora’s Cave had, oh, any commercial vehicle registered to the company, they’d need to have a current, valid USDOT number with no Out of Service Orders.
Like, say, if they owned a bus.
It does seem odd, given that the description for Step 63 says that yes, the carrier’s vehicles would be targeted at roadside, and yes, deny registration, that this situation appears to be unaddressed after almost seven years.
There’s a formal process for issuing an out of service order, detailed here. It just strikes me that it’d be the kind of thing that’d be hard to miss.
It’s not unheard of for government sites to be incorrect, though, so I don’t want to read too much into it.
What to make of “New Entrant Revoked – Refusal of Audit/No Contact”? The words “refusal of audit” leap off the page, but can it possibly be related to the same kind of audit the world is waiting for from EC? The government wanting to see EC’s books to determine something about the company’s operation in relation to the bus? Seems like a stretch. More likely it was a detail that was overlooked in the shifting of EC administration staff then never picked up. Very curious, though.
Given the expense of such buses, I’d assumed the thing was a lease.
It’s not the same kind of audit. It’s an audit of their transportation logs.
This is all just idle speculation, so hypothetically speaking:
I would think they would have leased the bus, as well and written off the lease as a business expense.
It is theoretically possible, I suppose, that EC transferred the lease or title over to another corporate entity, say for instance the E-B corp that owned the warehouse where Jasmine-Jade was housed and the records were never updated. I can’t believe they would fail to register the vehicle for SEVEN years. No one is that forgetful, I hope.
If E-B owned the vehicle or held the lease I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it was leasing the vehicle to EC. One less asset If EC’s house of cards collapsed and another income source for TE personally. But those buses are scarily expensive. I can’t imagine that it was ever a good investment of EC’s part. Like Courtney Milan said, “economically irrational”.
Even a leased commercial vehicle requires commercial license plates, and in states (like Ohio) that require commercial registrations to have USDOT numbers, that’s still true regardless of who holds the pink slip.
I’d be very surprised if the vehicle registration isn’t reasonably current (though if they’re not driving it right now, I can also see delaying registration given other things going on). What’s more likely is that somehow that flag didn’t get passed from USDOT to Ohio’s DMV equivalent.
As you say, it’s also possible another corp is the actual owner and thus the “carrier” for USDOT purposes. Frankly, given how expensive accidents can be if everything goes south, I personally wouldn’t put it in the same corp that owns the building. Too high a downside risk. Also, given that it says “Ellora’s Cave” all over the place, that’s got to be a deductible marketing expense for EC.
Unless EC’s renting the sides of the bus from the owner (sister corp) at inflated prices for marketing. cough
Bingo.
Speculation (ergo, not defamatory): EC buys it, and writes some of it off, tax-wise, as necessary expenses for the business. Later on, it’s sold–at a loss–to a sister company. Then, EC rents the sides, at an inflated rate, for promotion.
Please note that I am inferring all of the above from my interpretation of what’s public knowledge. I don’t purport, nor pretend, to know any of the facts surrounding EC’s financial situation, first or even second hand.
Ahh, I get where you were going with that now.
Someone’s gotta be making money off it, right?