The following “Q&A” items must be adhered to, to receive operating authority from the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC.)

Getting licensed is not easy and staying licensed requires diligence. These are questions any transportation company you are considering hiring should be willing and able to answer and provide proof of.

Question: Are your drivers commercially licensed?

Answer: Yes, Drivers driving vehicles that hold 9 or more passengers must have, at minimum, a B or A class license with passenger and air brake endorsements. Further our insurance company will not let us hire any driver who does not have at least two (2) years of commercial driving experience. Most of our drivers are veteran drivers coming to us as a second job and still work for S.B. M.T.D. or Student Transportation of America with additional training requirements to have the highest form of commercial licensing “SPAB” certification.

Question: Do you drug test your drivers?

Answer: Yes, we are required to do Pre-Employment and random drug / alcohol testing which must be administered by the companies drug testing administrator and an independent third party drug testing facility, we use Norton Medical for our random selections and Samsun medical for the drug and breath alcohol testing.

Question: Are “ALL OF” your buses insured?

Answer: Yes, and it’s not cheap. We pay roughly $120,000.00 per year for our $5,000,000.00 general liability insurance policy for each bus $30,000.00 +/- per year for workers compensation which is also a requirement of the PUC. A copy of our insurance and registration is in every driver log book which is brought on to the bus by the driver prior to leaving the bus yard and performing his/her pre-trip bus inspection.

We also provide additional insured certificates for you and/or your wedding venue upon request. Several venues already have a certificate on file as we are their preferred vendor.

Question: Do your buses get inspected?

Answer: Yes, We are required to have any bus we add to our fleet inspected by the CHP and then perform in-house thirty (30) day periodic inspections and repair any potential violation found during the inspection and or repair other things that might break as noted by the driver(s) on their daily driver log which is also required for every trip.

Then there are annual CHP inspections when the CHP reviews all of our drivers information to make sure their commercial licenses and medical certificates are not expired. Then they do a terminal inspection which includes reviewing our drug testing procedures.

Question: Are there any other requirements for your commercial drivers?

Answer: Yes, We are required to enroll them in the DMV pull notice program which gives us their driving background history and sends us notifications if anything changes i.e.: they get a speeding ticket or a drunk driving which would require us to cease their employment. As well as making sure their medical certificates are not expired and or that they are in good health to drive, high blood pressure and likely hood of a stroke or heart attack while driving are the things we want to make sure wont happen.

Not abiding by these laws and questions could cost us and the driver huge fines and or imprisonment (if there were to be a bad or fatal accident.) That being said we take our business and your safety extremely serious. Please feel free to call or text Sierra with further questions at 805-256-5436.

Before You Hire a Company the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) Recommends:

• Search the list of passenger carriers to determine whether the company has an operating permit with the PUC and whether it is insured, the headquarters of the company, and more!

• Review the PUC  10 Tips On Renting Transportation and their Useful Information about Passenger Transportation fact sheet.

• Read about investigations and citations of transportation companies.

We recommend that you also:

• Ask to visit the bus terminal and see the bus(es) and overall operation.

• Ask to see proof of CURRENT insurance and registration for the specific bus(es) you will be renting.

• Ask to review the”Annual CHP Inspection Reports” listing the bus(es) in satisfactory condition and all (if any) violations have been repaired and signed back into service by the CHP.

• Ask to review the companies “periodic mechanical inspection reports” which are legally due every 45 days (we do our inspections every 30days.)

• Ask to review the companies maintenance and repair reports for the specific bus(es) you are renting.

• Ask for an an “Additional Insured Certificate” naming you and your venue (if applicable) as additional insured for the day(s) of the event.

• Check out YELP reviews. We’ve included links below for ease of reference:

”Jump On The School Bus” The highest rated 5 star co. since 2011!