Shoddy maintenance, inadequate insurance and paperwork, questionable driving records. These are just some of the details emerging from the investigation of the August 8 crash of a charter bus that killed 17 passengers near the Texas-Oklahoma border. But for Dallas attorneys Mark Werbner of Sayles Werbner PC and Frank Branson of The Law Offices of Frank L. Branson, preliminary findings from the wreck show that state regulators and fly-by-night bus companies have not learned from

Among other things, the bus operated by Iguala BusMex Inc. of Houston was traveling with a retread tire on one of its front wheels. It is illegal to use retread tires on wheels that steer a bus. Records indicate that the owner of the bus had failed safety inspections and the driver had a history of traffic infractions.Werbner says he's disappointed that despite a number of deadly bus crashes in recent years in Texas and across the country, shady bus companies like the one carrying members of the Houston-area church are still allowed on the road. "This appears to be yet another case where a company and driver failed to get the required safety inspections and did little to protect the passengers," he says.

Most of the passengers were from the Vietnamese Martyrs Church in Houston and were on their way to the Marian Days pilgrimage in Carthage, Mo., for an annual festival honoring the Virgin Mary.

Branson and Werbner know what they're talking about when it comes to investigating bus companies and bus crash litigation. Werbner represented one of the surviving victims of a 2002 bus crash near Terrell, Texas, that killed five and caused severe injuries to several others. That case, which also involved a church group that had hired a charter bus service, resulted in a $71 million verdict on behalf of Werbner' client. Branson is currently representing victims of another horrific bus crash that occurred near Dallas and involved elderly Houston nursing home residents evacuating from Hurricane Rita in 2005. In that case, 23 people were killed when the bus caught fire in bumper-to-bumper traffic.