HOUSTON -- For more than 40 years, safety advocates have been trying to improve safety standards for motorcoaches on American highways. Now, for the first time in years, significant steps are being taken. It is thanks -- at least in part -- to a Houston woman turning tragedy into action.
For Yen-Chi Le, it has been a long 16 months since she lost her mom.
"I'm hoping that one day when I'm thinking about my mom I can think just about how she lived and not how she died," said Le.
Her mother, Catherine Tuong Lam, was one of 13 people killed in 2008 when a bus carrying a group of Houston worshippers crashed near Sherman, Texas. They were on the way to a religious festival in Missouri.
The experience turned Le into an advocate for motorcoach safety. She has made four trips to Capitol Hill in the last year to lobby lawmakers.
On Thursday, a sweeping bill, S. 554 the Motorcoach Enhanced Safety Act of 2009, moved out of committee and to the full Senate.
For Yen-Chi Le, it is a gift from Washington, D.C.
"I really haven't been in the holiday spirit ever since my mom died. But seeing this bill make it out of committee today is the best Christmas present ever," Le said.
The bill is sponsored by Texas Senator and gubernatorial candidate Kay Bailey Hutchison.
It carries a number of important safety provisions, including new fire safety standards, improved driver training and licensing standards, improved oversight of carriers, seat belts on new buses, improved roof crush standards and anti-ejection glazing on windows.
The bill has a long way to go and does not have full support from the industry.
"Obviously we are concerned about cost. There is a cost benefit considerations here, but safety comes first, there is no question in our mind," said Victor Parra, the President and CEO of the United Motorcoach Association.
Yen-Chi Le has no question that the proposed standards might have saved her mother and others in the Sherman crash, or the 45 others that have happened since.
"A big part of her life was helping others. And I think if she were alive today, seeing me speak out on her behalf so that other people won't have to go through this, I think she would have thought that she raised a pretty good daughter," said Le.
Somewhere, Catherine Tuong Lam is surely smiling.
