Federal safety officials have just ordered Iguala BusMex and Angel Tours Inc. to cease commercial operations while last week’s fatal accident in North Texas is investigated.es

Safety experts and Texas lawmakers called for tougher enforcement of motor carrier regulations Monday as federal investigators combed for clues to what caused an illegal bus to crash in North Texas, killing 17 Vietnamese Catholics from Houston.

Others in Texas and elsewhere echoed that sentiment as two more bus crashes in Mississippi and Nevada over the weekend put bus safety back on every politician’s agenda. On Sunday, three women were killed when the tour bus they were riding in rolled over, while 29 people were injured in an unrelated crash after their bus left the road in Nevada.

In Washington, Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, issued statements Monday calling for the passage of their legislation, known as the Motorcoach Enhanced Safety Act.

The bill, which would require bus owners to provide seat belts, fire extinguishers and other safety enhancements, was introduced after a bus crash in Georgia killed several athletes from an Ohio college. It is now scheduled for a hearing before the Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee next month.

Calling for reform, however, is a tune Texans have heard before. In the past six years, 52 people have died in passenger bus accidents and very little has been done to weed out troubled bus carriers, records show.

In the Sherman case, the bus owned and operated by Angel de la Torre was illegal because the operator had been barred not once, but twice, from traveling outside Texas under two different company names.

Three years ago, a bus bearing an expired and illegal tag belonging to another bus was sent to Bellaire to pick up elderly evacuees trying to escape a looming Hurricane Rita. Hours later, the poorly maintained passenger coach erupted into fire, killing 23 aboard.

And yet, not one of the recommendations made by the NTSB after the 2005 Hurricane Rita bus fire have been acted on by the federal government, surprise, surprise.