A 18-wheeler and car collided in the northbound lanes of Interstate 95 Tuesday, just south of Hallandale Beach Boulevard, and firefighters were trying to free a person from the car, a fire official said.

Sheriff’s firefighters and technical rescue workers, as well as Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, responded to crash, reported at about 11 a.m. When the person is removed from the car, he or she will be taken to Memorial Regional Hospital, said Mike Jachles, a spokesman for Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue.

The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating the cause of the crash.

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Federal regulators have ordered Sky Express, the discount bus company involved in a fatal crash in Virginia this week, to halt its interstate bus service because of concerns about the carrier’s safety record, officials said Wednesday.

An accident involving a Sky Express bus traveling overnight from Greensboro, N.C., to New York’s Chinatown on Tuesday morning killed four passengers and injured dozens of others after the driver veered off Interstate 95 and the bus rolled over. The accident occurred in Caroline County, about 30 miles north of Richmond.

The authorities said driver fatigue played a role in the crash, and the driver, Kin Yiu Cheung, 37, of Queens, was arrested and charged with reckless driving. He suffered minor injuries.

The decision to suspend Sky Express came after the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which oversees bus safety, issued the company an unsatisfactory safety rating after conducting a compliance review.

The agency, which is part of the federal Department of Transportation, said it had found multiple violations in Sky Express’s driver qualification requirements, its drug and alcohol compliance measures, its hours of operation and its vehicle maintenance.

“Safety is our No. 1 priority,” Ray LaHood, the transportation secretary, said in a statement. “We will use every resource at our disposal to pursue and remove from our roads unsafe, reckless bus companies.”

Sky Express, based in Charlotte, N.C., has routes from New York to about a dozen cities in North Carolina, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. It charges one-way fares of about $30. The company also operates in the District of Columbia and Virginia.

Sky Express, which did not return a phone call Wednesday, has had a poor safety record during the past two years, according to the Department of Transportation. The carrier has been cited 46 times by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration since May 2009 for using fatigued drivers. It has also had four crashes.

Tuesday’s accident was at least the third fatal crash involving one of the many discount tour bus companies that use Chinatown as a hub.

In March, a World Wide Tours bus driver returning to Chinatown from a Connecticut casino swerved off Interstate 95 in the Bronx, slicing the bus in half and killing 15 people. Two days later, a Super Luxury Tours bus headed from Chinatown to Philadelphia crashed on the New Jersey Turnpike, killing two people, including the driver.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said Wednesday that it had responded to the accidents by increasing enforcement, including conducting more than 3,000 surprise inspections of passenger buses during the first two weeks of May, which led to the suspensions of 127 drivers and 315 unsafe buses being taken out of service,

In New York, lawmakers have called for stricter regulations of the tour bus industry, including requiring carriers to apply to the city for permits in addition to the operating licenses they are required to obtain from the federal government.

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Sky Express driver Kin Yiu Cheng, 37, is being held at an area jail on $3,000 bond. He suffered minor injuries in the crash on northbound Interstate 95 about 30 miles north of Richmond.

Investigators said driver fatigue contributed to the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

Sky Express has been involved in several accidents over the last two years. It also has been cited for 46 violations for drivers being fatigued, which police believe contributed to this crash.

The Sky Express bus departed Greensboro, N.C., on Monday night and was headed to Chinatown in New York City with 58 people aboard, including the driver, said state police Sgt. Thomas Molnar.

The bus had swerved off Interstate 95, hit an embankment and flipped over about 30 miles north of Richmond. The driver suffered minor injuries and is cooperating with investigators, Molnar said. Nearby hospitals say they have treated more than 25 people from the crash, some of whom were released.

According to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration records, Charlotte, N.C.-based Sky Express Inc. buses have been involved in four crashes, with one injury or fatality during the two-year period that ended May 20.

Its drivers have been cited for 17 unsafe-driving violations, including eight speeding violations, since 2009. Three of the 46 violations for fatigued driving were classified as serious.

Sky Express also was cited for 120 vehicle-maintenance violations, including one classified as serious. The National Transportation Board was investigating Tuesday’s crash. The bus had no passenger seat belts, only for the driver.

David Wong, a manager in the Sky Express office in Charlotte, declined to comment. A telephone message left Tuesday for his attorney, Ruth Yang, wasn’t immediately returned.

The records show the company uses 31 motor coaches and 53 drivers, as of May 20. It last underwent a compliance review on April 7.

Sky Express offers $30 bus trips between New York and 15 cities in North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. It also goes to Washington, D.C.

Tuesday’s deaths come about two and a half months after a horrific New York City accident that focused attention on bus safety. On March 12, a speeding bus returning to Chinatown from a Connecticut casino toppled off an elevated highway and hit a utility pole, peeling off the roof. Fifteen passengers were killed and 18 injured.

The fleets of inexpensive buses plying the highways of the Northeast offer cheap fares, convenient routes and in some cases free wireless Internet. Customers are picked up daily from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. Fares are cheap — $10 to $15 for a ride from Boston to New York, compared with $70 or more on Amtrak.

The industry is in the fifth year of a solid boom, thanks to a new breed of bus service that eschews terminals and thrives on low prices. But a string of fatal crashes over six months also has prompted calls for tougher regulation.

Federal authorities say nearly 2,800 spot safety checks of passenger buses across the country from March 28 through April 6 resulted in about 10 percent of the vehicles or drivers being taken off the road.

A series of proposals announced in May by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood would make it easier for the government to take away bus drivers’ commercial licenses if they violate drug and alcohol laws while operating a vehicle other than a bus or if they fail to pay fines.

Passenger Frances Lippette, 69, a retired New York schoolteacher who lives in Raleigh, uses Sky Express about every six weeks to visit her daughter in New York.

She went to the ticket office pick up her seat assignment for a bus that’s scheduled to depart Tuesday night.

“Normally, somebody would be here to get your seat assignment,” she said.

Instead, the glass booth was dark.

She pays less than half the price of a name-brand bus company for the 8-hour ride. It costs $30 each way.

Lippette said Sky Express was “no worse than Greyhound.”

She has noticed drivers speaking in Chinese using a headset. But “I’ve never seen a driver not alert,” she said.

Around the corner from where a Sky Express bus arrived in New York is an office for various bus companies. A sign in the window listed Sky Express schedules and prices. However, a woman at the desk said Sky Express was no longer located there. She handed over a card with phone numbers on it. None of the numbers worked or the mailbox was full.

BOWLING GREEN, Va. (AP) — A commercial tour bus traveling to New York City went off Interstate 95 in Virginia and flipped on its roof before dawn Tuesday, killing four people and injuring many more, state police said.

Sgt. Thomas Molnar says 58 people were on board, including the driver. The injured were taken to 11 Richmond and Fredericksburg-area hospitals. Duffel bags, luggage and broken glass still littered the highway hours after the crash.

The Sky Express Inc. bus was en route from Greensboro, N.C., to New York City’s Chinatown when it strayed off the interstate, hit an embankment and flipped, Molnar told reporters at a briefing. The bus has since been righted but remains at the scene.

The bus left Greensboro at 10:30 p.m. Monday night. It had seatbelts for the driver but not for the passengers.

State police believe the likely cause was driver fatigue but are still investigating, Molnar said. He said the driver, who hasn’t been identified, suffered minor injuries and is cooperating with the probe. The driver has not been charged, Molnar said.

The deaths come about two and a half months after a horrific New York City accident that focused attention on bus safety. In that March 12 crash, a speeding bus returning to Chinatown from a Connecticut casino toppled off an elevated highway and hit a utility pole, peeling off the roof. Fifteen passengers were killed and 18 injured.

Federal authorities say nearly 2,800 spot safety checks of passenger buses across the country from March 28 through April 6 resulted in about 10 percent of the vehicles or drivers being taken off the road.

David Wong, a manager in the Sky Express office in Charlotte, N.C., declined to comment. A telephone message left Tuesday for his attorney, Ruth Yang, wasn’t immediately returned.

Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center has 10 people in stable condition, but no details were released about the extent of their injuries. VCU spokeswoman Anne Buckley says the hospital expects more patients to be transferred there from other hospitals.

Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg treated eight patients, whose injuries ranged from critical to minor. Spokeswoman Deborah Morris says one has been released. Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center officials said in a release that it treated eight people for minor injuries.

The accident shut down the northbound lanes of I-95, which weren’t expected to reopen for several hours.

Associated Press writer Zinie Chen Sampson contributed to this report from Richmond, Va.

Reports indicate an Escambia County school bus was taking Pine Forest High School students home when the bus-van wreck occurred.

A van, whose driver was unidentified, was reportedly traveling northbound on Green Street. The bus, whose driver was also unidentified, was traveling westbound on West Avery. At approximately 12:40 p.m., the van sideswiped the driver’s side of the school bus for unknown reasons.

According to 25-year-old Justin Warner, “I ran up there to see if anyone was hurt then called 911… People do at least 40 (mph) around this corner everyday; it’s dangerous.” Warner was apparently smoking a cigarette outside his home when he witnessed the accident.

Emergency medical services (EMS) teams arrived at the scene to rush a student and the bus driver’s assistant to Sacred Heart Hospital. The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear.

The driver of the van managed to escape injury in the crash but was subsequently arrested. Officials from the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) allegedly believed alcohol might have been a factor in the collision. It was not stated if the van driver was formally charged with DUI after the incident.

Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) authorities stated 28-year-old motorist, Timothy Freitas, was traveling westbound on Nine Mile Road when he attempted to make a left turn onto Scenic Highway. Upon doing so, his pickup truck drove into the path of an eastbound motorcycle. The pickup truck and motorcycle collided, ejecting 45-year-old motorcyclist Gary Warrington and his 34-year-old passenger Amber Bixler. Bixler reportedly landed in the bed on the truck after being thrown from the bike.

While emergency medical personnel responded to the scene to transport those injured to area hospitals, Warrington was killed in the motorcycle wreck. Bixler was taken to Sacred Heart Hospital in serious condition. Neither Warrington nor Bixler were wearing helmets at the time. Freitas did not suffer any injuries in the pickup truck-motorcycle crash.

It was not stated if any controlled substances and/or speed appeared to be factors in the collision. FHP troopers are expected to continue their investigation into the fatal motorcycle-involved accident.

David Magrino, 48, also was charged with failure to maintain a single lane after the driver’s side of his van struck the rear driver’s side of the bus, which was headed west on West Avery Street on Tuesday, the FHP said.

A witness told troopers that Magrino veered off the road as he headed east on Green Street then steered back onto road hitting the bus.

There were five Pine Forest High School students on the bus, and one suffered minor injuries. The bus driver’s assistant, Virginia Evans, 58, also suffered minor injures, the FHP said. The driver of the bus, Anna Marie Bingham, 42, and the other four students aboard were not injured.

The accident occurred near Exit 6 in Braintree. At least three lanes are currently closed, and troopers are trying to open the breakdown lane to help traffic flow, State Police said. The entire roadway was shut down for a short time.

While it’s not a new problem in the state it has become worse as residents struggle with the recession and high unemployment. The most common scams involve owners dumping their vehicles in canals because they can no longer afford to pay their bills.

More recently rings began staging accidents so they could bill insurance companies for millions of dollars in bogus claims. According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, from 2007 to 2009 there were 511 staged accidents in Miami, 562 in Tampa and 422 in Orlando. The NICB adds that nearly one out of every four phony car accidents in the U.S. came out of Florida.

Staged accidents have become such a problem that the NICB has videos on its website to expose how these carefully choreographed scams work.

The financial losses to the insurance companies have been tremendous and the problem is reportedly getting worse.

There have been more than two dozen arrests statewide this year alone for scams involving phony accidents and no one expects this pace to slow down anytime soon.

The crash took place just after 4:30 PM at the railroad tracks just north of Highway 3132 near the intersection of Ashley Ridge Boulevard and Line Avenue in South Shreveport. It involved a Union Pacific locomotive and a Chrysler Concord.

The passenger, has been identified as Marion Hirsch, 86, of Shreveport. She was pronounced dead at the scene by the Caddo Parish Coroner’s office. Her 92-year-old husband, who was driving at that time, was transported to LSUHC with non-life threatening injuries and is expected to make a full recovery.

Preliminary on-scene investigation reports say that the driver drove the vehicle into the side of a moving train. The exact cause of the accident is still under investigation by the Shreveport Police Department to determine exactly what factors contributed to this crash.

The impact from the collision caused at least 200 gallons of diesel fuel to leak from the train prompting Union Pacific Railroad to commission a clean-up crew from North Little Rock to remove the spilled combustible from the area; this spill does not pose a health hazard to the community.