NATIONAL COALITION OF SCHOOL BUS SAFETY NEWS UP TO DEC. 2003

Company Warns on School Bus Brakes

By Cristine Gonzalez
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, Sept. 2, 2000; 8:32 p.m. EDT

PORTLAND, Ore. –– One of the country's largest school bus builders is warning that 6,000 of its school buses may have defective brake systems and 40,000 other buses may be affected nationwide.

The defect involves the anti-lock brake system on buses manufactured between March 1998 and last month, said Debi Nicholson, a spokeswoman for Freightliner Corp., the Portland-based parent company of Thomas Built Buses Inc.

When the buses are moving slowly, less than 20 miles per hour, they can temporarily lose their braking ability for up to three seconds, Nicholson said Saturday.

The problem was discovered by the brake system's maker, Bendix of Elyria, Ohio, which told Freightliner in June that a San Francisco school bus had experienced a "temporary loss of brake capability." The driver was able to bring the bus to a safe stop.

No accidents have been directly linked to the brake systems, and Bendix spokesman Rick Batyko said Saturday that the system's emergency brake still works.

Several other bus manufacturers use the same system, Batyko said. In all, more than 40,000 buses have potentially defective brake systems, he said. He said many of those buses were built by International.

Batyko said it is only under "very rare circumstances" that a school bus brake system would completely fail.

The brake system's electronic control units can "misinterpret" certain signals from the wheels, resulting in the temporary loss of braking capability "in one or more wheel positions," Thomas Built wrote in an Aug. 30 letter sent to hundreds of school districts nationwide.

The company said repair kits were being manufactured and would be shipped by November. Meanwhile, Freightliner dealerships are prepared to inspect buses around the clock, Nicholson said.

"We're certainly trying to react as quickly as possible," Nicholson said Saturday. "We wanted schools to have an opportunity to inspect their buses before school starts."

The two companies have discussed the problem with officials from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Calls to Thomas Built, based in High Point, N.C., were unanswered Saturday.

School officials can call Freightliner's help line – 800-FTL-HELP – to arrange inspections.

On the Net:
Thomas Built: http://www.thomasbus.com/base/
Freightliner: http://www.freightliner.com/
Bendix: http://www.bendix.com/
NHTSA: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov

© Copyright 2000 The Associated   

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