AREA BUSES INSPECTED AFTER BRAKE WARNING

Cape Girardeau area school buses appear to be in the clear after a major school bus builder last week warned of possible brake system defects.

Thomas Built Buses of High Point, N.C., warned school districts throughout the country that brake systems on about 6,000 buses might by faulty.

However, most Cape Girardeau area schools and school bus services do not use Thomas buses.

Vince Bowman, safety coordinator for Ryder Student Transportation in Cape Girardeau, said his company uses Blue Bird buses, among others, and said he has not received recall or service bulletins from those manufacturers.

But, Bowman said, when he heard about the possible problems with Bendix brake systems, which are used on the Thomas buses, Ryder mechanics checked all the company's buses anyway to make sure they did not have Bendix brakes.

"We've already check these here, and we've got no problems," Bowman said.

"In this area, we don't have any of those type of buses, and if we do have a problem at our particular location, we've got a good service department."

Ryder provides buses for Cape Girardeau schools and for Shawnee, Egyptian and Meridian schools in Illinois.

According to letters sent by Thomas to school districts, the anti-lock brake systems had the potential to lose temporary braking capability because of an electronic malfunction.

Carol Woods, who works in the Office of Transportation in the Jackson School District, said the district's fleet does not have any Thomas buses and said she has not received notice of recalls or warnings for any of the other buses.

The Scott City School District also does not use Thomas buses, according to superintendent Roger Tatum.

"In fact, we do not have any buses with air brakes, so we lucked out on that one," Tatum said. "There was a recall on a steering mechanism on new Blue Birds, but all we had to do was get a mechanic to check it out. It took about five minutes."

Tatum, like Woods, said their school districts do regular bus inspections and likely would already have been aware of a brake problem.

"Safety things you want to take care of very quickly," Tatum said.