“DEATH-TRAPS"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23219, 17 June 1937, Page 10

“DEATH-TRAPS"

DILAPIDATED BUSES CHILDREN’S LIVES ENDANGERED (Per United Press Association) CHRISTCHURCH, June 16. "It is criminal for the drivers to carry little children in such deathtraps as those buses are," said Mr T. H. Langford, No. 3 Transport Licensing Authority, at a meeting of the Canterbury School Committees’ Asso ciation this evening.

Speaking as a delegate to the associa tion, Mr Langford vigorously condemned the condition of many of the buses used in various parts of the Dominion to.carry children to schools. “ It is an appalling state of affairs,” he said. “ How these buses can be allowed on the road I do not know. They certainly would not get a certificate of fitness. Yet the little children they carry are the most precious of freight, and they travel constantly in danger of serious injury.” Mr Langford said that these buses did not come under his jurisdiction as a transport licensing authority. He had frequently complained unsucessfully of their condition long before he was associated officially with transport. Only that day he had received a report from one of his officers on one school bus which certainly was not fit to be on the road. This bus was a mere box with a ramshackle chassis, worth in all about £2O. There was only one door into the compartment used by the children, which was nearly four feet off the ground. The exhaust pipe was rusted through for a distance of several inches directly below the carburettor, and all that was needed for a tragedy was for the engine to backfire. The whole of the steering gear was in need of overhaul, one link being worn halfway through by rubbing against a tyre. Practically every mechafiical feature of the car was faulty, even the rear wheels being loose on the axles. The only parts of the car not in need of overhaul were the headlights. Some of these buses were badly overcrowded, Mr Langford continued. Ho had seen one with 47 children in a comparatively small area. They were breeding grounds for disease apart from their dangerous mechanical condition. There was such trouble with buses all over the country.

The meeting decided to recommend its executive to frame a remit to the conference of the New Zealand School Committees’ Association drawing attention to the state of many school buses, and asking that something be done to improve them.