SCHOOL BUSES CRITICIZED

Southland Times, Issue 23228, 17 June 1937, Page 4

SCHOOL BUSES CRITICIZED

Many Mechanical

Defects

DANGER OF GRAVE INJURY

DESCRIBED AS “DEATHTRAPS”

(United Press Association)

CHRISTCHURCH, June 16.

“It is criminal for the drivers to carry little children in such death-traps as those buses are,” said Mr T. H. Langford the No. 3 Transport Licensing Authority at a meeting of the Canterbury School Committees’ Association this evening.

Speaking as a delegate to the association 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 these buses did not come under his jurisdiction as a Transport Licensing Authority. He had frequently complained unsuccessfully of their condition long before he was associated officially with transport. Only today 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 in 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 carburetter and all that was needed for a tragedy was for the engine to back-fire. The whole of the steering gear was in need of overhaul, one link being worn half-way through by rubbing against the tyre. Practically every mechanical feature of the car was faulty, even the rear wheels being loose on the axles. The only parts of the car that were not in need of overhaul were the headlights. Some of these buses were badly overcrowded Mr Langford continued. He 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 that 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.