School bus brakes may fail, manufacturer says

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- One of the country's largest school bus builders is warning that 6,000 of its school buses may have defective brake systems and as many as 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.

No accidents have been directly linked to the brake systems. The problem was discovered by the system's maker, Bendix, 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.

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 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 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."

Thomas Built is one of several bus manufacturers that use the Bendix system, and the Thomas Built buses affected are only a fraction of the 46,000 buses believed to have the potentially defective brake systems, Nicholson said.

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

Calls to Bendix and 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.

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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