All across New England, school bus doors are opening and kids are climbing on. Parents expect their kids to be safe as they ride to class. But we found many of these buses have serious safety issues and no one is doing what they should to fix them.
Clarence Ditlow, Center for Auto Safety"The situation you've uncovered is shocking, there's no other way to put it."
This bus in Lynnfield had defective brakes. On this one in Rockport: the steering could fail. This one in Scituate could have engine fires.
They are safety problems so potentially dangerous, the makers of the buses issued recalls, warning mechanics to fix them immediately. But that's not happening.
The feds knew the buses were unsafe. The manufacturers knew they were unsafe. But the school districts mechanics who were supposed to fix the problems, had no idea. Until we told them!
Hank Phillippi Ryan, 7News"This bus had an unrepaired recall and you didn't know it?"
Dennis Roy, Lynnfield DPW "Right,"
Hank Phillippi Ryan, 7News"What do you think about that?"
Dennis Roy, Lynnfield DPW "We were as shocked as anyone."
How could it happen? Hundreds of major safety problems are discovered each year on school buses. But federal law requires manufacturer's to mail just one recall notice. We found some times those letters never make it to the people who need to see them.
Clarence Ditlow, Center for Auto Safety "A recall that is not carried out can kill or injure a child."
In Rockport, we found every one of their school buses was recalled because the steering mechanism could fall apart, but administrators didn't know it.
Susan McNeilly, Rockport Public Schools "If these buses don't run right, there could be accidents."
In Lynnfield, we found this bus and this one and this one, needing urgent repairs. Their mechanics could have fixed them, but they didn't! Because these recall notices never arrived.
In Scituate, we found 2 unrepaired buses, the mechanic showed how the bolts holding the fan in place could have come loose.
Hank Phillippi Ryan, 7News"This is a real safety issue correct?"
Dave Raphel, Scituate school bus mechanic"It is an issue that I had to make a repair on."
Hank Phillippi Ryan, 7News"But you didn't know?"
Dave Raphel, Scituate school bus mechanic"I didn't know."
These are the recall notices that were supposed to be sent to Scituate, but they had actually been sent to a school in Maine! The first Scituate officials knew of the problem was when we told them.
Susan Martin, Scituate School Superintendent "I think that it's a major concern because it is the safety of our students, so the communication should have been more effective that receiving it from WHDH email."
How many school bus recall notices are never received? It's impossible to know–each school district would have to check each of their buses against hundreds of recalls–and not one school district we talked to does that.
Parents were shocked.
Parent"That could have serious repercussions for our children."
Parent "I am definitely surprised there isn't some format where things are double checked with recalls."
The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles inspects school buses. But the Registry is not notified of recalls. They're not required to check for them–and they don't. They refused to discuss this on camera–and said only: "We have no way of monitoring whether the federal system is effective or not."
Bottom line: is your child's bus getting the recall repairs it needs? Right now even those in charge of making sure may have no idea.
Susan Martin, Scituate School Superintendent "If we don't know that something's wrong, then something could go wrong. And that would be disastrous."
Officials tell us every bus we found with a problem has now been fixed. And as a result of our investigation all the schools in our story will take extra steps to find out if there are safety recalls they don't know about.
(Copyright (c) 2009 Sunbeam Television Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)