DeKalb School Buses Undergo Annual State Inspection

All DeKalb County School buses on regular routes have passed state inspection.
State Troopers Darryl Winningham and Ronnie Simmons of the Tennessee Highway Patrol, inspectors for this district, completed their evaluation this week of all the buses in the fleet including the substitute buses.
“We do a complete level one inspection on the buses. We go from the bottom to the top and inside, outside. We check every bolt. Every nut, tire tread, brake pads, seats. We make sure the dash works and all the lights inside. We want to make sure everything is safe. We check tie rod ends. Everything about the vehicle. The buses are in pretty fair shape but we’re always going to find something. No matter how minor we still want to find everything we can find to get it all repaired. But they have done a great job here. The buses are in good shape. What little issues we are finding they are repairing on the spot,” Trooper Winningham told WJLE.
“We check the exhaust systems. We look for fuel leaks. Anything like that we check to make sure there’s none of that happening. All your emergency systems, we check those to make sure they are functioning properly. We go from the top to the bottom and front to the back. We check seat cushions, everything,” said Trooper Simmons.
Because of its age, one of the substitute buses has been removed from service.”One of the older buses was removed but it was just getting to the age where it needed to be pulled off,” added Trooper Winningham.
The inspectors conduct an annual inspection for three days in January but spots checks may be made during the year.”We spend three days now but we’ll be here more than this once a year. We also do 10% spot checks throughout the year. We just pull in and walk through the lot and say we want to check this bus or look at that bus. They pull them in and we’ll do a complete inspection on them again,” said Trooper Winningham
“We’ve got thirty eight buses in the fleet. We took one out of service due to age. It’s a 2001 model. This is the last year it would be on the road but with the miles on it and its age we decided it would be best to pull it out of service. It is a bus we used in substitute status. When we have a bus in the shop being repaired we keep some buses on the lot that we use as sub buses and this bus is one of those. We have four regular route sub buses and one special education sub bus,” said Transportation Supervisor Jimmy Sprague.