ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOX) - As students rev their engines preparing for the new school year, area school buses are running along nicely.

The Missouri State Patrol’s school bus inspections have had good results with 88% of buses in the St. Louis area passing the rigid inspection. Cpl. Jeff Wilson says that after the inspection of 12,000 buses, those that don’t get a green light are immediately removed from service.

“We give [school districts] a little time to make those corrections on those buses,” Wilson says. “Even though they got put out of service at the time those inspections were done, we re-inspected those buses and got them up to standards.”

He says there can also be spot checks of buses during the school year to make sure safety standards are maintained. However, Wilson says it’s not too uncommon for school districts to lack the funding to fix up the buses that fail inspection.

“It’s up to the school districts what they want to do,” he says. “Do they want to replace the bus, or do they want to totally take that bus out of their circulation and then expand their routes with the one bus that did pass.”

He says the poorer districts sometimes try to put buses back on the road without meeting the proper safety standards, but those re-inspections usually catch violations.

“We’re not going to let that didn’t meet the minimum standards on the road,” he says.

Wilson says the mechanics that conduct inspections are certified through the State Patrol, and inspections are done in the 60 days prior to the first day of school.

More Information: Missouri State Highway Patrol Inspections

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