Luckily there were no children on board a school bus that lost its back wheels in Kelowna on Tuesday morning.
The bus ended up strewn sideways across Hollywood Road South.
The bus involved does not belong to the local school district. It’s owned by a private company called A1 Bus Ltd.
The unusual accident is raising questions about bus safety and what checks and balances are in place to prevent this type of crash.
A1 Bus Ltd. said the bus that crashed had just passed a mechanical inspection earlier this month.
Read More: Rear Wheels Fall Off Kelowna School Bus
The Ministry of Transportation said that school buses, like the one in the accident, that are not involved in a school district maintenance program, should be inspected twice a year. Those inspections cover all safety aspects of the bus including tires, suspension, steering and mechanics.
On top of that, officers from the Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement Branch (CVSE) also do their own mechanical inspections of school buses.
Schools buses owned by the Central Okanagan School District face a similar safety regime. The buses in the school district’s fleet are routinely checked when they reach specific mileage markers.
CVSE inspectors also visit the school district once a month to look at a sampling of between six and eight of their buses.
“We run a rigorous preventative maintenance program that is provincially approved, with ticketed mechanics, and the drivers inspect the buses every day,” said the school district’s transportation manager Dave Misener.
“We hope that through those actions we might find something if there is something there to find.”
The Transportation Ministry said that the investigation into Tuesday’s accident is ongoing and officials are still in the process of reviewing the bus’ maintenance and inspection record.
– with files from Blaine Gaffney
Comments