School buses are already extremely safe, and your child is highly unlikely to have any sort of accident, much less injury while riding a school bus in the US.
Would you send your kids to school on a self driving schoolbus?
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Re: Would you send your kids to school on a self driving schoolbus?
#32[deleted]
Re: Would you send your kids to school on a self driving schoolbus?
#33This is a side note: It's really interesting to me that whenever anyone talks about homeschooling children the point that is always raised by someone is that if children never leave the home then how will they learn to socialize with children their own age. Similarly, whenever people talk about skipping grades for exceptionally bright children someone always brings up socialization. Yet here we see many people talk a…
You're describing two completely different types of socialization though.
The first two are examples of a single children missing out on key childhood socialization "training" that will help them as they grow older. The third example is of leaving many children unsupervised to do as they will.
Sure, kids do need to learn to socialize in large groups, but leaving them unsupervised on a self driving bus is a recipe for disaster, and not at all the same as kids being home schooled or skipping grades.
Re: Would you send your kids to school on a self driving schoolbus?
#34This is a side note: It's really interesting to me that whenever anyone talks about homeschooling children the point that is always raised by someone is that if children never leave the home then how will they learn to socialize with children their own age. Similarly, whenever people talk about skipping grades for exceptionally bright children someone always brings up socialization. Yet here we see many people talk a…
I think you are underestimating how much of that socialization is supervised by adults (even passively), especially for younger kids.
Re: Would you send your kids to school on a self driving schoolbus?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm also in the no supervision would be a disaster boat, but just to clarify the concept bus only has 6 seats. "The design was influenced by campfires and dinner tables, and it ensures there’s no one sitting behind anyone else–likely reduced hair pulling and teasing as a result."
Sounds like a perfect torture chamber for that one kid who is a bully.
sounds like a great place for teens to get intimate on the sly.
Re: Would you send your kids to school on a self driving schoolbus?
#36Don't know how many people on HN have ever driven a school bus full of kids, but its a lot more than "Point A to Point B". Its fairly common for kids in K-6 to not know: - Home Address - Home/Parents Phone Number - Last Name (you'd be surprised at how common this was) Thats not to mention what to do in the event of an emergency. Just play out the follow events in your mind with a bus full of kids and no trained adult…
>- Last Name (you'd be surprised at how common this was) How does this happen? Is knowing your surname just a weird European thing?
Young kids in the US are usually addressed by first name at home and at school, so maybe they simply do not get enough practice with their last name to automatically remember it?
I bet that with most kids who don't remember when you ask them their last name would remember if you asked them what people like appliance repair people, exterminators, receptionists at the doctor's office, or their parents' bosses call their parents. They may hear those enough to remember them.
Re: Would you send your kids to school on a self driving schoolbus?
#37If there is no driver to pay it probably doesn't make sense to put 20 or 30 kids on one bus. Around here (a larger rural county) there are kids that ride the bus for really long periods of time, like more than an hour each way. Much of that time is picking up other kids. I mean, I fully expect penny pinching to win the day, but it would be evil not to take the lower operating costs of a self driving vehicle and give…
[deleted]
Re: Would you send your kids to school on a self driving schoolbus?
#38With a supervising official on board, yes. And a web enabled streaming channel just in case.
Re: Would you send your kids to school on a self driving schoolbus?
#39The only problem I can see with this is when you have a neighborhood of kids that all go to the same school (which I think is pretty typical in most US areas), six people just isn't going to be enough. I realize six is a tradeoff, but at my bus-stop in high school, we had 12-15 kids that all caught the bus.
The article implies that smaller vehicle capacities means routes are more specialized and riders are picked up directly from the home instead of bus stops. The alternative, picking up 10+ riders at their homes, is quite inefficient in terms of route length and thus, in most cases, a longer ride time too. This of course comes at the expense of having a larger quantity of smaller vehicles.
Re: Would you send your kids to school on a self driving schoolbus?
#40Does it have quick-release seatbelts and/or slow release airbags?
Is it safer than the current offerings in protecting children of different ages?