So many obstacles to this working! Vandalism, no adult supervision, even the extremely goofy design point that it can go forward or backward - both ends can be the front end - so others in traffic can be completely fooled about where its going next. Let's put our kids in a problematic tin can and make it move erratically! Not a genius idea.
You say that like those are impossible obstacles. It's been a while since I rode a school bus, but the driver wasn't exactly adult supervision, and there was plenty of vandalism already. If anything, a self-driving school bus would be a positive as it would then allow the former driver to actually focus on the kids.
Not sure I agree with the idea that others could be fooled by where it's going in traffic, given that it's programmed to obey traffic laws.
Adult supervision for extraordinary events (fire, collision, sick kid) is very feasible on an ordinary bus. We're not talking singing songs around the campfire, but a baseline of a responsible adult is very important.
It is always highly amusing when Silly Valley engineers pontificate on life outside their engineering bubble. The idea of the self driving adult free school bus is brought to you by the same people who brought you Juicero and Bodega.
As long as the device is safe, yes. As long as a device is statistically safer than a human, yes.
Would I let 20 kids sit in a room for two hours unsupervised? No. Should a school bus full of kids be supervised by someone who is supposed to be driving? No. Should the school bus driver be sending texts while driving, and while supervising 30 kids? No.
No steward in the plan? The plan is, cheaper than busses. Hiring an adult for every 5 kids (only 6 seats) is prohibitively more expensive than 1 for 60 in a regular bus.
And volunteers don't work either - if they drove to school to ride along with the kids, why didn't they just drive them home themselves?
Don'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 adults:
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.
Surprising to hear. I’m in New Zealand and can’t think of any situation where I’m called by my last name. Once a staff member at a nice hotel called me by my last name and my 5 year old fell about laughing.
I checked last night when I got home. My daughter just said "I don't know" when I asked her what her last name is. She turns 3 today. My son did know though, so that's good.
Had to write my first and last name, date, and class on the top right corner of every assignment since first grade. This made learning my last name (way too long!) a routine thing. Was a boon as an ESL student.
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."
Wow, these people have a monumental lack of how bad kids are. My 7 year-old son got beat up on the playground with the adults supervising. Last year, when he was in another scuffle with 3:1 odds I went in to visit the principal and she not only failed to reprimand the perpetrators but also made my son apologize to them! This is the world we live in where ethnic minorities are given a pass for bad behavior at everyone else's expense. Until we solve this societal issue, I don't think drones, robots, or self-driving vehicles are going anywhere because there's too many shit heels who willfully cause harm for fun.
>but just to clarify the concept bus only has 6 seats.
And you think that will stop a middle school boys soccer team from tricking the sensors into thinking there's only six of them when there's really sixteen?
Kids can be quite smart when it comes to mischief.
I don’t know if it will or won’t. My intention was to point out information from the article that the OP seemingly missed. That information would have further informed their opinion, had they not read the article, but perhaps not altered it.
FWIW, I agree with you that no doubt kids would find a way to mess with this thing.
I remember walking to school myself when I was six, and taking a regular city bus every day since age seven. It was fine, never had a problem really.
A self-driving bus from door to door would have been fun... But on the other hand, getting familiar with the city environment by walking was useful at that age too.
(This was in Finland. I know Americans don't really let their kids outside on their own anymore.)
I live in America and went to school in rural New York. We walked to school in elementary (primary?) even when it snowed. The only kids who got to ride a bus were unable to walk (broken legs etc). 30 years ago, but friends in my home town say kids still walk!
This is missing the point. You can't leave children alone for a long time without supervision. There may be bullies, or they may bring a screwdriver and start pulling the bus apart, drink beer, stick chewing gum, piss on seats, leave trash. Someone has to keep them in check. What if kids refuse to leave and block the bus ?
In my mind there would be supervision. It might just take the form of cameras and a remote monitoring system like how security guards watch multiple feeds. Then the parents/school admins will be notified of bad behavior for disciplinary reasons. In such a way, kids will learn fast they can’t get away with much.
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 about how leaving children unsupervised in a self driven bus is a recipe for disaster. Which seems to suggest that children socializing with their own age is a detriment to both society and the children themselves.
I'm sure nobody is using data to come up with these conclusions, but I find it interesting that the expectation is that kids socializing with kids is both the most important thing AND the worst possible thing.
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.
> Yet here we see many people talk about how leaving children unsupervised in a self driven bus is a recipe for disaster. Which seems to suggest that children socializing with their own age is a detriment to both society and the children themselves.
If 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 it to those kids as time.
Part of the problem with doing that is that it's not quite about filling the bus before going to school. It's usually done because there's only so many buses and they have to get X number of kids to the school on them, so the routes they take end up with some kids getting on and then riding for so long. That said more smaller self driving buses would help in dealing with that, which they can't do now due to the extra cost in personnel costs for drivers, but it'd also need cheaper buses to be able to afford enough of them. I'd also then expect them to try to convince other normal staff members to also ride the bus and act as a monitor instead of driving in themselves to further reduce costs.
Sure.
1. Put a bus monitor in an official looking uniform on the bus instead of a bus driver.
2. Have the bus route programmed into the bus.
3. Have each student badge/scan in to the bus, and determine which stops to make based on that.
4. Announce which student the stop is for, and have them badge/scan out.
5. Have a (opt-in) system that can alert parents if the student fails to scan in to the bus on the prescribed route.
This system could also be used for management of permission slips for students going home with friends, and help homeroom teachers determine which students came to school, but decided to skip class.
Can't help but concur, indeed. Sadly, I feel that I need to warn my children against this now. Plenty of harmless, curiosity-minded things that I did in high school 15 years ago could potentially result in a prison sentence these days. =(
My wife and I have a list of things our children will NOT have. Near the top of that is anything with a webcam or camera. I wonder if there are internet safety classes/camps for kids. Kind of like the scared straight prison visits?
Ok everyone, today we're going to meet John. When John was 13 he sent a "selfie" to his girlfriend. Now John is on the "Sex Offender List" and he can't get a job, or use a computer, or even live in most places...
I think children should be taught, aggressively, about the dangers of the internet, and in particular how easy it is for them to become victims. Fourth Period Internet Class.
The 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.
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.
A few comments have mentioned the problem of bullying and harassment if there is no adult on board to supervise, and the small size (6 kids) making it infeasible to put an adult on each bus.
Perhaps this could be addressed by assigning kids to buses in such a way that a given bus only carries kids that normally spend unsupervised time together? With such small buses it should be possible to make it so that each bus is only occupied by people who normally play unsupervised together outside of school.
Knowing how many school bus accident there are, between sleepy/drunk/drugged drivers and other factors, I'm ready to bet that once the tech is there, it'll be a WHOLE LOT safer for your kids. So, heck yeah.
Yes...eventually. Not the first obviously. Accidents do happen but like airplane crashes the self-driving ones will hit the news, ignoring the xxxx driver car accidents that week /month...
Just kidding of course, but a new paradigm shift ;-) is still possible.
We could lock each kid in a (shockproof and fireproof) "capsule" with a seat (to which the kid is tied with belts) by the parents at home and released by the teacher at school and viceversa on the way back.
The capsule would have a QR code, a smart tag and possibly also a two way communication cellular system (besides of course GPS).
The kid inside would have a tablet with Wi-Fi [1] so that he/she is entertained during the transport.
At this point there is no difference between the (poor) kid and a "package" and he/she/it can be loaded and unloaded by a robotic arm.
There would still be issues with the kids suffering from claustrophobia, though, and probably - from time to time - some slight incident involving the lack of prompt access to a bathroom/WC ...
[1] More seriously, I noticed in the last few years at the restaurant/pizzeria the trend of entire families where father and mother are immersed in their smartphones (each on their own), the bigger kid(s) are playing games in (each on thir own) tablets and the smaller kid(s) watching some cartoons on their tablet, sometimes fixed with a support/arm to the stroller ...
58 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 133 ms ] threadNot sure I agree with the idea that others could be fooled by where it's going in traffic, given that it's programmed to obey traffic laws.
Adult supervision for extraordinary events (fire, collision, sick kid) is very feasible on an ordinary bus. We're not talking singing songs around the campfire, but a baseline of a responsible adult is very important.
1) bullying
2) assault - especially sexual assault
3) harassment
It is always highly amusing when Silly Valley engineers pontificate on life outside their engineering bubble. The idea of the self driving adult free school bus is brought to you by the same people who brought you Juicero and Bodega.
Would I let 20 kids sit in a room for two hours unsupervised? No. Should a school bus full of kids be supervised by someone who is supposed to be driving? No. Should the school bus driver be sending texts while driving, and while supervising 30 kids? No.
And volunteers don't work either - if they drove to school to ride along with the kids, why didn't they just drive them home themselves?
Insurance and liability come to mind.
But I agree, its still a bad idea because of the inefficiency.
- 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 adults:
- Fire
- Break down on a major highway
- Collision with another vehicle
(Edit for formatting)
How does this happen? Is knowing your surname just a weird European thing?
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.
Then again, private school so YMMV.
"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."
And you think that will stop a middle school boys soccer team from tricking the sensors into thinking there's only six of them when there's really sixteen?
Kids can be quite smart when it comes to mischief.
FWIW, I agree with you that no doubt kids would find a way to mess with this thing.
A self-driving bus from door to door would have been fun... But on the other hand, getting familiar with the city environment by walking was useful at that age too.
(This was in Finland. I know Americans don't really let their kids outside on their own anymore.)
-For example, keep some modicum of discipline.
-Help in the event of emergency (health or otherwise)
-Guardian (against kidnapping, etc.)
That is to say, adult supervision may still be necessary.
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 about how leaving children unsupervised in a self driven bus is a recipe for disaster. Which seems to suggest that children socializing with their own age is a detriment to both society and the children themselves.
I'm sure nobody is using data to come up with these conclusions, but I find it interesting that the expectation is that kids socializing with kids is both the most important thing AND the worst possible thing.
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.
Kids can socialize even if they are supervised.
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 it to those kids as time.
Tesla to the rescue! /s
This system could also be used for management of permission slips for students going home with friends, and help homeroom teachers determine which students came to school, but decided to skip class.
/s
With a wry smile I cannot wait to see what the next generation of preteen hackers do with school-related automation.
Ok everyone, today we're going to meet John. When John was 13 he sent a "selfie" to his girlfriend. Now John is on the "Sex Offender List" and he can't get a job, or use a computer, or even live in most places...
I think children should be taught, aggressively, about the dangers of the internet, and in particular how easy it is for them to become victims. Fourth Period Internet Class.
Is it safer than the current offerings in protecting children of different ages?
Perhaps this could be addressed by assigning kids to buses in such a way that a given bus only carries kids that normally spend unsupervised time together? With such small buses it should be possible to make it so that each bus is only occupied by people who normally play unsupervised together outside of school.
We could lock each kid in a (shockproof and fireproof) "capsule" with a seat (to which the kid is tied with belts) by the parents at home and released by the teacher at school and viceversa on the way back.
The capsule would have a QR code, a smart tag and possibly also a two way communication cellular system (besides of course GPS).
The kid inside would have a tablet with Wi-Fi [1] so that he/she is entertained during the transport.
At this point there is no difference between the (poor) kid and a "package" and he/she/it can be loaded and unloaded by a robotic arm.
There would still be issues with the kids suffering from claustrophobia, though, and probably - from time to time - some slight incident involving the lack of prompt access to a bathroom/WC ...
[1] More seriously, I noticed in the last few years at the restaurant/pizzeria the trend of entire families where father and mother are immersed in their smartphones (each on their own), the bigger kid(s) are playing games in (each on thir own) tablets and the smaller kid(s) watching some cartoons on their tablet, sometimes fixed with a support/arm to the stroller ...
(That trains technically have operators, somewhere, is not the point. They aren't minding the kids on carriage 6.)
It is amazing what we must come up with because we have botched both a high trust society and public transport so very, very badly.