RE: Yellow School Buses
Tuesday 19th February 2002
Yellow School Buses
UK trials begin. Pity the poor sods who will drive them as they transport dozens of misbehaving kids to school
Discussion
I guess because it has all the lights and stuff on it ?? And I assume it's been modified so the door doesn't open onto the road rather than the pavement ??
Biggest challenge is going to be to make other motorists behave. In the US you can't overtake a stationary school bus and you can't even drive past it in the opposite direction. Good idea, but can you imagine Mr Impatient in his Vectra charging down a rat-run to save himself 3 nanoseconds sitting there and waiting while the kids file on and off the bus ? Neither can I....
Biggest challenge is going to be to make other motorists behave. In the US you can't overtake a stationary school bus and you can't even drive past it in the opposite direction. Good idea, but can you imagine Mr Impatient in his Vectra charging down a rat-run to save himself 3 nanoseconds sitting there and waiting while the kids file on and off the bus ? Neither can I....
Oh, and has anyone seen the KIA adverts ?
Basically saying buy this car, but don't use it to take the kids to school because it has all the stuff you need for a walking bus ? Or the one that says don't use it to go to the shops because here's a free bike to use instead ?
Excellent ads if you ask me - anything to get people to stop using their cars on short pointless journies has to be a good thing.
Basically saying buy this car, but don't use it to take the kids to school because it has all the stuff you need for a walking bus ? Or the one that says don't use it to go to the shops because here's a free bike to use instead ?
Excellent ads if you ask me - anything to get people to stop using their cars on short pointless journies has to be a good thing.
Can't remember whether it was California or Florida where I found myself on a four lane highway, quite busy with no-one using the outside lane - turned out that it was restricted to Yellow School buses only during school run hours - bugger is that that's a lot of the normal rush hour morning and afternoon....
Still a damn site better arrangement than having hundreds of parents having to take cars to the same place twice every day.
Still a damn site better arrangement than having hundreds of parents having to take cars to the same place twice every day.
Bloomin' excellent idea! Has Tony got something right at last!? I get fed up when I have to trail backwards and forwards to school, and I find it embarrassing to admit that I can't walk to school with my kids; but like a lot of single parents, I can't juggle my work and school runs to compliment each other. I usually walk home with the kids, because I can make space later in the day for it. I don't like being part of this problem, and welcome the idea of a bus to de-congest the roads, and make it safer for my children. Blair's pogrom on driving still really ****s me off though!!
Yellow buses are a great idea. I think the Kia idea is sh@te though. It presents the walking bus as some sort of solution. I for example live in Manchester where it rains 350 days of the year. I cannot believe getting kids soaking wet and then sending them into a classroom to steam for the next 6 hours is likely to improve learning. Buses are the answer, preferably petrol engined ones or LPG 
Surely making kids walk would have other benefits as well, like making them less sendantry and, therefore, unhealthy in later life and therefore putting less of a burden on the NHS ?
There are *way* too many people (myself included on oocasion) who use the car when, for the sake of an extra 10 or 15 minutes they could walk to the shops, station, school or wherever.
Kids are no different and the sooner they learn that we were born with legs, not wheels, for a reason then that, IMHO, has to be a good thing.
There are *way* too many people (myself included on oocasion) who use the car when, for the sake of an extra 10 or 15 minutes they could walk to the shops, station, school or wherever.
Kids are no different and the sooner they learn that we were born with legs, not wheels, for a reason then that, IMHO, has to be a good thing.
Nick - I agree entirely with what you say, but the problem is that most parents are alarmed and frightened by the threat of paedophiles, muggers etc etc.. of whom the threat is inculcated by the daily obsession of the media.
This is something which isn't going to go away until the scaremongering goes away and people realise that there is no greater threat from all this nastyness than there ever has been and their kids need to learn their own life skills outside with their peers rather than being sat in front of a PC or in car etc..
So the answer to reducing the congestion caused by this dilemma is a comprehensive school bus service - the muppets in government might just have got somehting right..
though I suspect that they're using a private company that will soon be striking on pay and conditions due to being overstretched and underpaid and dealing with horrible childrenb who bear weapons.. thereafter the company will go under and have to be bailed out by the Govt..
This is something which isn't going to go away until the scaremongering goes away and people realise that there is no greater threat from all this nastyness than there ever has been and their kids need to learn their own life skills outside with their peers rather than being sat in front of a PC or in car etc..
So the answer to reducing the congestion caused by this dilemma is a comprehensive school bus service - the muppets in government might just have got somehting right..
though I suspect that they're using a private company that will soon be striking on pay and conditions due to being overstretched and underpaid and dealing with horrible childrenb who bear weapons.. thereafter the company will go under and have to be bailed out by the Govt..
quote:
most parents are alarmed and frightened by the threat of paedophiles, muggers etc etc.. of whom the threat is inculcated by the daily obsession of the media.
This is something which isn't going to go away until the scaremongering goes away and people realise that there is no greater threat from all this nastyness than there ever has been and their kids need to learn their own life skills outside with their peers rather than being sat in front of a PC or in car etc..
Your absolutely correct. This does appear to be a chicken & egg situation.
On the one hand there is some risk in letting your kids out onto the street, but then how are they ever going to get streetwise and learn to assess risks themselves otherwise?
The media really do hype this up - I don't think statistically, it's any worse than in times gone by - and for most kids the worst their journey home is likely to comprise is the odd bout of amatuer pugilism, and the British weather. It never did me any harm!
OK, maybe I didn't make myself entirely clear...
I reckon there's a good percentage of the parents who drive their kids to school that could take the little bit of extra time required to walk their children to and from school rather than bundle them in the back of a people-carrier.
I agree buses are a good solution to children who have to come from slightly further afield but they shouldn't be provided for children within a certain radius of the school - say a mile. Maybe the schools could also apply a little pressure on those parents who could walk their children to school rather than driving them to help persuade them to make the switch ??
I reckon there's a good percentage of the parents who drive their kids to school that could take the little bit of extra time required to walk their children to and from school rather than bundle them in the back of a people-carrier.
I agree buses are a good solution to children who have to come from slightly further afield but they shouldn't be provided for children within a certain radius of the school - say a mile. Maybe the schools could also apply a little pressure on those parents who could walk their children to school rather than driving them to help persuade them to make the switch ??
Tell you what, better hope you don't run into one of those school bus things. They are deliberately designed at the back to channel cars underneath, as means of absorbing shock for the bus passengers.
What this means is, NO safety rail at the back, as per HGV trailers. Hit one in your Lotus, and you are going to DIE, as the back of the back is about 4ft off the road, and your head will leave your shoulders.
Think on it for a moment.
Other point, if they stop traffic overtaking, it'll be a nightmare!
C
What this means is, NO safety rail at the back, as per HGV trailers. Hit one in your Lotus, and you are going to DIE, as the back of the back is about 4ft off the road, and your head will leave your shoulders.
Think on it for a moment.
Other point, if they stop traffic overtaking, it'll be a nightmare!
C
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