The obvious problem then being that the routes are too long.
You have to wonder if there isn't some kind of carpool incentive the school could give to parents to get rid of 90-100% of buses. How many stay at home parents with 9-passenger vehicles would be willing to make $500/month by filling their minivan with other kids when they deliver their own kid as they were going to do regardless?
Cheaper than buses, kids spend less time sitting in vehicles because there are 8 kids instead of 30, fewer vehicles (and especially fewer huge diesel buses) on the road because those parents were driving their kids anyway.
I actually did the math on this in my district. Based on the cost data they published, it costs (roughly) $1.5-2/ride on our school bus system. Allowing 20 minutes for pick up and drop off, no current ride-sharing system I know about would be cost competitive, but its a relatively close thing.
RE carpooling, this probably cost competitive but their are other factors that make this harder than you think. Buses are allowed exemptions to booster seat rules, minivans aren't- do you leave the van full of car of booster seats all day? Do kids carry their own? My kindergartener still has issues buckling their self in in a crowded car, that really pushes up pickup/drop off time spent. How do you get kids to school if the primary driver is sick or has car trouble? Who is liable for accidents? Do you randomly drug/alcohol test your parents?
None of these are insolvable, but they also aren't easy.
School busing in the era of autonomous vehicles gets a lot more interesting- you could have much smaller and efficient pick up routes. However, I think it will take (US at least) society a while before they are willing to leave 4-8 children alone in a car for 30 minutes a day. It just takes a couple 5th graders fighting in a car before the district decides supervision is needed.
> Buses are allowed exemptions to booster seat rules, minivans aren't
Buses are allowed exemptions for pragmatic reasons, not safety reasons. Whatever the rule is, it should be the same for both, in which case there is no relative advantage. If you're not willing to allow it for a minivan, why are you willing to allow it for a bus? (This also doesn't apply to high school students who don't need them anyway.)
> How do you get kids to school if the primary driver is sick or has car trouble?
How do you do it when the school bus driver is? You maintain some level of reserve and you send someone else.
> Who is liable for accidents?
The insurance company. The better question is who pays for the insurance, but considering that the school would already be paying for it for a school bus, it still doesn't appear to be any disadvantage for the school either way.
> Do you randomly drug/alcohol test your parents?
They're voluntarily choosing to drive someone else's kids for money. If you want to do that and they don't, they don't get put on the roster and don't get paid. It seems like the only real question is whether (or how often) it's worth the cost given the expected probability of drug abuse in your parent population.
> Federal agencies like the National Highway Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have long maintained that even without seat belts, school buses are the safest mode of transportation for children. Between 2005 and 2014, NHTSA reported 1,191 crashes involving school buses or other vehicles functioning as school buses. That makes up less than 1 percent of the 331,730 fatal collisions in those 10 years. Among the 133 people who die each year on average in related crashes, only 11 are bus passengers or drivers.
However, that doesn’t help when the bus collides with an immovable object, so the rules are being reconsidered.
> Buses are allowed exemptions for pragmatic reasons, not safety reasons.
No, buses are safer, period, even without seatbelts. Occupants of bigger vehicles have much better outcomes in auto collisions, and buses are some of the biggest vehicles on the road.
Also, most school buses don't do much freeway driving... Not having a seatbelt in 25 mph collision is one thing. Not having a seatbelt in a 70 mph collision is lethal.
> No, buses are safer, period, even without seatbelts. Occupants of bigger vehicles have much better outcomes in auto collisions, and buses are some of the biggest vehicles on the road.
By causing much worse outcomes for occupants of the other vehicle or pedestrians in the same collision. Not really something you want to have around your schools and homes where your kids may be the pedestrians or occupants of the other vehicles.
It's also no help for single-vehicle collisions, which are nearly two thirds of auto collisions. 12 ton bus vs. 2000 ton overpass, overpass wins.
In addition to the unfortunate high center of gravity that increases the probability of rollovers (which are especially likely to cause injury without seatbelts).
> Also, most school buses don't do much freeway driving... Not having a seatbelt in 25 mph collision is one thing. Not having a seatbelt in a 70 mph collision is lethal.
Which is a reason why statistics make school buses appear safer than they actually are -- a minivan picking up the same kids would be on the same roads with the same traffic speeds, even if the "average" minivan would be on different roads traveling at higher speeds.
That may even be a good basis for the rule -- car seat required if traveling more than 35MPH.
> By causing much worse outcomes for occupants of the other vehicle or pedestrians in the same collision. Not really something you want to have around your schools and homes where your kids may be the pedestrians or occupants of the other vehicles.
This has nothing to do with whether or not bus riders need to wear seat belts.
> It's also no help for single-vehicle collisions, which are nearly two thirds of auto collisions. 12 ton bus vs. 2000 ton overpass, overpass wins.
> In addition to the unfortunate high center of gravity that increases the probability of rollovers (which are especially likely to cause injury without seatbelts).
You're making buses sound like deathtraps. And yet, per passanger-mile traveled, they, despite lacking seatbelts, are two orders of magnitude safer then personal automobiles. [1] 0.11 deaths/billion miles, versus 7.3 deaths.
Buses, the way we currently use them, are much safer then cars. This isn't even a point of debate.
You are right in "the way we currently use them", but that doesn't make buses inherently as safe as you imply. Buses get professional, trained drivers, subject to substance abuse testing and rest laws, consistently driving the same route. In the resource you shared, it looked like professionally driven cars (presumably mostly taxis and town cars? from 2000-2009) also had dramatically lower death rates, although they didn't give the deaths/passenger mile number.
All kinds of liability problems with that. School bus drivers are presumably vetted and trained to deal with not just getting from point A to point B, but dealing with students along the way.
School bus driver "vetting" is checking their driving and criminal record and "training" is essentially how to operate a large vehicle. The first could still be done, the second doesn't apply.
And the liability issues all seem to go the other way, don't they? Buses are less safe (they don't even have seatbelts), problematic incidents involve a larger number of students, the buses are more officially associated with the schools, etc. And actual parents obviously have better incentives to make sure their kids are safe than someone who is only doing it for a paycheck.
In 9th grade, my bus driver let an obviously angry man onto the bus.
Some kids threw peanuts out the window and into his car. He followed us to the next stop and pounded on the door. She courteously opened the door and in he came, shouting the whole way.
The awkwardness was compounded when I realized I had known this man for 10 years.
I don’t have a very high opinion of bus driver training.
