NHTSA Stops Autonomous School Bus Company from Transporting Children to School

cageymaru

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The regulators at the NHTSA have issued a letter to Transdev North America to immediately stop transporting children to school on their new innovative autonomous school bus. Transdev says that the EZ10 Generation II driverless shuttle was picking up children in an controlled environment in the Babcok Ranch community in Southwestern Florida without issue. Transdev has a temporary importation authorization to bring the bus in for testing and demonstration purposes, but the NHTSA says that carrying children to school was never part of Transdev's approved test project. The self driving bus has a top speed of 8mph with the potential to reach 30 mph with the necessary infrastructure upgrades in place. The shuttle service was available as an on demand, door to door service utilizing an integrated app.

"Innovation must not come at the risk of public safety," said Heidi King, NHTSA Deputy Administrator. "Using a non-compliant test vehicle to transport children is irresponsible, inappropriate, and in direct violation of the terms of Transdev's approved test project,"

The company said it believed the pilot met the requirements of the testing and demonstration project approved by NHTSA for adults and children to ride on the same route. It added that it did not sacrifice safety for progress, would never do so, and was committed to complying with regulations.
 
I wonder who the parents of the year are that let their kids get on this thing....I wonder if they thought about the whole safety aspect of it while they were uploading the 4k clips to YouTube..........
 
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I wonder who the parents of the year are that let their kids get on this thing....I wonder if they thought about the whole safety aspect of it while they were uploading the 4k clips to YouTube..........
pretty sure they had to ride it with their kids.. but the thing goes 8mph in a closed community, wtf risk is there? that it might go 9mph?
 
Full of kids, It drives off the road in to a pond? If the thing is only going 8mph and has to make multiple stops it's faster to walk to school anyway
Air conditioning. It gets extremely hot and humid down here 50 out of 54 weeks of the year.

That said, I walked 2 miles home from the bus stop in the same weather every day when I was in school.
 
Full of kids, It drives off the road in to a pond? If the thing is only going 8mph and has to make multiple stops it's faster to walk to school anyway
Funny thing when I was in middle school my bus stop was about the same distance from my school. I just walked. I was one of the first stop so I had to be up early to catch it and then drive around on it for 45 mins before getting to school. I rather sleep a extra 45 mins and take then 5 min walk to school.
 
Our Values

Around the World, Our Teams Share a Set of Core Beliefs

Around the world, we share a common set of core beliefs. They are made up of our Credo, uncompromising safety; ethics; values; and our corporate social responsibility.

Are those their legitimate values listed? That's so low effort, not to mention redundant.
 
Could you imagine being stuck in traffic behind this bus that moves at 8mph?

I gotta be honest man.....most of the buses I'm stuck behind sure *feel* like they're moving at 8mph, with only the occasional burst of Diesel Smoke to indicate forward movement....

But if they were actually moving at 8mph...yeah, true, I'd be on the roof with the magnum going full CNN-Breaking-News.......agreed.

#brutal
 
Babcock Ranch is a closed community that has been built to be "The town of the Future". Kind of like paying to live in a lame version of tomorrow land.
 
Air conditioning. It gets extremely hot and humid down here 50 out of 54 weeks of the year.

That said, I walked 2 miles home from the bus stop in the same weather every day when I was in school.

I grew up in the south and we never had any air conditioning on our buses. You rolled down the windows. They've only recently started speccing AC for buses within the last 10 years.
 
I grew up in the south and we never had any air conditioning on our buses. You rolled down the windows. They've only recently started speccing AC for buses within the last 10 years.
Same. Kids don't know how good they have it these days with dark tinting and air conditioning. Freshman year in high school my stop was the last of a 90 minute ride, at which point I had that 20-22 minute 2 mile walk I mentioned earlier.
 
Same. Kids don't know how good they have it these days with dark tinting and air conditioning. Freshman year in high school my stop was the last of a 90 minute ride, at which point I had that 20-22 minute 2 mile walk I mentioned earlier.
Don't forget seat belts today if they are equipped with them. No such thing back in the day. I had to ride the bus across town (1+ hour) because I was in the IB program, only one high school here at the time had it. Kids today shouldn't complain at all.
 
This is a location that really never should have a driverless position. A bus driver frequently has to intervene in the dumassary of kids and without that alone you will have large issues.
 
I grew up in the south and we never had any air conditioning on our buses. You rolled down the windows. They've only recently started speccing AC for buses within the last 10 years.

cough and threw things out the window into traffic cough.. :) i can neither confirm nor deny that i may or may not have possibly done this as a kid, lol. btw fuck school buses, i prefered walking the 1.25 miles to school every day then ride in those disease infested death traps.
 
This is a location that really never should have a driverless position. A bus driver frequently has to intervene in the dumassary of kids and without that alone you will have large issues.


watching the video, at the end when it reaches the school, you see an adult step out first then direct the kids.. so there is someone in there.

also, looks to be a private enclosed stepford style community, LOL, from the video.
 
Ummm, that it might drive right out in front of a semi rig doing 45mph

There are no semi's in that gated community, I'm surprised they allow cars at all and don't force everyone to use segways
 
watching the video, at the end when it reaches the school, you see an adult step out first then direct the kids.. so there is someone in there.

also, looks to be a private enclosed stepford style community, LOL, from the video.

If only it was possible to have that one person drive the bus
 
There are no semi's in that gated community, I'm surprised they allow cars at all and don't force everyone to use segways

Can vehicles not exit that community?

Are they stuck their, armed guards at the gates?

Is that bus not physically able to leave, at 8mph?

The barriers you trust that keep that vehicle inside it's intended testing grounds may not be so great? What if it decides to "Phone Home" in person? Just drives off the reservation?

Are you thinking that the software controls that keep that vehicle inside it's testing grounds are any more trustworthy than the software that allowed that Uber taxi to run over a pedestrian walking acrossed the road with a bicycle in hand?
 
"Innovation must not come at the risk of public safety,"

We hate innovation. Dont want none o that.
 
To be fair if the test that was approved did not include transport of kids, then they have a legit concern.

I'm all for development of things like this, but testing needs to be controlled fully during refinement.

Seriously, I want this.
 
So ? You send off your kids to school at 5 in the morning, and then they will be there on time.
I prefer the Danish way:
1: teach them to ride a bicycle.
2: send them off 30 minutes before class, and tell them to push those pedals hard.

This are however a thing that are on the way out as parents are much worried about traffic near schools, which pretty much consist of other parents on the way to drop their kids off. :rolleyes:

"How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress."
 
It does seem a bit silly to test-drive automation tech with children onboard... I mean, I understand that it isn't difficult to do, and it's easy to prove the tech, but "test" and "children on board" is going to piss off lots of people regardless of those facts. That would be more of a last vestige of the automated driving transition.

Besides, vehicle automation doesn't have as much impact for buses. It's better reserved for uncommon routes and personal "chauffeur" services to optimize traffic. Buses already have most of that going for them. And I'm guessing that most places have some legal requirement that an adult is present with the children for unrelated legal reasons (like a guardianship or chaperone). It's just a silly idea at the core.
 
Unsupervised kids in an enclosed moving 5-10 thousand pound vehicle. What could possibly go wrong? Even w/o AI issues there's other things to consider.
 
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