Things that make you go "WTF?"

[unixronin]

Something I've thought about before, and which Pirate asked about on the way to the school bus stop this morning.  Most states these days have mandatory seat-belt laws for everyone.  Here in New Hampshire, seat belt use is recommended for everyone, but still mandatory for children (up to age 18, actually).  You can be cited and fined for not having a seat belt on your child.

So how come school buses don't have seat belts?

On a slightly different subject, NPR reported on the way back from the bus stop that medical insurers in New Hampshire are considering not paying hospitals to treat conditions caused by medical errors.

Sure makes sense to me... if I'm a mechanic, and I'm working on your car, and I fuck something up that was fine when you brought the car in, you should expect it to get fixed on my dime, not yours.  Why should a hospital be any different?

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The first two, I can see. The third, not so much. I'd think it's going to just reinforce what they should be learning from their parents anyway.

"You wear your seatbelt in your parents' car, right?"
"Uh, yeah ..."
"Then you can wear it on my bus."

I don't see much to #4. Typically only a few kids get on and off at each stop, and it's not like they all have to line up to fasten and undo their seat belts. That operation parallelizes insanely well.

#5 ... well, there's a point, but isn't the driver supposed to keep the kids from fighting on the bus anyway? Far as I've heard, if your kid starts fights on the bus more than about once or twice, the bus company will tell you, "Your kid's not riding the bus any more, take him to school yourself."

[7leaguebootdisk.livejournal.com]

Here in CA it just would not be much of a win, at least not for full sized buses, but we don't have many mountains for them to drive off. They are twice as safe as any other states (well, 20 years ago when I drove them they were), but that is because they make the driver get out and escort the students when they cross the street, unlike every other state. The majority of fatal school bus accidents occur out side the bus (7 or 8 year old boy on a Tuesday going under the bus after something they dropped after getting off).

Given how few car drivers payed attention to my cross over lights (some ignored me with my stop sign, driving around me.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

[CA school buses] are twice as safe as any other states (well, 20 years ago when I drove them they were), but that is because they make the driver get out and escort the students when they cross the street, unlike every other state.

Here in NH, the drivers aren't allowed to have kids under 10 years old cross the street. If there's kids that need to get off on the other side of the street, the driver has to go up, turn around, and let them off on the other side on the way back. The parents up here in Gilford Acres get to drop kids off at the end of Mountain Drive in the morning, but in the afternoon we can pick the elementary-school kids up five minutes earlier by picking them up at the mouth of Area Drive, a hundred feet down 11A on the other side. The one local parent who walks still picks up at Mountain Drive, not to have to cross 11A.