School Bus Tragedy

In the news now is the story of three children—two 6-year-old twin brothers and their 9-year-old sister—who were killed while trying to cross a two-lane road to get to their waiting school bus. An 11-year-old boy was also struck and is hospitalized with multiple broken bones. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is sending a “go-team” to the location to try to understand how the accident happened.

The news article reports the bus was stopped with its flashing lights turned on and its stop-sign-arm deployed. Folks, we don’t need the NTSB to figure out how this accident happened. I can tell the NTSB exactly how it happened. Somebody ignored the bus’s flashing lights and stop sign and blew past the stopped bus at full speed. It happens every day all over America.

If you interview any school bus driver, you’ll hear about people ignoring the bus’s lights and stop sign and driving past the stopped bus. It probably happens at least once a day to every school bus driver in America. Passing a stopped school bus is already against the law, but you can’t make people obey the law. They have to want to obey the law. These kinds of tragic accidents will continue to happen until careless drivers have some skin in the game. Give them something to lose and they will be more likely to obey the law.

How about this: if you blow past a stopped school bus, ignoring its flashing light and the extended arm with the stop sign, then hi-def cameras will capture an image of your license plate and you will be identified and your vehicle will be confiscated.

Too draconian? Then how about option 2: when the bus is stopped with warnings deployed, any large metal object (car or truck) passing the bus will be detected by a small radar device affixed to the bus and a squirt of paint will be sprayed down the side of the passing vehicle.

Still to harsh? Okay then, let’s go to option 3: a smart sensor on every new car that can respond to the flashing lights of a stopped school bus and order the vehicle to slow down.

A real hi-tech solution would be to install on every future vehicle a “black box” that is capable of receiving a radio signal broadcast by a stopped school bus. The black box will then tell the car’s engine computer and brake system to slow or stop the vehicle. This solution would also allow work-zone speed limit compliance, as vehicles would automatically slow down to a transmitted speed limit. And police could quickly and safely terminate a pursuit by electronically stopping a vehicle rather than pursuing the vehicle at high speed for dozens of miles.

I’m just thinking outside the box, as no doubt many others have done. There are people smarter than me out there (I hope). Perhaps one of them will invent a solution to this problem before more tragedies occur.

Vicious

Many years ago I read about a science experiment in which a few rats were placed in a large enclosure. Initially, the rats were very peaceful toward each other. But as their population grew and the enclosure became crowded, the rats began turning against each other. They began attacking each other, and as their population continued to grow their attacks became increasingly vicious.

When I was born, the US population was 141 million. Now it is 326 million. Over that period of time, many people in America have become increasingly vicious and increasingly callous in their behavior toward their fellow humans. And they go to extremes to justify their behavior.

Are people no smarter than rats? Sure we are, in some ways. And no we’re not, in other ways. That is something we must struggle to overcome if we want to survive as a species.

Fake News

We can thank Donald Trump for a new term added to the American lexicon: “fake news”. What is fake news? Is fake news merely news that is fake? No. The term fake news is just a longer way of saying this word: news.

However, the term fake news carries a little baggage that the word news does not. The person who uses the term fake news is implying that they do not like the news coverage they are receiving—even if, and especially if, the news coverage is completely true.

When you hear the term “fake news”, just think “news”. That is all it is.

Communication Overload

A couple of friends are scheduled to fly into town to visit me tomorrow. Also flying into town will be Michael, the hurricane. I’m sure the combination of heavy rain and tropical storm winds will make their trip memorable for all concerned, assuming their flight isn’t canceled. And here I’ve been thinking it was just me that gets the bad luck.

Richmond International Airport has a cell phone parking lot. If there is a space open in the lot, I’ll pull over and wait for them to call or text me to tell me they’ve arrived. However, there are complications. They live outside the US, so their phones normally operate in a different country. They have to “unlock” their phones in order to make international calls. Calling me from the airport terminal will be an international call. That is a small complication. The bigger complication is my phone situation.

I have two phone numbers. One number lets me make and receive free, unlimited phone calls and send and receive free, unlimited text messages using WiFi. The other number uses the cellular network and that company charges a fee for calls and texts. I have two phone companies, two technologies (cellular and WiFi) and one phone. Sometimes it confuses even me.

“What’s your phone number?”
“Depends.”

When I get to the cell phone parking lot at RIC, I will turn on my phone’s cellular data feature. I’ve never used it because I always use WiFi. But that will enable me to use WhatsApp over the cellular network. This means I will be burning cellular data, which will cost extra. But then, phone calls to my cell number also cost extra. But I’m not thinking about the additional fees, which are relatively small. I’m thinking, “How do I make this technology work so that my friends can reach me?” The more options we have for communicating, the more complicated communication becomes. I foresee a time when there are so many options for communication that no one can communicate with anyone.

I almost long for the days of rotary phones, when you stuck your finger into a hole in a dial and spun it around, and the most complicated thing was getting a dime from your pocket for a pay phone. I said “almost”. I’m not giving up on modern times, but I am still adjusting.