Schoolbuses
 

Anyone here on a local town council? has the issue of the fuel budget for school buses come up yet? Diesel is $4.70 here. I wouldn't doubt if the budget would need to double from 2 years ago.

Anyone with experience on this and how will it be addressed within the overall budget? Property tax increase?

Down here in Florida they stopped a lot of the crosstown busing and went back to go where you live.

Otherwise I have no 1st hand knowledge on what they are doing, both my kids are in private school right now so we do not pay attention to the district woes.

biofuel made from boomers? sounds like a win/win to me.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1212672600.jpg

Soylent Green from ex-hippies. I love it!

Educational budgets have way out of line compared to inflation, GDP or any other yardstick for a generation now.. It is crazy what they spend, and waste. I bet they do blame the price of fuel... to give more lifetime goodies to the tenurecrats..

yup - it is a serious issue and one that may town councils do address. Here in nord Tejasi it is of major concern.

In fact we have grown our biz with bus barns a bunch by being able to improve the efficency and combustion of the fuel. We were written up in the Des Moines Registar a few years back because we were able to improve fuel economy of the school bus fleet by 22% and reduce engine rebuilds from 23 to 2!

Send your kid to private school like I do. They don't have a bus. Thier carbon foot print is smaller and thier brains are bigger.

I can't for the life of me understand why public school bus fleets haven't been converted to CNG or LNG like a lot of other municipal vehicles (including transit buses). It would actually make more sense - school buses are bigger (more emissions/fuel consumption), they're used more regularly (at least twice a day with a lot of stop-go), etc.

Why we cling to the convention of big, heavy, diesel buses with no seatbelts for our kids is completely lost on me. Is there a legitimate reason for this or is it more special interests & government stupidity/misappropriations?

Yeah, and your wallet is $10,000 lighter.

Our daughters preschool (yes, preschool) is going to be $11,000 next year. ****** crazy. Only tangible benefit is that I get to hang out with trophy wives. :D

Best $10K I will ever spend...

Bus ?, kids still ride the bus..?
around here the bus has been replaced with Suburbans,Hummers,Expedition's.

Rika

I think diesel is safer.

Also, the seatbelt thing has been studied and re-studied. For what ever reason (maybe the small chance of rapid deacceleration in a bus) no seatbelts and padded seats and seatbacks are safer..

That is nucking futs! Out daughter goes to the Lutheran grade school at the end of our street. Costs $1300 a year. When she is old enough for high school she will go to the Catholic high school at the other end of the street. Costs $3000 a year.

You go ahead and talk about the damned hippies and the damned gubmit and the damned terrrrrists and the damned liberals and the damned unions and the damned lazy-asses who are spending/receiving stolen tax monies and littering.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are discussing the impacts of the recent (and ongoing) rise in fuel prices. Different topic.

Yes, this will impact school budgets. But that's the tip of the iceberg. Recently, nearby, we discussed Jimmy Carter's difficult and skillful time in office wherein fuel prices were doubling annually. What we found is that the direct cost of the fuel increases was just a small part of the overall cost of the rising cost of oil barrels. Those painfulness of those cost increases ( and the ones going on right now ) at the gas pump will be eclipsed by the painfulness elsewhere. Like food and consumer goods and various government operations. I'd bet police departments burn way more gas than school districts do.

On a side note, a large county police department here is proposing budget cuts that will impact security. Crime will increase under this proposed budget. Guaranteed. That raises interesting questions, eh?

Seatbeats don't pass the cost/use/benefit test.

It would take millions to install them, kids won't wear them and compaired to the number of kids carried safely by buses everyday its not worth it.

Schools will face:
increased cost for food
increased cost for busing
increased cost for heat

Police departments won't be able to patrol as much, costs a lot to drive those cruisers around. Crime will go up.

can't they saw out the floor and make the kids Flinstone the bus?
might put fat camps out of business , but hey, tough luck on them, right?

To buckle up...
The National Coalition for Seatbelts on School Buses lists the following as reasons why all large school buses should have seatbelts. (Smaller school buses that weigh less than 10,000 pounds are already required to have them.)

If a crash occurs, the use of seat belts will reduce the probability of death and the severity of injuries to children correctly seated in school buses.
Seat belt usage improves passenger behavior and reduces driver distractions.
Seat belts offer protection against injuries in rollover or side impact crashes.
Seat belt usage in school buses reinforces good safety habits.
The cost to install seat belts is nominal.

..Or not to buckle up
Opponents of seat belts on large buses disagree, saying that they are not only unnecessary, but could also be hazardous. According to the NHSTA:
Seat belts are of no value in the majority of fatal accidents.
More children are killed around school buses -- walking to and from the school bus stop -- than inside school buses.
No data proves conclusively that seat belts reduce fatalities or injuries on school buses.
School buses are specifically designed with safety in mind. They are heavier and experience less crash force than smaller cars and trucks. School buses also have high padded seats specifically design to absorb impact.
There is no guarantee that once installed students will use seatbelts. Studies have shown that mixed and improper use of seat belts can increase the risk of injuries.
There is concern that seat belts could be used as weapons to strike or choke other passengers.
Money proposed for seat belt installation could be better spent on other safety measures.

Like just about everything - plenty of info on the 'net:
http://life.familyeducation.com/school/safety/36260.html

Also, many police departmemnts are moving to Chevy Malibus that get much better gas mileage than Crown Vics.

Ok, #20th post is long enough. One can blame Bush, and serve the righty-tighty Bushies here crow-flambe with a delicate crust.

I said from the beginning that Iwreck would have a trickle-down effect: As the fed goes broke from foreign/communist debt, the states and then the cities will become "creative' in recovering costs. They will make neighborhoods "15 minute residential parking only", the roads will go to heck, speeding ticket sweeps will be simultanous with the next fiscal report, tax assesment offices will get rough, food costs will go up, etc, etc....

The time for more centralized regional zoning planning, fuel efficient micro cars, mass region transportation, alternative energys, etc was yesterday.
I guess now it has to hurt before it heals.