The trial of a young woman accused of ignoring a stop sign on a school bus of Rochester and murder of 3 children last fall, will be held in October. To prevent the recurrence of similar tragedies buses school district Clark-Pleasant School District in Johnson will be equipped with new radars.
Driver Robin Hall says that very often drivers ignore the stop sign of a school bus. Therefore, the bus Hall was part of the pilot program on provision of school transport.
Chris Akiyama from Safe Fleet, the company that developed the new technology, said: «This is an early warning system designed to warn students before the driver commits a violation.» «We use radars and forecasting algorithms to monitor the speed and distance of an approaching vehicle and determine the threat level, to inform the driver and student that need to get off the road».
Watch as we test new technology to keep kids safe while boarding school buses pic.twitter.com/NF3cI826Fp
— Russ McQuaid (@RussMcQuaidNews) June 9, 2019
Inside the bus, the driver can monitor the speed of approaching vehicles and determine whether the machine slows down to a stop sign. If an infringement is imminent, sound the recorded message telling the child to stop and not to go on the road.
Akiyama said: «the System will monitor the distance of 300 yards.» He noted that drivers and school children become increasingly inattentive, distracted by a smartphone or tablet to understand what’s going on. The drivers confirm that children’s attention when they sit down or get off the bus, almost always distracted. Hall says, «Usually students don’t even see me. They just look at their phones and writing messages, getting on the bus».
Director of transportation school district Bob Downing stated that the system will protect children even before the bus leaves the school grounds. «There are so-called danger zone, when a child comes to the bus, and the system will tell us whether in that area the child before driving». Downing said that this fall the school district plans to equip 7 new buses with this system.
The system is tested in 4 districts of the country.
Akiyama said that the technology can be combined with the video to remove license plates and model of the car that violated a stop sign.
