Each year, a school bus runs over a child who was hidden in the bus's blind spots. Is it possible to prevent these unnecessary deaths and the resulting, burdensome lawsuits upon schools?
To do just that, I helped design a radar system to alert the bus driver about children in the bus's blind zones. That was six years ago. Since then, only a handful of school districts across the country bought and installed this life-saving technology. Even with the blessed benefits of this $1000 piece of hardware, it never quite caught on.
Maybe these tragedies were too infrequent: Given the millions of children riding school buses each year, only 20 to 30 families suffer through this horrific loss of their child. As a result, maybe the school district found it cheaper to pay the insurance claims than to install life-saving electronics.
Still, I have hope. Last week, our system made news in Iowa. All because of one grieving father who - after the death of his son - wanted no one to experience that heart-rendering pain for a beloved child who will never return home from school again.
His story is in the previous link. Here's the news video:
1 comment:
That is awesome that you are part of designing something that saves lives. Super sad story. It seems that every school bus in America should be equipped with a sensor. That isn't all that isolated as I have heard similar stories from time to time.
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