Pedal powered school busses

[Piwoslaw]

Public School Busses In India

[gone-ot]

...before I saw the pictures, I had a vision of all the kiddies sitting on bicycle seats, simultaneously pedalling a proverbial "BIG YELLOW BUS."

...hmmmm, instead of roadside "Chain Gangs" (like the movie COOL HAND LUKE), maybe we should have 'Chain Gang' pedalled BUSES?!?!?

...providing community-service to the community!

[Frank Lee]

Yeah, the kids should be pedalling too.

[SanctaRosa]

If you look closely at the second picture down you'll see that the 'bus' is is fitted with an IC motor. Definitely much kinder to the knees

[C3H8]

some of them do have a small engine. but some don't.

man that's crazy. 1 150lb man petaling a dozen kids to and from school on a bike that weighs probably 300lbs empty. it's got to be hell on the back, and knees.

[Grant-53]

While typical school buses are very efficient when fully loaded, there is much to be said for moving toddlers or primary grade children short distances this way. I can still hear my son saying, "we walked to school in the snow up hill both ways." Now he lives in North Carolina.

[SanctaRosa]

Originally Posted by C3H8

some of them do have a small engine. but some don't.

man that's crazy. 1 150lb man petaling a dozen kids to and from school on a bike that weighs probably 300lbs empty. it's got to be hell on the back, and knees.

A lot depends on how flat the roads are. Having been the owner of a traditional heavyweight tricycle for just over four years now I can attest to their ability to haul large loads with ease so long as the terrain remains nice and flat. Mix in a hill and it becomes misery very quickly.

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by Grant-53

While typical school buses are very efficient when fully loaded, there is much to be said for moving toddlers or primary grade children short distances this way.

School busses usually drive around empty, I'm afraid. In the morning they make an empty run to the end of the route and pick kids up on the way back. Later they drop them off and come back empty for the night. Unless the driver lives at the end of the route and has talked the school district into letting him keep the bus overnight.

Aaaah, the days when we walked to school...

[C3H8]

even a school bus FULL of kids is running around essentially unloaded. what do they have a few thousand pounds of kids in there? any v6 pick up can haul around a few thousand. you dont need a monster dually school bus with 22.5 inch wheels for that.

the main reason those gigantic school busses are used my friends, is child safety. you could ram one of them busses with a typical car at a high speed and not even bend the frame. larger vehicles would do more damage, but school busses are built big, tough and heavy on the iron and steel. it's a safety issue. same reason why they run school busses on diesel. it's not explosive if a tank was to rupture and leak. if the bus was gasoline fueled and a tank ruptured the gas can burn and boy does it burn! diesel burns incredibly slow in our atmosphere.

anyone ever try to light a cup of diesel on fire with a cigarette lighter? it won't even light. try that with a cup of gasoline and you have a pretty decent flame.

try pouring diesel on the sidewalk, or dirt and lighting it. it usually wont even light. try that with gasoline and it "whoof's" and burns you feet.

*^*don't actually try any of those things i said *^*

[Frank Lee]

actually in mn last year (IIRC) a chrysler minivan t-boned a school bus. really mangled it, and a few of the kids didn't make it out alive.

IIRC the ones I rode on had 72 passenger capacity. 72 x 200 = 14400 lbs., so... they can get heavily loaded.

Also they are built big because they need the volume and who supplies volume and nice long frame rails like that? Truck chassis do.

All the busses I rode on were gasoline...