What if your car could warn you when a school bus was ahead?
GRAND RAPIDS — The large size of a school bus, combined with flashing lights and stop signs on a moveable arm, still isn’t enough to stop every driver from passing illegally.
Transportation departments record these illegal passes every day, but a technology company based in Chicago is recording them in an effort to prevent violations using digital alerts.
“It’s all about rethinking the function of alerting to make not just pupils safer on the school bus, but also drivers that are passing by and interacting with school buses every day,” said Brock Aun, communications director for HAAS Alerts, a company that uses its safety cloud to send data.
“We’re really at this exciting pivotal point where we’re able to use that kind of connectivity and that kind of technology to redefine safety in automotive and actually give drivers more advanced warning and preventative tools to stay safe rather than just reactionary tools that keep you safe in the middle of an emergency."
HAAS is relying on West Michigan for data and reactions in order to test the new effort.
Katrina Morris, executive director of the Michigan Association for Pupil Transportation, has been working with HAAS, providing data from buses in the state to help develop the technology.
Drivers in North Carolina tested the system earlier this year without realizing it. Aun told volunteers they would be testing a vehicle, then rode with them and asked questions about the car’s performance while directing the drivers to an area with a school bus in place. As they approached, an alert popped up on the car’s screen and a voice said, “Caution, school bus ahead.”
“We can see immediately not just their reaction to the road but also literally the movement of their feet. We see that they immediately go to slow down and brake. And that helps us understand the nature of these alerts and how they impact driver behavior,” Aun said.
The next phase of testing will include dimming bus lights while sending alerts for better visibility. That testing will take place in West Michigan in late 2023 or early 2024.
This won’t be the first time HAAS has relied on West Michigan as a testing ground. The company worked with the Grand Rapids Fire Department to test the same type of tech on fire trucks.
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Aun said the alerts will come through apps like Waze, Apple Maps and Google Maps, but can also show up directly through a vehicle with the right software installed. He said Stellantis can update vehicles going back several years to be compatible with the alerts and added his company is working with other automakers and app companies, like Google and Apple.
“In a perfect world, your car will naturally and organically do this for you just based on its in-road connectivity. That's the future we’re moving to, where drivers don’t have to be tethered to their mobile device,” he said.
“Across the country earlier this year, there are people who drive a 2018 Jeep, and they woke up and drove to work and got an alert in their vehicle that there was an emergency vehicle ahead. That was something they didn’t know their car could do, and now it can."
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: What if your car could warn you when a school bus was ahead?
