So Much for Compartmentalization in New Airplane Design

School bus safety is predicated on the concept of compartmentalization, the safety envelope provided to students by the cushioned high back bench seats that are supposed to keep the children from being tossed about the bus in the event of a crash.

Certainly, no two crashes are the same, each with its own impact zones and forces that can cause injuries no matter what. That's the argument used by seat belt proponents. But today's blog isn't about seat belts but an interesting new commercial airplane passenger seating design originating out of England that promises increased capacity.

"Airplanes?" you ask. "What do airplanes have to do with school transportation?" The designs originated at a school in Stokes on Trent in England.

Modeled after troop transport planes, designer Howard Guy was working on a new learning project for the school's students when he had the epiphany that this could help airlines realize a 15- to 20 percent increase in capacity. Let's just hope it never finds its way out of the classroom and onto school buses, or airplanes, for that matter.

Not Quite the Kind of PR One Desires

Or is it?

Bob Braun of the Star-Ledger newspaper in New Jersey had a lede yesterday in a crime story that made us chuckle:

The Blue Bird. The All-American Blue Bird. That was the name written on the bus that today brought to court scores of shackled defendants in what federal prosecutors are calling the "most significant" corruption case in recent New Jersey history.

I'm sure the paragraph, albeit clever, ruffled some feathers at Blue Bird's corporate headquarters in Fort Valley, Ga. But it might also make the company happy as it can revel in seeing its logo fly all across the country serving a variety of people, not just school students. Blue Bird buses are regularly used to transport U.S. troops both domestically and abroad. And, the 'Bird hauls prisoners, like the 44 defendants arrested in an FBI sting and charged with participating in a complex, multi-country money laundering scheme.

Who said school busing wasn't recession proof?