Simple but maybe complicated question:
Mentors, under what - if any - circumstances does an FRC team with which you associate ask or allow students to drive a motor vehicle on the road on behalf of the team?
Solo?
With other students onboard?
For the purpose of transporting a robot or other team “stuff”?
Or for what other purpose?
What are the go/nogo factors?
Thanks in advance for your perspective.
The school that hosts us strictly prohibits students from driving for any FRC related event. Now, if we absolutely needed to transport some people and didn’t have enough cars we might (I’m not leadership, so I can’t say for sure) be able to have an 18 year old drive other 18 year olds, but that’s definitely not something we would definitely do.
This is a great question, and it’s very much dependant on your school districts policies.
Our school district has had a multitude of rules over the years and it has changed bit by bit.
In general it’s always better for students to not be a driver when an adult is available. Student drivers, even the best student drivers will have significantly less experience driving, especially with a group of friends in the car.
If a student does need to go somewhere during a meeting on team business we prefer they have a buddy in case something happens, but they shouldn’t have a herd of students. They in many cases drove themselves to the meeting anyways so they will have to drive home themselves. Their parents trust them to drive themselves. We get permission for the “buddy” student’s parents as needed.
For competition we have had a lack of parent drivers be an issue and had student drivers. We try to fill all adult vehicles to max capacity first and then select students are allowed to drive one or two others with permission slips and waivers for the school. Just like any field trip or driving ever. We have to have some basic info like insurance info, vehicle license, etc. there’s a student driving form as well that is specific to this circumstance. I’ll see if I can find some copies tonight.
We are lucky most years to have a school van to take 7 students. We also tow the trailer with this. By doing that and getting 2/3 parents most of the students who have to drive are driving themselves because they normally do anyways or they have to go to work from comp/etc. they still have to fill out the paperwork even for driving themselves to competition.
Edit: as a caveat some students get passes to drive to and from the schools during the day. We have two district high schools our team is made up of that meet at a third location (our CTE center) and they drive during the day for some classes/circumstances. My senior year I was at the CTE center all day so I could drive straight there as needed. The office gives them a driving pass and those are the students we would prefer to use. If they are problematic in any way the school revokes that pass and we know they can’t be trusted.
Our school policy is a simple no. Student are not supposed to drive themselves to official events where the school is responsible for them. Going somewhere where they are spectators is a different case if the school is not organizing the transportation. This is not a policy that the team has any input on.
Thinking back to when I was a student on the team, I was never asked to drive anywhere for any team related reason.
That being said, I and some others on the team have already been driving ourselves to/from school. It was an expected possibility that students that drive may also transport their friends.
I have, driven locally on behalf of the team, by my own choice, to visit a few stores for potential supplies.
During my last year, we had access to a fairly nearby (35mi/43min) where my parents transported me, and other students transported themselves.
As for travel to competition, it was district policy in which we weren’t allowed.
In which case, why should students be allowed to operate a motor vehicle during these days? Kids are doing 16h+ days for a weekend, and they’re bound to be fatigued. It introduces a ton of risks that no team should find themselves in.
On our team, students are not allowed to drive to any event, and once they arrive at meetings they are not allowed to leave and drive to get food, etc.
We’re a community based team. We meet up for events at our build space and caravan with mentors or parents driving. If a kid needs to show up late, then they need to make separate arrangements and (since our events are usually > 1 hour away) that typically means that a parent drives them.
But, one of our events this year is closer to some of our kids’ homes than our build space, so I imagine we’ll get a lot of kids who want to drive themselves. Have to figure out some reasonable rules – we can’t just have kids just coming and going.
We might be a little different than others, as it’s a private school that draws from all over the metro area - asking everyone to meet at the school before going somewhere else (in-town) means that half the team may be backtracking after they get to the school. Add to that the fact that many are driving significant distances to get to the school anyways, meeting at another location is generally fine. How they get there is up to the parents and students (we aren’t allowed to assist with organizing carpools, but we also don’t need to prohibit them).
Once at the designated location, however, students are to stay put until their designated release time (end of the event, of a known time they have to leave that’s been coordinated with their parents, in the event someone needs to leave early for something else). Obviously, our travel events are different - the team provides a bus for those. But even then, we’ve had cases where a student needed to leave early or arrive late - in those cases, it’s up to the parent to provide transportation, and given the distance we do not allow students to drive themselves.
I can totally see how things would be different for a more traditional school district. If everyone on the team lives within a few miles of the school, for example, then there’s a big difference in driving that distance versus driving 40 miles across town for an event. But since the school has students who live 40 miles away, there’s a different outlook in place currently. Obviously, that could all change at any time, based on how the school assesses the risk each year.
Our school district is slightly more lenient than most, in that students can drive themselves to events or other field trips (with parental permission) but only themselves. They are never permitted to drive other students or transport materials or equipment. We mostly use carpooling with parent volunteers (screened by the district), since staff are also not allowed to transport students. Parents are, of course, allowed to transport their own students at any time. The district does have activity busses, but these are very difficult for us to use, since most of our events go very late or are overnight/weekend trips. As lead mentor, I’m usually the one transporting the robot and other equipment by myself in a rented cargo van.
For off season events students may drive for spevcific reasons. Otherwise, travel is provided by the team for FIRST events. School does not provide transportation (even though we are a school team).
We used to allow students to drive to/from events, until an incident at states in 2022.
Since then, at official events, only adult drivers.
Any event that is a field trip (thus the school is responsible) a student may only drive themselves. This has resulted in some odd conversations where a student can drive themselves but not a sibling. We get a decent amount of twins on the team so this is always a fun discussion with parents.
Any event that is not a field trip (meetings, weekend events, events over the summer/school breaks) we ask who needs a ride and provide said rides from school approved mentors. Students are allowed to drive other students to and from these just like they are allowed to drive other students to and from school itself
Any team supplies/property is transported by mentors exclusively. Except for if a student makes/buys something to bring to the team, but once it is given to the team the team takes over it’s transport.
I can understand stuff like not letting students leave in the middle of meetings. But why on earth would it be the schools business if I drive myself from my house to a regional/district?
Literally safety
(Assuming you mean an event where your team is participating at. Otherwise, that’s out of school’s jurisdiction and you’re free to do whatever you wish. Unless you’re skipping school, which is a different situation.)
What’s stopping students from leaving for a while and coming back later? Or are your protocols, “come once, leave once” for the day?
Looking at where your team is - not everyone lives 30 miles from their competitions. Our district events this year are 150 and 260 miles away, with states 450 miles.
The policy at my HS was a strict “no”. Students were not allowed to drive themselves if they were going as part of the team. The most allowed was driving from home to meet up at the school.
I didn’t even think of that lol. My team has a rule that you can’t go out to your car alone, both because it’s not safe to be outside alone in the dark and because the door will lock. But our regional is in a good area.
Also, don’t forget state laws may apply. Students may be under license restrictions that say they can’t have other under-18s in the car while they drive without an adult also in the car.
We try to make sure that for events, parents drive. For to and from school/meetings, follow the law.
Come once, leave once. If we allowed them to leave and return, tracking the students during the meeting would be a full time job since we are local to a bunch of stores and restaurants. And since the mentors are tasked with the students’ safety during official team meetings, keeping them on site makes things like fire events or weather alerts manageable because we immediately know who is on premises.