Starting a Skoolie Certification Process.

[kidharris]

i am relatively certain that one day i'll put my bus on its side. but aside from that, in my 13 or 14 years of ownership, i think i've only seen or heard about 1 skoolie accident.

https://www.wsmv.com/video/2023/06/...d-camper-crash-with-children-inside-colorado/

here insurance is moot. if they had liability, it paid to drag the bus off the mountain.

the bus does not look all that scrunched up. would be interesting to see what caused the injuries/fatalities. The bus appears to have gov markings on the sides.Could be some usefull data there.

 

[kidharris]

Great discussion.

Stating the obvious, there are two reasons this discussion doesn't go away: first, related to insurance, and second, related to registration.

I'm skeptical that the process of converting a school bus to a motorhome at the motor vehicle department will ever standardize. Some states appear to have good processes while others not so much. Since these are state-level statutes and rules, some states are always going to be easier to register than others and you have to become educated on the process to complete registration with a minimum of fuss.

Insurance is an even deeper hole. Insurance is at the discretion of the company, and within each company, further at the discretion of the local agent. Since those companies want to make a profit they set rules to minimize exposures to known hazards, and any modification of a factory-built vehicle is an exposure practically by definition. I'm skeptical that any build certification will even marginally overcome that risk aversion.

What we do know is that folks have largely been able to get both registration and insurance, by doing their homework, and by putting quality into their builds.

Just a thought-it might help if we had subthreads in the Title/Insurance Forum to separate out state by state registration and insurance discussions.

makes a lot of sense

 

[jjaj823]

They don't define risk level, they only do so based on the data they have. We can update their data with our own data and reshape their risk level determinations. We'll have data they do not have. Their data is based on observation, not testing. A certification shows testing was done and proven which will be a better form of data that they would want to use to make their data more accurate. This is how the world works.

I think where we (you and I anyway...) diverge is what we consider "data". Many on this forum have successfully built and have been running conversions for many years...but that doesn't mean their experiences provide good data.

We as a community are an unreliable source of cold hard factual information. Sure, we can share build photos and explanations, but that doesn't mean we're doing things safely. I've seen people on this forum tell people that having an electrified skin is fine since it keeps unruly kids from getting too close. People have also advocated for not worrying about insurance at all.

I mean no disrespect to anyone on this forum...lord knows I've had tons of help from people. I guess put simply, for the information here, we have to TRUST BUT VERIFY. I know many folks have provided solid safe information in good faith. The4 trick is figuring out how to quantify that appropriately.

We will need testing and real world use case examples to go by.

100% -- but it can't be US doing the testing. That invalidates everything. It's a conflict of interest. But getting things tested costs big money, so that negates the affordability aspect of your proposal.

Think we can test and proclaim something good to go? So did Volkswagen...see how well that worked out for them?

A more relevant example might even be Theranos. The company essentially self-certified the effectiveness of their diagnostic machine without proper independent verification or peer review. Again, how are they doing now?

And for good measure, one more: how about the OceanGate Titan? The guy in charge there thought he knew better than at least one experienced engineer and as a result, he killed himself and 3 others.

A certification is going to be under a high scrutiny. It would be better to say to whoever asks "While this item was already approved and tested for RV use, it was also tested on skoolie use and proven to be safe." Which one sounds better to you?

You are again, 100% correct...with the high scrutiny, it behooves us to ensure that the data we present is beyond reproach. That means an independent 3rd party who has no skin in the game (such as UL) looking at everything and testing it. And again, we have a vested interest in making sure the stuff is certified...not just safe.

"We" collectively here are the professionals who are best qualified to make the determinations.

We can't be the professionals.

Maybe we're a rag tag group of individuals, but this is how these things are born friend.

Again, agree 100%...and you've clearly given this a lot of thought and really gotten down and dirty into some of the details. That's great and I'm glad to see someone with the amount passion you have devoted to this particular subject. But we ARE a bunch of rag tag individuals. If I was looking at some credentials and saw that the only reason the people who created them were qualified to develop and grant them, I'd RUN, not walk, away.

Credentials aren't given, they are created. We are creating our own credentials. We become better accredited by sticking to facts, doing real world testing, and our accuracy is what builds a name.

Typically, credentials are created using peer review and validation. There are no peers though...not in the accepted academic sense anyway. They can also be established by working with a related, but different professional organization (such as the RVIA or ABYC)...which you're not interested in (I get it...not a dig).

So, that leaves a couple of other options. Most notably, development of standards and training, which is what I've been saying... :biggrin:

We start there, and let the certification develop from the initial standards of building and a formalized curriculum to credential inspectors.

Do you know anyone else better qualified to make these determinations anywhere in the world?

Sure...pretty much any physical engineer can do the simulations, HVAC engineers, master plumbers, etc. Just because they don't work on busses specifically, doesn't make them unqualified. Most industrial fishing boats use regular old fashioned licensed electricians...they are not marine specific. My point is that anyone with demonstrable training and experience with NFPA, NEC, etc. would be wholly qualified to provide guidance. The UL would absolutely be qualified to test gear and certify it for busses. Most of us on here (to the best of my knowledge) are not professional bus builders. Most of us probably don't even make a living working on, in, or around busses. That means we can't possibly be experts.

We all need to get out of this mindset of having things handed to us by masters. A true master makes his own way as we're doing with this certification. A master can build off the back of others, but he also has to back away and not blindly follow a singular direction. Either get on board with that or please kindly move out of the way. The way forward is a certification for Skoolies.

Agreed! Again, I think that starting with certification is an effort in futility...rather, start by developing a voluntary standard, then build a curriculum to certify inspectors to certify that standard, THEN AND ONLY THEN begin certifying builds...its a logical progression that has been tried out before in other industries and it works.

We can honestly say to an insurer, we are the worlds top professionals when it comes to bus conversions and it would not be a lie. There are no better people out there, and here is our data.

I have to 100% DISAGREE with you on this...as a group (yes, there are exceptions) we are the opposite of professionals.

Look at any profession with a certification or license...from doctors to plumbers to HVAC to welders to auto mechanics, to be recognized as a professional in these fields you need to meet the following criteria:

• Formalized education: You need specialized training in that field.
• Adhere to a relevant code of ethics
• Provides services based on standards
• Complete continuing education to stay current on changes within the industry

How many of us can honestly say we meet all of the above (at minimum)? I certainly don't, even with my experience in adjacent fields. I basically built my bus and then stopped worrying about most of the technologies I used to complete it. If something breaks or goes wrong and I need to replace something, then I will look at what's available and maybe ask the wider group for an opinion. None of that makes us professional. Prosumer maybe...we all likely have an above-average understanding of electricity, but I doubt very seriously most of us would be able to claim the knowledge level of even an apprentice electrician.

If you can take a pool of people who are DIY'ers and suddenly increase their insurability by providing them a safe path and can show their builds are built to a certain safety standard through a verified certification, you'd be dumb to ignore that as an insurance company. I see them making more money as a result with less risk.

Agree again...I'm finding that happening a lot...

...But some of us could do investigations like in Turf's example above with the fire truck conversion of a bus that crashed. There's nothing to stop me from calling up the police department retro actively and asking them what occurred...I can then compile that data and adjust certification requirements as we see it needs to be.

I think this is a great place to start. But how many accidents involving busses do you think we can collectively capture?

**Just to be clear, this is a serious question...I'm not trying to prove a point or anything by asking...**

The forum is littered with cases where things have failed for them. This isn't bad data. It may not contain the whole story, but it's enough to compile a list of tests that need to be performed.

It gives us an idea of tests that SOMEONE has to perform...But also, failure in one does not indicate failure as a whole. It could have been how that individual installation was performed, which brings us back to "how do you certify something for everything and still make it relevant?" I still don't see how that's possible.

I plan to have with everyone's certification, a process with a direct link for insurance companies to visit and view detailed images and pictures with attached statements with the inspectors showing why it's considered safe. Underwriters will be able to look directly at the thing in high detail with an explanation as to why it was certified giving them better assurance.

That's an interesting idea that I never really thought about. It certainly won't hurt our cause by doing so. Bow much it helps...only time will tell. Still, good thought!

I kind of hate that idea though because this is a method of control insurance companies could exhibit over our creativity potentially which is of vital importance to us builders. It's like we say RV's are all the same. We don't fundamentally want that in the Skoolie world. I don't see why we can't have both a safety standard while maintaining maximum ability to be creative, and I believe it's important to do so.

I get where you're coming from. But, the reality is that while we don't wan't them dictating our choices, we may have to work within parameters they set...for example, they may not care that we can prove that wood stoves can be installed safely in a bus. That might be a deal breaker for them period, hard stop. At that point, we may have to compromise on that. If giving up wood stoves means more conversions can potentially be insured, isn;t that what serves the greater good of the community? It goes both ways too...if we can prove that roof raises are not the issue they think they are, they may be willing to accept them under certain conditions.

I'd prefer we make the decisions of what we want, and best way to make it safe rather than let the insurers make that decision who aren't experts in the field and are only observers. As long as it's safe, and maximizes their profit margins it shouldn't matter for them.

We are not experts in this field. We are experts in the machine that we have created individually...yes, often with assistance from others within the community. However, working on 1 build doesn't make an expert. Imagine if a doctor only had to see 1 patient before being declared an expert practitioner...

Having a certification will be FAR less work than answering every single question for every single person for every single item of their bus. There will now be a standard we can simply point them to, and they can follow it or not. If not, then they are on their own for insurability. Use it or not, it's up to you.

Having a STANDARD will alleviate the necessity of answering the same question for every newbie...having a CERTIFICATION will affirm that the build is in accordance with those standards.


Finally, despite what it may look like from my comments, I'm happy to help on this project as time allows as well. Looking forward to continuing the conversation...

:Thanx:

JB

 

[nikitis]

I'll keep the reply to that short. I understand your reasoning behind having independent testing, but I'm simply not going to go that route, you did name some companies that had a bad time with independent certifications. They also got huge and became a monetary target for the government to tap. There are also tons of self certified agencies which are successful and has worked out for them. For now at least this is the route we're taking. This is a grassroots movement. We will continue that process from the Skoolies that are built all the way up through the certification process.

I do have to disagree that we are not the experts in the field. Tell me who has better with Skoolies? RV experts don't count because it's a different field. I'm also not saying everyone here on the forum is an expert nor did I say someone who built one Skoolie is an expert either, but to that I will say to your doctor example if you go back far enough, back to a time where doctors didn't even require licences to operate and came to your homes, at some point a group of rag tag doctors came together to form the medical field and standardized things and is now what it is today. The same can be said of this movement. It may seem like a joke today but give it time.

Sink or swim. This is the way we're gonna do it. Opinions noted.

Eventually we'll get big enough that we can pay for independent testers. We don't have the funding to do everything above board at the start, but any improvement in safety and knowledge is an improvement overall for all of us. That's the goal from the start. Some of the items you mention can occur later as we get bigger.

If we use the Paramotoring group who developed the PPG standards it tremendously improved the safety of the sport. It's a program that goes over inspections of flying unit checks, teaches people how to fly. Safely. Before that happening people were making their own Paramotors from scratch and killing themselves. Deaths still do happen as it can be a dangerous sport but it has been greatly diminished. They do not use independent 3rd party inspectors like you suggest, and they are more rag tag that most of us. Also insurance availability did improve for Paramotors as a result. We're shooting for something similar here.