I believe that should teach you kids to be self sufficient. No guarantees, it’s a dangerous world. I just believe that earthquake damage is usally over blown. My phone worked fine in 1989. Trees are not an issue. But some bridges may collapse. However they all been retro fitted since 1989.
I think hurricanes are much more devastating. I do not remember power outages and cell phone issues
So, if you had kids, your plan would be that they walk home alone, BBQ in the backyard, and sleep in the house or car until you get there–even if it’s a couple of days.
If that’s the plan, great, but I’d like to hear that from parents of actual kids… 
MI am just giving the advice of a structural engineer. Probably not a good idea to be forty miles away for a number of other issues. Big fires, traffic jams civil protests blocking freeways. Power outages, big storms…
I commuted to high school 40miles each day from Berkeley to SF. 1hr by car 2hrs by bus no BART in 1967 or cell phones
I feel like i am one of the few people that dont worry about earthquakes.
Do you have kids? It’s way way easier not to worry about disasters when you don’t have kids.
I dont, yet, but have you experienced a large earthquake? That is better way to tell if you need to be worried about.
Also mind you, where i came from, we had tall buildings, we were living on 3rd floor wirh about 5 more on top.
I would not so much worry about kids who happen to be in a 1-2 story building.
Let your kids sleep in the house after a quake. After shocks are never bigger than the main quake. I don’t remember anyone in the BA sleeping outside in 1989.if there is obvious damage then call authorities or sleep outside. But like I said that is an extremely rare issue.
Kids can sleep in the yard, and you can claim it is camping 
We did sleep outside, and my parents all agread it was stupid
Get a tent and do practice drills. In fact if one kid is acting up, then that can be their home away from home…
It doesn’t matter if I’ve experienced an earthquake. What matters is that I’m responsible for having a reasonable plan in place to get my kids from whoever is taking care of them, followed by a backup plan. The final backup plan is that whoever currently has my kids calls CPS when I fail to show up. It’s possible in an Earthquake that teachers have to stay there until a parent or “authorized person” gets there.
When you have kids, you have to have plans for everything from Caltrain hits someone and is delayed past pickup time, to both you and your spouse dying in a car accident while on a “date” and the kids are with a babysitter. When I had an infant and my husband needed to travel, I started having a plan that someone would make sure they’d heard from me everyday because I didn’t want an infant going 7 days with a dead mom. Even if the chance of a heart attack was 1 in 1,000,000 it was my job to make sure that kid was ok. Maybe that sounds dumb, but that’s my job. Keep the kid alive.
When I didn’t have kids, a heart attack was no big deal at all.
I understand my sister has four kids. But after a while she worries less. Now she just worries about the grand kids.
You seriously think it’ll take days to get from work to home if there’s an earthquake?
If I take a teaching job and my job is to stay with the kids at the school, then for me–yes.
Are you american? Asking to see if this is part of american culture or not.
My parents were very protective of me and my sister, but i figured it was too much my plan is to let the kid be able to take care of himself startting age 6-7, at least rnough to go hom on his own (uber, bike etc), and have at least one neighbor oncall to take care of him/her if we cant be there exactly on time for whatever reason.
Great plan, but Uber may not be comfortable taking your 6yo anywhere.
Yes. I’m American.
So you do have a kid? (I guess that’s a no if you’re saying him/her)
A little advice: 6 year olds are not as with-it as you might hope.
by the time my unborn kid is 6-7, we might have autonomous cars all over.
I think i was ok-minded back in the day around 6-7, but you may be right.
It really depends on the kid and the school. If your school is a couple of blocks away or a straight shot on the city bus, it’s one thing, but the farther away it is, the harder it is for the kid to navigate. I did take a city bus to school in 1st grade, but it was a straight shot, practically door-to-door, and I think my mom walked me to the busstop for a while to talk to the driver.
BTW: The bigger question is whether the school will let them leave by themselves. Some schools won’t–they have to be checked out by an “authorized adult.” Which probably doesn’t include a random Uber driver. Adult has to be on the list of people and show ID.