As an outsider, the iconic yellow school bus is in every single American movie. Is there actually a national standard that forces every town to use that exact same color and design?

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GreyHorse_BlueDragon@reddit

Yes on the standardization. American school busses are required to be painted a specific shade of yellow, that is legally standardized.

Not everyone rides them. Parents dropping their kids off is common, kids walking to school is also common if they live close enough, and in larger cities kids often take public transport.

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You had regular bullies and the main one (the driver).

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jda404@reddit

Depends on the driver. Most of my bus drivers going through school were very cool and lenient. First day of school they'd put us in assigned seats guess to give to the school, but most didn't enforce assigned seats after that, let us be noisy as long as we stay seated, would change the radio station if we asked.

Once in awhile there'd be a very strict/mean substitute bus driver when the main driver was out, but I honestly like most of my bus drivers.

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Vernix@reddit

Former school bus driver here. We undergo extensive and rigorous driver training and state testing, then hand you the keys and toss you in the deep end of the pool. Meaning that you discover you have to be a cop and psychologist too. I had a good time: knew everyone’s name, liked them all, practiced patience, dealt fairly well with problem kids. The difficult part was the kids who refused to get with the program. For a while it bothered me until I found better ways to handle them. My company (we were contractors) and the school system had a good reporting system, and tough discipline follow-up. A few kids were permanently removed.

But it was a rewarding experience overall, and I learned more about myself than about the children.

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lindseylou407@reddit

I live in “suburbia” with a robust city bus system, so our district teamed up with the local bus and gives students a free bus pass to anyone who needs it.

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I had an police 92 caprice, and you are right. That thing could GO.

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zeezle@reddit

I had a friend who had an old Crown Vic, not even a former police car just a generic dark color, I think it had been his grandma’s. It drove him nuts how everyone still instinctively slammed on the brakes and went super slow around him because they saw a dark Crown Victoria and assumed he was a cop even though in his areas the actual cop cars had been switched to something else for like a decade+ already.

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LateNightPhilosopher@reddit

I swear for my whole childhood and in decades worth of old movies, up until about 20 years ago, every single cop car was a Crown Vic. Back then you could tell how well funded a police department was based on whether they had the newer body style or the older one.

Then Ford discontinued the Crown Victoria and for a little while they were all Dodge Chargers for some fucking reason. But before too long a lot of departments also started to use Chevy Tahoes. Now you still see some chargers occasionally but it seems like most departments are mostly switched over to Tahoes but some departments will have Ford F150s if they do a lot of rural work (especially the Border Patrol and various state agencies, and for some reason the local constables), or sometimes some random non-standard one. Like one of my nearby departments has a dedicated anti-narcotics unit with a couple of blacked out barely marked Mustangs that they use for setting ambushes on the highway, because they wanna cosplay Mad Max or something.

Complete_Entry@reddit

We had a dickhead parking on lawns in our neighborhood, he had an old cop car. Eventually they took it from him because he was totally playing on the car's profile to be an asshole.

I guess the same applies to ambulances, firetrucks and police cars, no?

Depends on the state. You cant have the police or ambulance wording/any references to 911 etc on it, but you may be able to keep it painted the same livery and/or keep the lights and sirens as long as they arent used on public roads.

Thats state dependent though.

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TressoftheEmeraldTea@reddit

I know someone who bought an old fire truck at auction. They didn’t have to change the color, but all the insignias had been removed before being auctioned.

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(Disclaimer: I don't have that much interaction with people from NYC)

Yeah, in my experience:

People from NYC:
"The city" refers to Manhattan
Things inside the five boroughs are referred to by the borough (e.g., you're from Queens, not NYC)
Everything in NY and north of the NYC metro area is "upstate" (though the dividing line differs per person)
Long Island is "downstate"
People from NY, but not the NYC metro area
"The city" refers to any part of the NYC metro area, including long island (if the term is even used)
"Upstate" refers to the "Capital District"
No one says "downstate"
Everything else is referred to by their region's name
People not from NY:
"NYC" refers to any part of the NYC metro area, including long island (if the term is even used)
"Upstate" refers to anything that isn't part of their definition of NYC

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Responsible_Fish1222@reddit

From the Finger Lakes Region. We do not call NYC the city. We call it New York City. The City is whatever city we are nearer.

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schonleben@reddit

I live in the finger lakes as well and have -only- heard “the city” used to refer to nyc.

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Responsible_Fish1222@reddit

Probably depends on where you are. Small tiny rural towns where I am. The city is just the nearest city.

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binarycow@reddit

Obviously, this is a sweeping generalization. It is, by definition, not accounting for every single variation.

Long Island is not “downstate”? I’ve never hard that as a Long Islander. It’s just Long Island, sometimes referred to as the specific county depending how granular one wants to be

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SabresBills69@reddit

as a WNY native— the wiki link is incorrect.

first off what is Western ny is considered the counties in that map+ genessee, Wyoming, and orleans county. in the last 30 yrs of suburban/housing development metro Rochester has started to penetrate Orleans county.

southern tier area is the entire string of border counties along the east/ west PA line to binghamton and the state line becomes the Delaware River

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binarycow@reddit

That's kinda my point. Terminology is different, depending on where you're from.

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MonsieurRuffles@reddit

“Downstate” is used by SUNY in the name of its Medical Center and University in Brooklyn.

I'm originally from Indiana. When I joined the military, I was stationed in New York.

The only signs like that I have seen are "student driver", "wide load" or construction related.

Flashers are required whenever school buses are on a highway.

Buses are hard to stop and have a lot of mass. That’s the biggest reason to limit their speed.

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Mr_BillyB@reddit

"Flashers" meaning the strobe on top of the bus, not the hazard lights, right? In Georgia, that's whenever you have students on the bus at all, not just on highways.

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Alfonze423@reddit

Flashers are required whenever school buses are on a highway.

In your state. In the Northeast it seems like that generally isn't a requirement.

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breaststroker42@reddit

Here the speed limits are mostly 60.

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FlyByPC@reddit

but I do know going much slower than the flow of traffic (which 60MPH would definitely be here in Texas) is also dangerous just like speeding

Then you know more than 1980s-era northern VA, which limited the buses to 45mph (governed) , even though they drove on local highways.

Legal_Bed_1506@reddit

They exist in the US too, but they rarely ever get bought since a regular school bus can do both roles. Local school near me gas two blue blue bird school busses used for their marching band

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xampl9@reddit

The local Catholic school (private) also use the yellow buses. Perhaps because getting a custom color would have cost more. And increased their insurance premiums.

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runkat426@reddit

As a teacher, i occasionally have to drive the white activity bus. What gets me is that my district insists on calling those "vans". They are clearly mini busses. Anyway, seating for 14 passengers. Drives like a U-Haul or similar box truck.

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joekryptonite@reddit

You are not wrong. The prisoner busses used to look a lot like white school busses. You'd see them out in the country managing chain gangs. Yeah, just like "Cool Hand Luke." Those disappeared around the turn of the century and now most prisoner transports are in white full sized armored work vans.

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healthycord@reddit

That’s hilarious. A white school bus to me means it’s a prison transport bus lmao.

The white activity buses don’t have the red stop sign, can’t be used to pickup/drop off students, and is allowed to drive faster on the highway.

They do look like prison buses, though. 🤣

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DaBingeGirl@reddit

Interesting. I'm in IL, we just use the regular buses for everything. The only exception I know of is replacing the shorter buses (special needs) with large vans.

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bipolarlibra314@reddit

Before I could even get to the end of your comment I was thinking yeah in Texas they use white as prison buses 😂

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tree-dantzer@reddit

In Montana, we did a big group activity trip (organized by our friends who are local Montanans), and they had a lime green school bus carry us all around.

And if you buy one and want to register it as a private vehicle in NY you gotta remove those signs, the stop sign, disable the flashing lights, and paint the bus a different color.

I saw a fire truck at a Japanese street fair. The small size was to be expected, but the weird shade of red really threw me off, it's like red through a 1980s camera film processing.

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devilbunny@reddit

red through a 1980s camera film processing.

To add just a little color to how this works… the standard is voluntary, not enforced by law. But there are only a few companies that build buses. Those companies are happy to paint all their buses the same color. If you decided you wanted a different color, you could get that done but it would cost more. So no one does— they get the bus painted the standard color.

And so they are all the same.

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sail4sea@reddit

Schoolie RVers usually paint their yellow school busses a different color.

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OkElephant1931@reddit

Yep… in my part of the woods, those are all ex-school buses, repainted. I don’t know… does Blue Bird sell a school bus as an RV from the factory? Because that sounds awesome

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ahferroin7@reddit

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RupeThereItIs@reddit

Just north of the border over here in Michigan, and you've described my little suburb.

We have a fleet of busses, that mostly just sit these days (field trips & sports teams I assume are the only use they get).

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Undercover_Dave@reddit

I guess I never really thought about it, but I didn't know Canada had the same yellow buses, I've always heard it just as specificly a u.s. thing.

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U-Conn@reddit

I did a double-take the first time I saw a school bus in Quebec. Same yellow buses, but with ECOLIERS instead of SCHOOL BUS.

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Dave_A480@reddit

The standard isn't that the town have busing, it's that all such buses carrying k-12 students be yellow ...

So my town didn't have busing, but the busses the school rented for things like field trips and sports events were yellow and black.....

In my experience in order to be able to ride the bus, you had to live more than two miles away from the school. If you were closer someone had to bring you or you were told to walk. Most kids rode the bus, with bus stops every mile or so along a route. Only children assigned to that bus could ride, it wasn't public transportation that anyone is allowed on. If you wanted to go home with your friend, you needed to have a written note from your parent. We often just wrote these notes ourselves and forged our parents name. The buses were always overcrowded and there were never enough drivers because they don't pay them well.

Yes, the bright yellow busses you see in movies are very common all over the US. As to how many children ride them, it varies from 1 school district to another. These school buses’ built in safety features make them the safest form of transportation for children. They are 70 times safer than a standard passenger car. Some states, like the one I live in, have laws that require the standard large school buses to have seat belts on them but many states don’t require seat belts on school buses. I hope at some point it will become a law for all states to require 3 point harness lap and shoulder seat belts on school buses of all sizes.

Where I live, some districts offer bussing, on these yellow busses, to all of the students in the school district no matter how close or far they live from the school. Some only offer bussing to students who live a specific distance away from the school. Some only offer bussing to children in certain grades. Some small districts don’t offer bussing at all. In addition to other variations.

there is no law that school buses must be yellow.

there is a law that drivers must stop for yellow school buses. i think if the school painted their bus a different color and a student died because the driver did not stop for the pink school bus the school officials would probably be fired.

both my kids are eligible to ride the school bus. my youngest always walks and never rides the bus. my oldest has school farther away. sometimes he rides the bus. sometimes he bikes.

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Educational-Dirt4059@reddit

Yep they are everywhere schools are, and there are traffic fines for car drivers not stopping for them because children are crossing or boarding/exiting.

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elpapel@reddit

This question comes up so frequently. Why do so many people assume Hollywood over-represents school busses? What is the thought process behind this?

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DrScarecrow@reddit

Hollywood also shows a lot that isn't real or is modified for the camera.

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elpapel@reddit

Yes but in what movie would using artistic license to change a school bus benefit the narrative or atmosphere?

Great question. The American school bus system is the largest mass transit system in the country. The color is standardized, having been set in 1939 following a conference. The USA also established many other common features to enable manufacturers to have a simplified set of designs, reducing cost, and improving performance for different school districts.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-how-school-buses-became-yellow-180973041/

Some of the other aspects of American school buses have been determined following horrendous tragedies, including one in upstate New York when a train collided with a school bus and you can imagine what happened to everyone on the bus.

For that reason, school buses stop at every railroad crossing, even ones that have been closed for years. Another feature of school buses is that when they stop to board or release passengers, there are a variety of warning lights and flags that operate and all vehicle traffic must stop in both directions. There are limited exceptions essentially where it is two very large one-way streets with a barrier strip down the middle that permits children to reach the middle safely before continuing onto the other side.
Nevertheless, jerkwad drivers will sometimes attempt to go around a school bus flagging passengers. There have been incidents in which children were killed because they are often too young to realize that they’re in danger darting across the street. That is also the reason why immediately outside of schools there are special traffic regulations limiting the speed of traffic. In many areas these reduced speeds only operate during the time zone when children are entering and leaving school.

Btw, that color is known as “school bus yellow.”

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hwrdhdsn@reddit

Sorry, the crash that forced buses to stop at a railroad track was in Utah not in New York. There was another one in New York, but this was the origination.

I grew up in a city so our “school bus” was public transportation ie the metro/subway. I don’t have the school bus picking you up for school experience because it never did. I only saw it through TV/movies. There were still yellow school buses around the city but they were reserved for special needs kids.

My partner rode the bus though because he grew up in a more rural area.

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AcademicFish4129@reddit

The main reason that the yellow school bus (IC Bus CE Series, Thomas Built Buses Saf-T-Liner C2, Blue Bird Vision, and the ever immortal International 3800) are exactly EVERYWHERE here in the States is because of reliability and ever improving safety research and regulations. School buses in the US are yellow because of a 1939 study that identified a specific orangish-yellow shade as the most visible color to the human eye, especially in low-light, fog, or peripheral vision. This color, officially dubbed "National School Bus Glossy Yellow”, ensures maximum safety by being easily seen by drivers.

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Outdoorfan73@reddit

Yup, they’re all yellow and look like they do in the movies. No, most kids don’t ride the bus to school. It’s less than half. It’s more common in rural areas where kids don’t live close to school. Where I live, very few do. They’re mostly for the special ed kids. It might have to do with low funding for schools. Most kids walk or get dropped off by parents. Some ride public buses. When I was a kid, I rode my bike to school, but you don’t see that as much anymore.

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Spare_Flamingo8605@reddit

Yes! I've lived in multiple states and cities, and everyone has the same color-I believe the same company manufactures them. The great part of the color is that it stands out easily grabs attention so everyone will drive safe safely around them.

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GingerMommy314@reddit

I don't know for sure about the color. But I've never seen a school bus that wasn't yellow.

And not every kid rides the school bus. For my kids' school district, the busses don't transport anyone within 1 mile of their school. So any kids within that mile radius either walk/bike, have a parent (or themselves if they're old enough) pick up/ drop off, or they take public transportation.

There are some exceptions though. All 4K and kindergarteners in my district are allowed bussing regardless of their distance from school. And bussing can be part of an IEP for special needs students. You can also pay for bussing for your kids, but it's fairly expensive.

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I don't know whether it's any kind of requirement, but yes it is standard. That yellow color is highly visible and easily recognizable as a schoolbus and therefore carrying children.

Kids can also be driven to school by their parents, or walk or bike if that's feasible in their neighborhood and they live close enough, or take public transit if they live in a place that offers good public transit service (rare in the US). Most districts provide bussing as an option, the only exceptions I've seen (though there could be more that I'm not aware of) are when the city itself has good enough transit that students are covered by that option.

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MissMurderpants@reddit

Mass produced = cheaper to buy. Good solid buses.

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michelle427@reddit

I think the reason they are painted Yellow is for safety. Yellow is a color you see easily when driving.

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OkManufacturer767@reddit

Yes.

You can buy them used and the word "School" has to be permanently covered before it leaves the lot.

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No-Coyote914@reddit

Over half of American children get to school on a school bus, and it's always yellow.

It's probably hard to find a public school (i.e., government funded school) student who has not been on a yellow school bus. Even if they don't get to school in one, they have probably rode one for a field trip.

The school buses are funded by the local government, so private school students rarely ride a school bus to school. But sometimes private schools also provide a bus, or a lot of parents work together to hire a bus. About 10% of students attend private school.

Everyone has mostly agreed that yes, school buses are yellow. But as a kid I couldn’t ride them if I lived within a mile of school; you had to walk (or beg your parents for a ride).

There is a different situation in my area now (“school choice “) where you are not required to go to your closest assigned school; if your parents care enough to drive you across town, you can attend anywhere you want.

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charlevoidmyproblems@reddit

The Henry Ford Museum in Michigan has an old carriage school "bus" that's still that bright ass glorious yellow.

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Lemon_Poppies@reddit

You ride them if you live far enough away from the school you’re zoned for. I always walked to school, but my kids rode the bus.

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yiotaturtle@reddit

Public transportation, parent transportation, and school vans are all alternative options.

Yellow busses are the most common option provided by the school districts for transportation within the district.

I never took a school bus outside of field trips. But I did take a school van for a couple of years when I lived in the school district, but outside of that particular schools bussing range while that school was the only one that offered the class I was in.

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peppaappletea@reddit

They do all look that way. As a driver, you are extremely aware of them and instantly know it's kids and you need to slow down.

Not everyone rides them though. Where I grew up, everyone walked, biked, or took public transportation (latter in high school only). We only rode in them for field trips.

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Wieggy@reddit

Not all children take them. I was never once assigned a spot on the but route and I either walked, rode my bike, or was dropped off at school. My kids were never in a bus route either. Depends upon how far you are from the school for the most part.

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cinephile78@reddit

They’re only a small number of bus manufacturers and they make one model at a time. It gets updated every 20 years or so. So every school is buying the same buses.

Here the school district operates the buses that pick kids up in the mornings and drive them home in the afternoons. Those are universally standard yellow buses, and will have the district name in black lettering.

The individual high schools have their own activity buses, painted the school colors along with the school names/mascots/logos. The lower level schools can use the high school buses as needed. Those buses are never used for residential routes for pickups/dropoffs.

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binarycow@reddit

The busses have the school district name.

The school district boundary may or may not line up with a county boundary.

As an example, take this map of Indiana's counties - specifically "Clark County", on the very southern edge, about third from the right. It's shaped a little bit like an anvil.

Compare that to this school district map of southeast Indiana - specifically "Greater Clark County Schools".

In Florida, the school districts are by county. In my county there are 4 ‘cities’ or ‘towns’. The district buys the buses and they are dispatched from multiple depots. An example is Orange County, Fl which includes 10 cities and 3 towns.

My parents drove school buses in NH and we were fascinated by the school ‘district’ being by township.

Another example of how alike yet unique each state is in the US.

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Rud1st@reddit

Yes, in most states the school districts are organized by city or township or some kind of hybrid with lesser-populated counties needing just one district. In a few like Florida, Maryland and Virginia, they're all by county. In Hawaii there's one school district for the whole state.

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CemeteryDweller7719@reddit

I don’t think the county buys them here. Pretty sure it is the district, although I’m sure some districts might share a garage. Growing up, my school district had the bus garage/depot next door to the elementary school. Where my kids used to go to school was the same even though it was a different district in a different county. Where they go to school now it is across the street from the high school, different district but same county where I went to school. I can’t think of a single school that any of these districts played against in sports that had county on the side. Also, all these districts the kids in sports ride to events in the district school bus, but gear might be on a bus or trailer for that purpose that’s decked out in school colors. The district that my kids went to before, the football stadium and stuff wasn’t near the school, so even for home games the football team had to take a bus to the stadium.

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BusterBluth13@reddit

Either way, you have the same supplier

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Excellent-Draft-5516@reddit

In my county, buses are run by contractors. They have the contractors names on them. The county next-door is much larger and owns all of their buses so they have the county name on them.

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QuinceDaPence@reddit

and they make one model at a time.

No at the very least they make flat-nose FE, flat-nose RE and big-nose, some will also make a snub-nose. Then you have all the different lengths as well as some make smaller ones on a lighter duty chassis. Then add in the van conversions.

Bluebird at the very least used to make the TC2000 and the All-American at the same time in both FE and RE configs. And those are very similar.

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FanaticalBuckeye@reddit

My college bought a school bus off of the local school district and ended up repainting it to the college colors. Because the color isn't exactly a common color for a college, it threw so many people off.

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blkhatwhtdog@reddit

School buses are identified as such by their color and that signals other drivers to be careful. when their flashing red go on we must stop to let the kids off. more common in suburban and rural areas.

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United States Dept of Transportation designates the yellow color, striping, and reflectors on school buses in the country. Those 3 black stripes down the side are specifically placed in those positions for rescue reasons. In some states, if you buy a used school bus for personal reasons you have to paint it a different color. In the USA school buses are sacred, traditional, and respected. They now have even more safety features than when I was a school bus driver.

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FormicaDinette33@reddit

Interesting question, now that you mention it. I just took it for granted.

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lunaralmanac@reddit

Not every kid rides them but a lot do. The only other option is your family dropping you off directly. Public transportation in many places is considered too unreliable and dangerous for kids to go on every day.
I've never seen a school bus that didn't look exactly like that. It's standardized for the entire country. Sometimes the make of the bus is slightly different but it's always recognizably A School Bus. There are shorter ones for non-standard pickups, usually kids with disabilities or who live outside of the standard bus routes, but they're still the same yellow and decals.

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Logical_Pineapple499@reddit

I believe so.

Basically think of it like matatus. There a tonnes of different multi-seat vehicle designs in the world, but pretty much every matatu (other than Nairobi culture) uses the same 3 or 4 base gari plus some paint.

They're not identical (I went to school in at least half a dozen different makes and models), but yeah, they generally all are bright yellow.

Kids in cities are as likely to use public transportation or walk, although the school near my house is served by a small fleet of the traditional yellow buses, presumably for kids not living near bus stops that go past the school.

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Square_Band9870@reddit

Yes. The buses are traditionally those big yellow ones. It’s a big deal not to pass them when stopped (to protect kids from getting hit) and the color helps drivers notice them.

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icekraze@reddit

Technically it is administered at the state level but all the states decided to use yellow for public school buses. As with most things the standard was created after a disaster. Basically there was a blizzard that hit a town in the Midwest and all the kids got on the school bus to try to get home before it got too bad. The school bus got stuck and despite the parents searching they couldn’t find the bus. All the kids on the bus froze to death. I believe there were a few kids who stayed behind at the school but nearly all the kids in the town were wiped out by this disaster. There was national outrage and school buses were changed to be painted a color that could be easily identified in a variety of situations.

Not every student rides the school bus but there is a federal standard that public schools need to provide safe transportation for kids to public schools. However that safe transportation can and often includes walking. Near me the standard is if you live within 1 mile of the school you have to walk or find other transportation. Near me you can appeal for bus transportation if the walk is too dangerous. Personally, there was a neighborhood on our bus route that was closer than 1 mile but because there were no sidewalks and they had to cross a main road without a crosswalk they got picked up by the bus.

Personally, I tried to avoid the bus in the morning as I had to be out for pick up at the bus stop so early. It was somewhat convenient for my parents to drop me off on their way to work so they would. I did have to take the bus home. Once I could drive and bought a car I drove which was also very common for the time I grew up and in the location I lived. Our school was in a middle class area so cars were a mix of beaters (cars that were literally held together with duct tape) to moderately priced sports cars and everything in between.

Designs for school buses vary quite a bit and even vary within a school district. During my time at school the popular design was the flat front school buses that mimicked public city buses. As those buses reached the end of their life they returned to the “normal” buses with the engine in front. While everyone thinks if the large buses there were small school buses as well. Those were used for routes with few students or those with special needs. There is an insult in American English that comes from those smaller buses and who generally had to ride them. If someone ever says “did you ride the short bus in today?” Or some variation using “short bus” they are calling you dumb. This is because on the larger buses it was harder to care for the intellectually disabled kids and so they often had to ride the “short bus”. The short bus also tended to physically disabled kids as it had the lifts required to load children in wheelchairs or with other mobility devices.

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arcticmischief@reddit

Also worth pointing out (which I haven’t seen in any other answers to this question) that not only is the color universal, the specific design of American school buses is also pretty much universal. Unlike city buses, American school buses have a noticeably raised floor—well above the level of the hood of most passenger cars. This provides protection in the event of a collision – most cars and even SUVs/trucks will impact the bus below the students’ foot level, reducing injury risk.

There are a number of other safety features specific to school buses (ribs on the exterior of the bus guide first responders where to cut through the metal if need be for rescue, rubberized flooring, energy-absorbing seats, etc.).

Because of our planning and zoning codes enforcing such a high level of car-dependent infrastructure in our cities. it’s such a nearly universal experience for American students to ride school-provided transportation to school. And because of our extreme car dependency and the width and speed of the roads we build, our roads tend to be much higher risk per mile than those in most other developed countries. So we have to take pretty extreme measures to protect students on their daily commutes by designing and building special vehicles for this commute, since we apparently can’t take measures to make our cities more walkable and transit friendly and thus safer for students to walk to school or take regular public transit.

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BigBrainMonkey@reddit

When you see them up close there are a few different designs and manufacturers in use. They do all look substantially the same with many of the same features. If you live in NYC you don’t get a bus you walk or take the city subway/buses.

In our suburban district there are “zones” kids within a certain distance and availability of side walks to their school are walkers and outside they are bussed. Within the walking range kids either walk, bike or parents drive them. The walking zone is based on age of kids and crossing major streets and sidewalk availability.

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used-to-have-a-name@reddit

Short answers:

The Yellow School Buses are a very, very common standard in the US.

The only exception are specialized charter busses, or busses from private schools.

Where I live, there is a white school bus for the local, private Catholic school.

But yes. Most school busses are yellow.

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Peculiar-Interests@reddit

In the United States, there are some federal laws that apply to the entire country, but most laws are left to be enacted and enforced by the individual states.

There is no federal law requiring school busses to be yellow, but all 50 states require public school busses to be yellow.

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artemisinagayway@reddit

It’s a federal standard.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/interpretations/77-220

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FunTricky903@reddit

In the United States, there are some federal laws that apply to the entire country

All federal laws apply to the entire country.

That’s the point.

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Peculiar-Interests@reddit

I meant it as in some laws are federal laws that apply to the entire country. You misinterpreted what I wrote.

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FunTricky903@reddit

some federal laws apply to the entire country

Seems pretty cut and dried to me.

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parsonsrazersupport@reddit

'Some laws, which are federal, apply to the entire country.'

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FunTricky903@reddit

You think that’s what his comment was?

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devilbunny@reddit

Yes. It’s the internet, not a formal journal article; people elide thoughts.

Children died.

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cookingismything@reddit

The yellow just makes the buses stand out more and with that (I hope) people/drivers can see them better and pay attention to safety more.

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judijo621@reddit

If there are 2 buses in a wreck, and one is yellow, you bet resuers will run to the yellow one first.

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MarionberryPlus8474@reddit

It’s a standard, and yes many kids ride them to and from school, they can also be rented for other trips, more cheaply than other buses like those used by Greyhound.

In some cities with a lot of public transit kids (especially older ones) will just use it and school buses are limited to younger kids or those with special needs.

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Altril2010@reddit

Even my kid’s private school has a yellow school bus. Because it is a private school (and relatively small) it has three stops available for parents to pick up and drop off. One is conveniently close to my work.

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FewRecognition1788@reddit

It's not a law, but all states have laws requiring drivers to use extra caution when a school bus is stopping that is not required for ordinary vehicles.

So it is helpful to standardize the color so they are immediately recognizable from every direction & at a distance.

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HooksNHaunts@reddit

I would say there is more variation than movies show, but they are all the same color. For instance the local schools have some that look like the standard school bus, some with a flat nose, some with an almost flat nose, and I believe at least one electric. It sounds electric at least. There are also the “short buses” which are, well, short. About half the normal length or less. They aren’t special needs they tend to just be for the little kids specifically since head start is such a small portion of the school system comparatively.

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Vyckerz@reddit

I drive a school bus.

Yes, they are pretty standard with some variations. The federal agency NHTS (national Highway transit safety administration) set rules and guidelines for the construction and operation of school buses

State DOT (Department of Transportation ) agencies also have rules and responsibilities for oversight of school, buses and school bus drivers

There is a standard for how the lights and stop sign need to be implemented

The color of the school buses are also regulated by the US federal government. National School Bus Glossy Yellow is the official color. Canada also adopted this color as a standard as well.

I will also say that I think like very small communities they wouldn’t necessarily have a big yellow bus, but may have vans and things like that if the number of students is fairly small.

We also have vans that bring kids, usually special needs kids, to schools. These could be anything from like sprinter/transit vans to actual mini vans.

Those vehicles don’t have to be yellow and their rules about signage are a little different than the big buses. They generally don’t have the flashing stop sign that extends from the left, but they do have standardized light bars on the roof that say “School Bus” generally

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JustKind2@reddit

Yes, school buses have special rules about people needed to stop for them so it is almost universal that they are yellow and easily recognizable.

A few weeks ago I jokingly suggested on another sub that they should use yellow school buses for transportation to/from World Cup games, because the international visitors would go crazy over them.

It's not exaggerated. School busses are almost invariably that bright yellow color. I don't know about whether it's by law or just by agreement, but it's more consistent than any other vehicle coloring I can think of. School busses are yellow. Fire trucks are usually red, or red and white, but not always. Ambulances are almost always white with some other color -- typically red, but not always. Garbage trucks are usually green but not always. But school busses? It's gotta be very near 100% of them being that yellow color.

SheepPup@reddit

Yes! During the middle of last century there were increasing incidents of deaths in school bus accidents (exploding population meant a lot more school busses meant a lot more accidents meant more deaths) so there was a huge push to figure out how to make them safer. So they tested a bunch of factors color being one of them (they also trialed other high visibility colors like orange and pink and a bright green I think) but the yellow turned out to be the most visible and recognizable in low lighting conditions like the early morning before school. Another big safety factor is their height, school busses are *tall* tall enough that most consumer cars hit either under the bus or just the very bottom of the school bus body. So the kids don’t actually get hit by the bulk of the mass of the car which means minor injuries for kids while the car gets crumpled like a tin can. These voluntarily agreed upon safety standards are one of the very few things america has voluntarily done for the good of our kids and I’m proud of them.

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catiebug@reddit

Around 50% of students ride the bus. Some ride it daily. Some ride it most days. Some never ride it. But even so, it is like the movies. They are everywhere during morning and afternoon (with the exception of downtown cities, where students are likely required to walk). I've lived in several areas where even the private school kids ride the bus (Pennsylvania and Maryland).

They are such an integral part of life that we design roads around them. My city had to retime stop lights on the major thoroughfare and put in traffic circles on the side ride when a couple of new schools were built because there were school buses lined up back to the next light waiting to turn. A gun store owner gave up part of his property for the traffic circle. A gun store owner. For context, that's the type of citizen most likely to go to court over losing a few feet of property to anything. Gave it up for pennies on the dollar. Because it's for the school buses.

New neighborhoods will design a bus turnaround into the entrance. Some cities build enormous lots for all the buses to park at night. Sometimes bus drivers take them home, if they have enough property to park them there. The ubiquity of school buses is definitely not exaggerated in movies.

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WildMartin429@reddit

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-how-school-buses-became-yellow-180973041/

Yellow school buses became standard in 1939 to protect children the above is a pretty interesting article from the Smithsonian which is like the National History Museum

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vanillablue_@reddit

Yep, rode them daily for 12 years.

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indipit@reddit

Yes, the yellow school bus is standard across the united states. But, not every child rides them.

School districts have different distances that are outside of pickup options. For instance, in my city, if the child lives within one mile of the school, they are expected to walk or ride their bike, and there are no school bus stops for them. Any child living one mile or more away from the school will have a school bus stop within 2 blocks of their house.

This was true in my district growing up as well, and is for my kids now in a different town/district.

Our last town didn't have school buses at all bc they cut them to use the funding elsewhere so all kids had to walk, bike, or get dropped off regardless of age. The public buses for the town stepped in to offer a handful of routes for the middle and highschoolers to give a separate option, but even with that it was a clusterfuck lol. Each elementary school had ~500 kids and the middle and high schools both had ~2k kids. It was pure chaos and you couldn't have paid me any amount of money in the world to live in the neighborhoods surrounding those schools bc of how bonkers they were twice a day for most of the year 😂

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count-brass@reddit

I once saw a Marine Corps school bus that was camo except for the front and rear bumpers that had a yellow band painted, with “school bus” stenciled in black. It had the usual red lights on it and all, but the camo seemed strange.

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FrostRose172@reddit

They are pretty standard, where I'm from there are smaller busses that are white with the school's colors and names on them.

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cwcam86@reddit

I live near a bus plant so its really as simple as its cheaper to make them all the same color than to get a special color.

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handsheal@reddit

It makes it very easy to pick out a school bus

There are usually laws regarding the priority of the school bus and kids safety, including stopping if the bus stops for a kid no matter which direction you are traveling

It is so easy to see and iconic you even what it is not living here

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futurearmysolider@reddit

Well considering not every town / school district has school buses, no. Also in the US it’s not common to have something as a federal standard (the US was designed to be countries within a union, which it was originally and why we get state’s rights arguments). I have seen gray school buses (minivans). I have also seen some different shades of yellow.

If you live in the zone to be picked up by a bus, then yes you will ride it every day. If you don’t or live in a non bus district you will ride them on occasion. The kids who lived outside my district rode public transport to school.

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_aitah_no_no_no@reddit

How does the system work? Do students pay for a ticket once a month? Is the cost subsidised?

Judging by a Reddit post on driving, there are laws about driving in the vicinity of school buses - like when they’re dropping someone off they stick a big sign out, and you're not allowed to drive past or whatnot.

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alwaysboopthesnoot@reddit

Dedicated school vans or different types of vehicles, as long as they have the proper markings, letterings and signs in the right size and type of lettering, are usually allowed. For picking up/dropping off students attending alternative schools, for smaller numbers of students served in an area where traditional school buses can’t fit/aren’t able to navigate well, for before or after school programs, and they’re often used for private schools too.

In one district near where we used to love, there are no school buses at all; all kids use public transport (light rail or public buses) or walk, bike or are picked up and dropped off by their parents. The district made the decision many years ago as even though the streets there can handle the size of the vehicles, the steep hills and curvy roads with many obstructed views and the light rail lines snaking through the community made it hard to do. And everybody liked not having to pay the costs anymore. It’s a walkable, older “trolley car suburb” that looks more like a big city with many schools and students, all within walkable range of elementary should bear the homes. The high school, most of the kids use the buses and light rail to attend.

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EatReadPlayS4-1043@reddit

Copied from Wikipedia:

Origin

In April 1939, Frank W. Cyr, a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York, organized a conference that established 44 uniform national design, construction, and safety standards for school buses in America, including the exterior body color.[4] The yellow-orange color was selected because black lettering on it was most legible in semi-darkness,[4] and because it was conspicuous at a distance and unusual enough to become associated with school buses and groups of children in a route.

In the U.S. if you live a set distance from your school, most areas provide the yellow-orange buses for transportation of students.

As a child, my sisters and I lived just under my city’s 2 miles (3.22 kilometers) limit and either walked, was driven, or took paid transportation. I think our house was barely inside the range of the circle!

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Maleficent_Brick7167@reddit

The black stripes are the standard nationwide. Lower = floor, Middle = seat level, Upper = seat top. This is for rescue crews in case there is an accident.

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Ok_Neighborhood_470@reddit

They're all yellow. They stop frequently and are yellow as a safety precaution so people see them. They also have flashing lights and a stop sign. It's a huge fine to drive around a school bus while it's picking up kids. There are activity busses that are usually white. The do longer distance runs from the school directly to sports events and camps and such.

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Universally-Tired@reddit

Keep in mind that all of the busses that you see in media are built to be school busses. It's cheaper to keep them all the same color. The yellow also makes them more noticeable to the other drivers on the road and to the students waiting for them. Sometimes the school will paint them the school's colors, but that is more money. And for film makers there usually no point in spending the money to paint. Plus they are rented or studio property. Meaning that they wood need to paint them again when they are done. If your school is close enough, most kids will walk or ride bicycles. Of course there is always a long line of cars before and after school of parents dropping off or picking up the children. Where I grew up, if you lived more than one mile away, the buss was free. Although I have seen in big cities where the students will use the public transportation buss. Those would be painted the colors the company chooses. And are different type of busses.

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blackdogpepper@reddit

There is an island town near me that doesn’t have regular roads so the kids are picked up by a 4x4 bus that drives on the beach

https://imgur.com/a/e7sNhpe

1Negative_Person@reddit

School buses are yellow.

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Adventurous_Ad1922@reddit

Yes and yes

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lavasca@reddit

Some school districts do not offer bus service.

If a school offers bus service then these are used. They are standardized.

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confusedrabbit247@reddit

Yes.

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Gloomy_Goal_4050@reddit

In my city, the public schools start having school buses in middle school. They have contracted this service with the local public bus system so the special buses to and from the middle school look exactly like the public buses. No yellow school buses.

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JtotheC23@reddit

Yes. Not only that, if you buy one used for whatever reason (there are plenty of reasons people do), laws are super strict about removing everything that might mildly suggest that it's still an active school bus (the stop sign, crossing bar, decals, flashing lights, etc). I've heard some areas even specifically require you to repaint it another color.

School buses have a lot of traffic protections that make distinguishing a real one from a used, privately owned one important. You can't overtake a school bus when they're at a bus stop, and depending on the size of the streets (like a neighborhood street for example), oncoming traffic is required to stop as well. The ticket for not following these laws is expensive as shit too.

It's common for bus drivers to report consistent offenders to the police, and they'll then have a cop camped out ready to pull them over. These are protections regular public transport buses don't even get.

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Witty_Buy_4975@reddit

They're yellow AND electric here in my part of Cali.

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Storage-Helpful@reddit

where i am from only the tiny private parochial schools have busses that aren't yellow, and they're typically white with either red or blue. i rode a bus for all but my last year of public schooling, and that was fairly typical at the time

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BreadForTofuCheese@reddit

Almost all school buses use the yellow scheme. It isn’t necessarily law, but it is the federal standard so it’s basically the only thing you’ll see.

I grew riding the bus or walking to school when I lived close enough. It seems like every kid in the Southwest (LA region specifically) gets driven to school now though. It’s insane, lines of backed up traffic near every school so that every kid can get a personal parental chauffeur. Those parents then end up getting to work late and leaving early to pick them up in my office. Most of them live within walking distance of their school, but nobody trusts little 16 year old billy to leave the house without dying.

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Urban kids ride public transportation here too, there’s just a lot of the US that isn’t urbanized enough to support a robust public transportation system. Other countries may have better public transportation in rural areas, but that is likely because there are many residents who don’t have cars. Most people in America outside of the major metropolises have cars.

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AliMcGraw@reddit

The safety standards for school buses (which are national) are EXTREMELY high, which basically means there's only one or two designs that meet them, so they're all pretty much the same, yes.

The color is "National School Bus Glossy Yellow" and it was the most visible color in the most conditions (at the time the standard was set). What's more, when a school bus goes OUT of service (and maybe someone buys it to make a "tiny house" out of the bus), it has to be painted a different color so it's clear to other drivers that it's NOT a school bus.

School buses have special traffic laws (they must stop and open their door to listen at all train crossings, for example; they have "STOP" signs attached to them that all other traffic MUST obey) and while it varies somewhat by state, drivers have to meet a higher standard than a typical "CDL" (truck/bus driver) license, and they generally have rights to report drivers to the police who blow past the school bus stop sign, because kids can DIE that way. (These days they all have cameras, but in the old days the driver could just radio the license plate in to the cops.)

I grew up in a very rural area. My “bus” was a regular old blue van.

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rinky79@reddit

Yellow is the color most quickly recognized in peripheral vision.

It's not a Federal law, although there is a Federal recommendation to states to make it a law: https://one.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/whatsup/tea21/tea21programs/pages/PupilTransportation.htm

Identification and equipment of school buses. Each State should establish procedures to meet the following recommendations for identification and equipment of school buses.

All school buses should:

Be painted National School Bus Glossy Yellow, in accordance with the colorimetric specification of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Federal Standard No. 595a, Color 13432, except that the hood should be either that color or lusterless black, matching NIST Federal Standard No. 595a, Color 37038.

Oregon law, for example, requires them to be yellow. OAR 581-053-0240(16)(b)

(b) The school bus body shall be painted a uniform National School Bus Yellow. The body exterior paint trim, bumper, lamp hoods, and emergency door lettering shall be black. The engine hood may be painted low-luster yellow. The roof of the bus may be painted white. The white color may extend across the roof down to the drip rails or within 6 inches above the passenger windows on the sides of the bus except that front and rear caps shall remain National School Bus Yellow. Retroreflective material may be used as trim on rear bumper;

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willyd_5@reddit

Yeah, it is a national standard and exists in almost every state law that school buses must be a specific yellow. The standardization arguably promotes safety as everyone knows it is a bus full of children that makes frequent stops (and the ones exiting may be unreliable) and the color was chosen for visibility. This also helps everyone follow the law which makes it illegal to pass a stopped school bus.

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Cerebral-Knievel-1@reddit

here is a wiki about the history of the north American school bus and system

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confusedgraphite@reddit

Just googled it but apparently there is a national standard for American school busses that was started in 1939. There are 44 different design, construction and safety regulations, and one of them is that specific color (known as National School Bus Glossy yellow - formerly National School Bus Chrome). So that’s why they’re all yellow. As for how common it is to ride them, that’s mostly down depends on where in the country you live. I live in a more rural suburban area and almost everyone (until you were old enough to drive) road the bus. Very few students lived close enough to walk and the terrain made biking basically impossible.

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VeronicaMarsupial@reddit

There was a big study done at one point to identify ways to make school transport safer. That color, for visibility, was one of the things they found had a significant benefit, among other safety features on those bus designs. Therefore they are the most commonly used.

Lots of kids walk or bike to school or get dropped off and picked up by their parents, though.

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Apprehensive-Pop-201@reddit

There are four major school bus manufacturers in the US. The yellow color was chosen because of visibility and it is a national standard in the USA. Canada uses it too.

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No_Information_8973@reddit

Where I'm at not every kid rides the bus.

If you live a certain distance from the school you are eligible to ride the bus. Otherwise you walk, ride a bike, drive, or get a ride.

Even those who are eligible to ride the bus will often be driven by parents or whoever.

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MsE0@reddit

I don't know about it being a law, but it's standard for schoolbuses to be yellow. I've seen pale blue ones being used for other things like summer camps, but never any other color for schools. I rode one when I went to rural schools. When I went to a high school in town for a year, I took the city bus home in the afternoons and got a ride with a friend in the mornings. I had to buy a pass for the city bus, but the school buses are free.

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