Like the swallows returning to Capistrano or the appearance of wooly bear caterpillars, one sure sign of fall – at least here in the US – is the sighting of yellow school buses on local roads and streets. Finding myself inching along behind these vehicles gives me time to think about these every-day conveyances.
It’s not that I don’t otherwise have plenty of opportunity to think about school buses. First, I should note that I’m a person who so loved public school in general that I chose to make a life out of basically staying in school. Throughout my life, I’ve never been a devotee of or reverent to any particular school – I attended eight different schools before I graduated from high school – instead I have interacted with literally hundreds of different schools as a student, trainer and/or consultant. Through all of this, I’ve seen a lot of school buses in their natural and purposeful environment.
Photo taken by me at my high school in 1978. That building no long exists. But I’ll wager the bus still does…somewhere in Central or South America.
So with that as a basis, as a somewhat belated greeting to the new school year, here are some random reflections on school buses. A subject about which many people may not think a lot about; but as with so many things in day to day life, there’s more to school buses than might meet the eye. Which, I should note is ironic since about half the point of a school bus – certainly the color – is about insuring that they “meet the eye”.
Truth be told, many years of my childhood K-12 experience did not actually involve riding the bus. Maybe this is why I developed an early fascination with school buses. In my early school years, they were an aspect of the school experience that remained just beyond reach. In many of the schools I attended as a child, I was “a walker”. This means that I lived close enough to school to walk, something not altogether uncommon back in the late 1960s and 1970s. In fact, as an early elementary grade student in the DC suburbs, I not only walked to and from school but also walked home for lunch. This of course was back in the day when kids (and teachers!) got more than 20 minutes for lunch and recess, and lunch wasn’t considered a dangerous distraction from time on task learning.
What many families would nowadays consider an amazing thing – living so close to their child’s neighborhood school – I actually hated. Not only did I miss out on riding the school bus for those early years of elementary school, but I also missed school cafeteria lunch. If there’s one thing I love more than school buses, it’s school cafeterias (although I’ll have to find Cafeteria Classic to fully discuss my passion for tater tots and government cheese).
Fortunately, by the time I hit 4th grade, we had moved to another state and after a couple more moves (we changed houses a lot) lived far enough from the school such that I was able to ride the bus. This was in North Carolina which at the time was notable for not having yet gotten behind the concept of yellow school buses.
The bus in this picture is of course much older than what I was riding in 1973, but you can get an idea of the “Omaha Orange” color that many North Carolina districts used at the time I was growing up in Raleigh. The actual bus I rode looked a lot like this and was I believe a Dodge with a body by Blue Bird.
You might say “Orange”? Didn’t Frank Cyr in 1939 convene a convention at Columbia University where it was decided that all school buses would be painted yellow? Well, yes, and subsequent to 1939, many – but not all – school districts adopted a color called “National School Bus Chrome” for their buses. This color was apparently pretty close to what many of us call “school bus yellow”. Unfortunately it was also notable for being a lead-based paint and its formulation included a significantly carcinogenic substance called hexavalent chromium. While the 1939 standard did much to increase the on-road visibility of bright yellow school buses, that paint did no favors for the workers involved in manufacturing and periodically repainting the buses. But without a doubt, Dr. Cyr’s work in 1939 did move forward was the concept that school buses would be safer if they were more noticeable to other motorists. Prior to this point, school transportation — something which had been developing for years, starting in 1869 with Massachusetts as the first state to allocate state funds for transporting students — happened through a mixed bag of vehicles that had no standardization from location to location. An often-told story is of students in Kansas being transported in farm wagons and in other states buses being painted red, white, and blue to “instill patriotism” in students.
For those interested, the full 42 pages of this manual is available at https://nasdpts.org/resources/Documents/NCSTFiles/1939NCST.pdf
The standards Cyr and his fellow school administrators developed in 1939 existed for roughly another 30 years before the regulatory mood of the 1960s gave rise to tighter, somewhat less voluntary, federal standards. In 1966, the newly-established National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) included in its landmark set of regulations a section known as the Pupil Transportation Standard No. 17. Part of that guidance to states established that all vehicles certified to transport students should be painted in a color officially named “National School Bus Glossy Yellow”. This was very similar to the older, DNA-altering, Yellow Chrome color, but was much safer to work with. Still, as is the case with many federal regulations, some states took longer than others to implement the NHTSA guidance. Coming back around to my Omaha Orange bus in the early 1970s, North Carolina was one of the last states to adopt the federal standard and didn’t standardize on “yellow” until around 1977.
Another feature of the North Carolina school bus scene of my youth — one that also flew in the face of federal regulations — was that the buses were often as not driven by fellow students; that is, minors as young as 16 years old. Students driving students was in fact a reasonably common practice throughout the country until the 1950s when for a variety of obvious reasons states started to rein in the practice and move to adult, professional, drivers. But it wasn’t until 1988 that North and South Carolina rather reluctantly stopped hiring students as school bus drivers.
Research shows that a lot of ink was spilled in North Carolina newspapers disparaging federal child labor law that conspired to put the state out of its teenaged school bus driver workforce.
The tone of this 1966 newspaper article is interesting in how it quotes the state department of education as essentially blaming school programs for pulling kids away from being bus drivers. Furthermore, the clear implication was that students were hired for these jobs since they could be paid less than adults.
The Johnson brothers – aged 16 and 17. Students — and bus drivers — in Charlotte, NC in 1970.
In 1967, the NC state school commissioner noted that 7500 of the state’s 9200 school bus drivers were under the age of 18. It took another 20 years before NC (and SC) joined the rest of the nation and complied with federal law by shifting to drivers who were over the age of 18.
As a kid at the time, all I knew was that it was something of a hoot having a bus driver in 6th grade who was nearly my same age. I can’t remember our driver’s name, but he was the older brother of some of the kids on the bus. He was gregarious and generally carried on lively conversation with his passengers during the whole trip. He also brought along his radio and would beat out a great rhythm on the big old bus wheel on our long cross-Raleigh bus rides, a product of forced desegregation in NC schools.
Our driver in 1973-74 (Kool and the Gang released Jungle Boogie in 1973 and it climbed the carts for the first half of 1974) looked much like the guy in the purple shirt at 0:16 … with less facial hair, befitting a 16 year old.
While it seems pretty obvious — based on my own experience — why being driven to school in a bus piloted by (essentially) fellow students probably wasn’t the best of ideas, I’m still quite sure that if I had managed to stay in North Carolina past the age of 13 I’d have made a strong pitch to be a student bus driver. I’d doubt that my parents would have agreed (not that they had anything against child labor), but I would have tried hard to change their position on the matter.
Instead, my family relocated again, returning to the DC area, and I found myself in yet another school where I mostly finished out my secondary school career as a walker. Actually, I lived in that kind of liminal zone where there was a bus, but if you chose to hoof it, you could. I was about 50-50, taking the bus in bad weather and walking the rest of the time. Also, around that time I started engaging in a considerable amount of after school club activity, often until quite late in the day. There was no late bus, so I had to walk home.
One of the things that kept me late at school was my participation in all manner of journalism and photography…which afforded many opportunities to take pictures of, you guessed it, school buses. Here we have representatives from Montgomery County (MD) public schools’ fleet of mostly International-based buses. Oh yeah, there are some students in the picture too.
“Yeah, I know you…you just want to take a picture of the bus. I’ll be out of your way in a second.”
And here the pretense was to photograph this attractive young student (whose name I cannot recall at all) for some yearbook article or end of the year slide show, but I’m sure that I was just as interested in highlighting that not all of our bus fleet was International based, but some were Dodges. Important stuff, you know.
As these photos point out, one of the things that for some reason all of the school buses of my youth shared was that they were the so-called “Type C” buses which ahead of the cowl looked more or less like the trucks they were derived from.
As you can imagine (well…you should), this meant that a “Type D” bus was an object of enduring fascination for me. These are of course the flat-front, “transit style” buses, where the door is in front of the front wheels. As they say, familiarity breeds contempt. And so I lusted after a ride in the type of bus that never managed to grace my bus stop. There was just something cooler about the Type D bus.
This opinion was also spurred at an early age by various children’s TV shows that offered crafting segments where viewers were encouraged to make school buses out of flat-top milk cartons.
The concept was to acquire one of these cartons, and then to fashion and attach four wheels using “paper fasteners” as hubs.
Despite the fact that this craft seemed to be featured prominently on children’s TV shows and in all of my go-to elementary school literature (i.e., Highlights Magazine and My Weekly Reader), there were two problems with this craft activity that frustrated the heck out of me. First, our milkman delivered milk in glass bottles, and then eventually paper cartons with the peaked top that are still common today. We totally didn’t have flat top milk cartons. Second, paper fasteners. This was an object that was beyond the ken of what I knew for office supplies. Paste, mucilage, tape, all those were fine; but my mom drew the line (she was all about drawling lines) at paper fasteners. She was not going to make a trip to the “stationery supply store” just for those. Or actually, ever for those. Maybe it was their fancy brass finish. I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I just sulked. Anyhow, lacking flat top milk cartons and paper fasteners, even a home-fabricated model Type D bus was out of my childhood reach.
Imagine my surprise and pleasure 30 years later when a Type D bus shows up to transport my kid to 1st grade! It really made the whole child-rearing experience up to that point totally worth it.
Unfortunately, this was a short-lived joy and my district’s bus contractor quickly phased out the flat-front Type D buses and replaced them with much more traditional (for around here at least) fare.
By this time, the bus contractor – my district, like most districts in my state, do not own their bus fleets and instead contract to large transportation companies for school bus operation – had pretty much standardized on Type C buses, and in particular the Saf-T-Line C2 by Thomas. I am thinking that the low hood-line on these diesel-powered appliances makes for a more car-like and less truck-like driving experience. Not ever having driven one, I can still appreciate that they’re probably easier to maneuver than the full-on truck that was the Type C bus of my youth. That, by the way is something to think about when considering my 16 year old bus driver in Raleigh 50 years ago.
The dogs change, but the bus remains the same.
At least though, the buses were/are Thomas-built. I say this because Thomas holds a special place in my heart so far as school bus constructors go. Thomas originates from North Carolina, High Point specifically. Which turns out to be where I originate from as well. Thomas is now a subsidiary of Daimler, but it maintains operations in High Point and stands as the oldest existing bus manufacturer in the U.S. Thomas was the first manufacturer to routinely offer convex blind spot crossing mirrors on all of its school buses. Although, it should be noted that Thomas did not invent the blind spot mirror.
That credit goes to Reid Stout, a Michigan-based inventor, principal, teacher and school bus driver. It was Thomas though that popularized the convex mirror which is now standard equipment on all school buses.
The convex blind spot mirror was by no means the last technological advance for school buses. For example, as one might imagine, there’s considerable effort currently being made among the major school bus manufacturers to market electric buses.
Thomas, Blue Bird, and several other companies are producing and piloting fully electric school buses. If nothing else, this should be a relief to anyone who has ever spent time sitting in traffic at exhaust pipe level behind a traditional diesel bus.
Fortunately, it appears that there are Type D electric buses as well…providing inspiration to on-going generations of kids who want to make school bus models. If only they can find flat-top milk cartons and their moms let them have paper fasteners.
Sadly, those future generations of kids who are familiar with and inspired by school buses might be vanishing. This is of course due to the scourge of school bus transport…the pickup line.
In my own school district, there’s an ongoing debate each year as to how to economically design bus routes when fewer and fewer students take the bus as opposed to being driven by mom or dad. Some years, the district has called for bus-riding students to pay what is essentially an activity fee in order to underwrite the provision of buses.
I find this sad for quite a few reasons that are simultaneously personal, cultural, social, and environmental. The American School Bus Council (of course there is…) no doubt finds the whole situation economically threatening. And well, I guess that can be chalked up to life in a changing world. We’ll just have to see where all of that comes out.
This cardboard bus is actually a bank. Maybe it encourages children to save their money to pay their school district’s add-on fee for bus transportation.
If I ever have grandchildren – as they used to say in Western Kentucky, “Maybe you can get you some!” — they might someday ask what that “truck with the stop sign on it” is that I have on my desk. And then I can direct them to this article and tell them the story about riding the orange bus (with funktastic accompaniment). They’ll naturally assume that it’s just a crazy story…until we go find some antique paper fasteners and a flat top milk carton on eBay and start building.
Very interesting article.
I drove an International Loadstar/Superior body bus for Richland district 1 in South Carolina serving Wardlaw Elementary and Columbia High School from 1973-1976.
345 International V8 gas engine with a 4 speed manual transmission governed at 35 MPH with a vacuum governor.
Bus number was 503-186 (503 code was for International chassis) and the right side was damaged and read “BLIC SCHOOLS” instead of SOUTH CAROLINA PUBLIC SCHOOLS for my entire driving career. The only one like it in the fleet!
Was paid $162.00 per month and had a way to and from school.
Pretty good deal back then for us drivers and the district!
Great to hear from someone who was actually a student bus driver…and who can remember so many of the details. As you can probably tell from what I wrote, I am both fascinated and appalled that some states/districts relied on such an arrangement. Possible safety issues aside, it just seems that the process exploited juveniles by paying them a low wage and thereby saving their employers money. It’s one thing to do that to someone bagging groceries, it’s a whole other level to do it and to potentially risk child safety. But…different times, different ways.
And then as you point out, $162/month was a lot of money – particularly for a teenager — in 1973. So there’s that perspective too.
I’m curious about the time logistics for student bus drivers who bused both elementary and high school students.
I presume that the elementary school started later in the morning, so did you drop off the high school students, then drive your elementary school route, and then head back to high school for your classes? I can’t figure out how that would work, unless the student bus drivers had schedules that permitted them to miss the first class of the day.
I believe you’d touched on one of the major problems with the student driver arrangement. I believe that the system that was in place in NC (this is sort of mentioned in the News and Observer article in my post) was that the student drivers basically lost a period or more in the morning and likewise in the afternoon. The students received money, but nothing so far as academic experience. Other programs (Voc Ed, etc.) were coming on line in the late 70s that offered students actual learning experiences (as defined by the education system), and academic credit…and these ultimately trumped time spent driving a bus.
But yeah, the logistics are complex. I’ve worked in school districts in Arkansas (and other places do this as well) where TEACHERS drive the buses. That definitely takes a bite out of morning and afternoon classes (not to mention after-school help sessions). But again, as with so much of public education, we make do with what we have.
So much here…this is a great article.
Starting school in 1977, there was never the option of walking as I lived 12 miles from the school. It was a rural area and several smaller districts had been consolidated in the late 1960s, early 1970s. Nobody walked, for what it’s worth, as the school was located well away from anything.
My first bus was a gas powered Chevrolet. Mildred drove (she’s worth a post at some point as she was a great person who tolerated no shenanigans). At that time, the school was obtaining news busses annually – not sure if they were purchased or leased, but all were marked with the name of the school.
In fourth grade, the new busses were Internationals in a combination of propane and diesel. I was on a propane bus. My first ride on a diesel bus was awful given the noise. So naturally, the busses were all diesel the following year.
At one point, a few automatics were introduced into the mix, ultimately transitioning to all automatics by the time I was in the middle of high school.
The first year of leasing busses happened somewhere along the way and caused some consternation. I know as my father was on the school board and the superintendent stopped by the house one night to discuss it. The best bid was not the low bid and there was discussion about how to most effectively address it.
All busses were Type C until junior high when a limited few Type Ds came along. I remained on a Type C. Keep in mind my school had all of 13 busses for the student body. Somewhere I have a piggy bank of a Type D that Bluebird gave my father at some school board related convention.
It was about this time I was relocated to a bus driven by Herb. The drivers were pretty much a constant the entire 13 years I was in school. Different time, place, and era.
You mention the pickup line at the schools. While I cannot speak for everyone, I can say from my experience there was no pickup line where I went to school (granted this was eons ago) but given what I was exposed to, and how such wore on me, I understand the pickup line concept. Not saying I like it, but I do understand it.
A few years ago I wrote about a 1980ish Trans Am and related about an instance on the school bus. It really did happen but that was one of the more innocent things I was exposed to. The same girl routinely “whipped out a titty” at motorists behind us and one guy would unzip and wave his penis at motorists (he also didn’t realize one day when flipping off a guy that it was the health teacher in a different car). Someone else would blow up condoms like balloons and give them to kids.
There were also non-stop racial, sexual, ethnic, and all manner of other slurs being bandied about endlessly. There are some very volatile racial pejoratives that were used constantly.
Thus, I drove to school as soon as I was able to do so. These events were stuck in my mind when my daughter approached school age. The parochial school she attended for a while had no bus service and we ultimately home-schooled her, so we dodged that bullet. But given what I was exposed to (literally and figuratively) I was reluctant to put any child of mine on a bus.
Calling me tainted about the bus experience would not be an incorrect conclusion. But that’s just me.
Jeff, your delight with school busses is great and somewhat infectious. There is a lot that goes into the construction of one, things many would never consider. They offer a lot of utility and, despite all I’ve said, it is sad to see their usage dwindle. They are a truly special breed of workhorse.
You’re right about that. My first exposure to many swear words, racially derogatory words, sexual words and general human trash talk occurred on the “cheese wagon”. I couldn’t wait to drive *anything* to school vs ride the bus.
All good points Jason. Indeed, to this day buses remain one of the few aspects of public school where student behavior remains pretty much un-checked…i.e., Lord of the Flies-level animal behavior. The school cafeteria is probably the next closest wild space in school.
I think I escaped much of that in my school bus riding days by always choosing the first row seat in the bus. I well knew that the “cool kids” wanted to be in the back of the bus (and you can still see them back there today…punching each other and making obscene gestures to motorists), but I wanted to be directly behind the driver so that I could watch the road and watch the driver. I was much more interested in the operation of the bus than whatever kid stuff was occurring behind me. Plus, it was less likely that I would have been subjected to beatings by fellow students (something that I as the perpetual “new kid” was typically subject to in the school building) if I sat closer to the driver.
I do recall complaining about the behavior of other kids on the bus when sometimes kids found a way to get my goat…but back in those days there really was no other option for getting to school. The idea of parents driving kids when there was a bus available simply did not exist…at least not to parents back in the 60s and 70s. My Dad’s response was “It’ll make you tougher.” (maybe he was right…although I’m not sure I would echo that same parenting advice 30 years later to my own kids). And anyway, I wanted to watch the driver and indulge in the fantasy of driving the thing myself.
“I was much more interested in the operation of the bus than whatever kid stuff was occurring behind me. Plus, it was less likely that I would have been subjected to beatings by fellow students (something that I as the perpetual “new kid” was typically subject to in the school building).”
So much this! I could’ve very well written those lines, although likely not as eloquently as you. Very similar thoughts and experiences. Unfortunately, we were often assigned seats and I’d usually end up with the wheel hump seat, sitting next to/behind/in front of some homophobic racist kid who targeted anyone and everyone in sight. I’d keep quiet and stare at the cars out the window and think… “I wish I was in that Maxima, I’d sure rather be in that GMC, too bad I’m not riding in that Topaz…”. Anything to mentally escape the hell I was sitting in.
So true Jason, school buses were our first ‘exposure’ to the unseemly side of people.
My public school bus driver always took us to Dairy Queen on the last day of school. In 1979, these two high school kids pulled up beside our parked school bus. The one in the passenger seat, mooned the whole bus. Remarkably, the same kids did it the next year in June 1980. haha
I retired last week after 34+ years in school transportation. Mechanic and driver. One day I had high schoolers with the blown up condom. First comment from me was “it figures that you don’t know how to use one of those correctly”. The second was “your mom is going to be pissed when she gets to work tonight and finds those missing from her purse”. No more blown up condom problems.
Congratulations on your retirement!
When’s the last time you drove a manual transmission bus? 1990s?
It’s amazing more children weren’t brain-damaged by the steel frames of the seats on the old buses.
This was a fun and interesting topic. Neither I nor my children have ever ridden a bus to/from school, so I have almost zero experience with the inside of these buses. I was a walker, from that Paleozoic age when there was such a thing as “the neighborhood school” (and when parents actually bought houses to be close to the schools). My children went to parochial schools and we became adept at the drop-off/pick up lines. And once the oldest hit driving age, transport to/from high school employed our family equivalent to the teen bus driver.
In my area, I sometimes wonder if teens could be any less safe as drivers than the ones I see speeding through my neighborhood. Brakes on those buses must last about 5,000 miles, because the object seems to be to floor the accelerator to reach maximum possible velocity before slamming on the brakes for each stop.
I will confess to some heretical thinking when I wonder about why the big yellow bus continues to exist at all. So many parents of my acquaintance whose kids ride a bus drive the kids to the bus stop and idle in the car until the bus arrives. Beyond that, school is already “free” (for those in the system, anyhow) so why is the transport included too? I wonder how much the resources devoted to school bus systems would improve public transport for the community at large and not just for the schools.
I also just remembered the oddity that school buses (in my area, at least) have never used seat belts for passengers. This never made sense to me, especially given the efforts put into getting the rest of us to use them (and for good reason).
My understanding is that most school buses across the country do not use/offer seat belts for students. I know it’s been a contentious issue here in MA and the result (unless it’s changed recently, I don’t follow these things all that closely now that I have no kids riding buses) is that the powers that be have determined that students would be less safe in the event of a crash and the need to have a hasty evacuation. Seems like the same “logic” that’s been used by automobile seat belt non-users for generations.
And yeah, I actually know of cases where students have received life-altering injuries due to slamming into the seats in front of them during school bus accidents. Unfortunately.
I’d say another reason for no seat belts on buses was…who was going to make sure the kids wore them?
Ah yes, rapid evacuation protocols, a subparagraph of the “thrown-clear” rationale. Never mind that if there is an incident requiring hasty evacuation it might go better if everyone is more or less upright in the position they were sitting in prior to the incident, you’ll note the driver themself almost always has a seatbelt. It’s as good a reason as some of the others to not have your kids ride the school bus, many buses such as the ones I didn’t have to ride daily in the L.A. area make multi-hour drives on the freeway at speeds up to the prevailing limit, not just in residential areas. Insane.
There’s likely a whole additional article to be written about this subject, fwiw.
I will note one concession – if you can even call it that — to passenger safety in school buses is the pad that runs across the back of each seat. That’s supposed to help if your child slides across the seat into the one in front of it during a crash. Back in my day, there was no pad…just a metal rail.
I think that seatbelts will ultimately come to school buses, if as some have noted here school buses don’t just stop existing before that. Remember that the buses we all remember (those of us over the age of 50 that is) existed simultaneous to a time when folks just tossed kids in cars and encouraged them to sit unrestrained in the back of the family wagon or to slide around the back bench seat.
Subsequent generations of parents who spend days of time over a kid’s life carefully strapping them into child seats that are tougher than the automobile around them are understandably loathe to let their kids ride around lose in the back of a truck on the way to school.
I’m 40 and can vividly remember riding with my brothers in the canopy covered bed of my dad’s single cab 1985 Ranger. This was after I got too big to sit in the not-a-seat middle of the backseat of our 4 passenger 1985.5 Escort 3 door (family of 5).
I can remember trips to the mountains in the back of that Ranger. We’d bang on the window if we needed to stop.
That all ended in 1990 when dad brought home a new Ford Aerostar 7 passenger extended length minivan. My own seat and seat belt! So much room. Air conditioning! Cloth seats! The first automatic I actually remember us having (although they’d owned plenty before I came along). The audio controls in the back (and all the above) made us feel like this was the Rolls-Royce of family conveyances. Ironic that it was loosely based on the Ranger.
My parents were always sticklers about us wearing seat belts, yet they tossed us in the back of that Ranger with no restraints and just a bunch of thin metal around us. Weird.
I was waiting for someone to mention seat padding. When I was a kid, there wasn’t any on the seatbacks – just bare metal with the coachbuilder’s logo embossed on it (which is why I remember the names Superior, Thomas Built, and probably a few others I’d remember if someone mentioned them). Also absent was head restraints – the seatbacks were low-back. The first concession to safety that showed up was a small bit of very thin padded vinyl at the top of the seatbacks on some of the newer buses.
When I was in 7th grade in 1978, we got new school buses. Like most of the old ones they were built on the International chassis, but with new cab styling with a big upright chrome grille, just like a Cordoba. Inside – finally – there were high-back seats that were thickly and completely padded in the back. There was a small section of vinyl covering the side panels too instead of just bare metal. Overhead were luggage carriers like on a intercity coach bus, complete with what looked like air-conditioning vents. I remarked to another passenger the first time I was on this bus how cool I thought it was, especially those overhead air vents. “They don’t do anything, they just look nice” I was told. He was right – I never felt any air, cold or otherwise, come from them.
I’ve never heard of 16-year-olds driving school buses. All the drivers I remember seemed to be in their late 20s at least.
School buses are safer than automobiles. It’s a question of enforcement – and also a question of school districts absorbing the cost of retrofitting seatbelts.
There used to be six major manufacturers – Superior, Thomas, Carpenter, Wayne, Ward, and Bluebird. Thomas and Bluebird still exist. Ward became Amtran in 1993 and later International/IC bus.
I recall reading an unusual newspaper article as a kid in the early 80s, of a school girl killed in Southern Ontario, while riding in the back of a Type ‘C’ bus. Apparently, happened when the driver drove over a hill too fast, and she and another girl slammed into the roof. The article indicated he was doing it intentionally. The driver was charged. But I don’t know if there was a conviction.
Here’s why school (and other buses) don’t have seat belts:
“Students are about 70 times more likely to get to school safely when taking a bus instead of traveling by car. That’s because school buses are the most regulated vehicles on the road; they’re designed to be safer than passenger vehicles in preventing crashes and injuries; and in every State, stop-arm laws protect children from other motorists.
Seat belts have been required on passenger cars since 1968, and 49 States and the District of Columbia have enacted laws requiring the use of seat belts in passenger cars and light trucks. There is no question that seat belts play an important role in keeping passengers safe in these vehicles. But school buses are different by design, including a different kind of safety restraint system that works extremely well.
Large school buses are heavier and distribute crash forces differently than passenger cars and light trucks do. Because of these differences, bus passengers experience much less crash force than those in passenger cars, light trucks, and vans.
NHTSA decided the best way to provide crash protection to passengers of large school buses is through a concept called “compartmentalization.” This requires that the interior of large buses protect children without them needing to buckle up. Through compartmentalization, children are protected from crashes by strong, closely-spaced seats that have energy-absorbing seat backs.
Small school buses (with a gross vehicle weight rating of 10,000 pounds or less) must be equipped with lap and/or lap/shoulder belts at all designated seating positions. Since the sizes and weights of small school buses are closer to those of passenger cars and trucks, seat belts in those vehicles are necessary to provide occupant protection.”
Comparing a passenger car and a big bus in terms of passive safety is not really relevant. Safety stats for all buses are vastly better than cars. Should we require all transit buses to have seat belts? What about standing passengers? Belt them to a pole?
But emotions trump stats, so I would not be surprised to see belts mandatory in school buses. I think they already are in one or two states. The logistics of enforcing seat belt use on school buses sounds like a major challenge.
It’s not such an open-shut matter of stats (or facts) versus emotions; there is a good, sturdy case to be made for seat belts in school buses, and that this belongs on the disturbingly long list of things NHTSA continue to get wrong.
That thing about school buses being statistically way safer than cars is true, but misleading. Most school bus travel is at low speeds and/or in sparse traffic; that and the the mass of a bus means a traffic collision is usually going to be of no major consequence to the people in the bus. But when there is a more serious crash, the results are hideous. It doesn’t happen all that often versus total bus-miles travelled (hence the rosy statistics) but when it does, it’s really bad.
Compartmentalization with high seatbacks works okeh—for passengers sitting flat, facing forward, with feet on the floor—if the crash is a front or rear one, but let the passenger be out of position, or let there be a side crash and/or a rollover, and bus riders get thrown around and badly hurt:
Moreover, this is not 1977; the overwhelming majority of today’s kids are so firmly accustomed to using seat belts every time they get in a car that not having them in a bus feels strange. Beyond that, it’s simple to provide indication of belt-unfastened-in-occupied-seat; I don’t think enforcement would be such a big problem.
(other/non-school buses are now required to have 3-point belts for all seats)
The points that Paul raises, as well as those that Daniel states, have all been part of the back and forth about this issue here in my state, and I would guess everywhere else…along with the much less defensible “thrown clear” or quick evacuation arguments that Jim mentions.
Frankly, knowing much more about the human factors involved in operating schools than I do about safety statistics, I think the “how are we going to get kids to wear the belts and buckle in QUICKLY” issue is really what is in play for most schools. Something – even something about health and safety – that requires more adult intervention and that adds minutes onto the loading/unloading process is unfortunately going to be practically a non-starter in most schools.
There’s apparently been a “study” finding students behave better on the bus when they’re buckled in. I put it in quotes because it was not scientifically rigourous, controlled research, but a survey of bus drivers done by a biased party. So that puts some pretty severe limits on its sturdiness, but it still offers some food for thought.
Speaking of research, I wonder what effect seat belts on buses might have on those private-car dropoff/pickup traffic jams. Perhaps some parents and kids prefer to avoid the bus because it doesn’t have belts.
One of my cousins is the fleet manager for my hometown, and has been for 20+ years. He bought some busses with lap seat belts. After the third ER visit for one of the little darlings getting whacked in the head with a belt buckle, they were removed. Even without belts, school buses are statistically about the safest mode of transportation on the planet. The mass and design of the bus itself make it a VERY different thing to being unbelted in a car. In an ideal world I agree they should have them, but we don’t live in that world.
For perspective on that – I actually was a student bus driver – but in graduate school in the mid 90s, so I was 24 when I started. I mainly drove coaches, mostly for the sports teams. Occasionally transit routes around campus and the town – Northern IL U (transit is BORING). Best work-study job EVER for a gearhead. One time in Chicago almost stopped traffic I saw a huge explosion of steam in my rearview mirrors. I stopped, got out, and went to have a look as I figured I had blown a radiator hose. Nope, what happened was a Datsun had rear-ended the bus! I didn’t feel a thing. The team had won, they had a boombox blaring and were jumping around partying hard – that bus was already rocking and rolling. The other driver was banged up but OK. The bus had a few scratches on the big rubber covered aluminum bumper, the Datsun was totaled. 2klb car vs. 40Klb bus.
That said, most commercial coaches do have 3pt seatbelts today and I always wear them – but they are doing 70mph down the highway a lot more than school buses generally are, and hopefully some nutjob isn’t going to whack me in the head with one.
When we lived in Washington state in the late 80s/early 90s, we rode Type D busses, manufactured by Gillig in Hayward California. All were manual transmission, until around 1992 when new Thomas Built busses arrived to replace them, equipped with two pedals.
I really liked the old Gillig busses. I wanted one then and now. I remember a substitute driver getting it hung in gear once, and a mechanic from the bus barn had to come out and get it unstuck.
I rode type C busses elsewhere. I can remember feeling/hearing a bad vibration one morning on our way to school in a 1970s era Chevrolet chassis bus. I asked the driver about it and was told to sit down and mind my business. The next morning, it was even louder and the vibration was so strong I felt like my seat was going to unbolt itself from the floor. Then suddenly the noise and vibration stopped, followed by a series of loud metallic pings. The bus rolled to a stop. The driveshaft had fell out. Despite being in the low 30s that morning, he felt no need to “waste gas” (as though he was responsible for filling the tank out of his own pocket) to run the heater while we waited, since he was warm enough after a parent had brought him some coffee. I hated that old jackass.
Oh my… Your reply has just reminded me that exactly this same thing – separated driveshaft – happened on that orange bus one morning in 6th grade in Raleigh!
I remember the loud pings and then a racing engine but no forward progress. Naturally, chaos ensued on the bus while the 16 year old driver tried to figure out what to do…eventually flagging down another car that went somewhere and made a phone call for assistance to the district bus garage. That ultimately produced a tow-truck, a back up bus, and we got to school…albeit after much excitement and several hours delay. We also ran out of gas more than once that year. I’m not sure if the driver was supposed to fill it up on his own, or if he was supposed to get to the district garage for gas…but needeless to say, more than once, neither happened.
It’s fascinating to think about how 50 years ago (at least in Raleigh) there was no 2-way radio on the bus and a minor behind the wheel.
Naturally, my parents (and likely a lot of other parents) weren’t thrilled about what had happened, and I guess that was ultimately all chalked up to the additional, and over-riding, displeasure with their kids being bused across the city. Interesting times.
What a crazy coincidence!
I also forgot to mention that I have had the opportunity to drive a bus in the past few years.
Explanation:
I worked as an Industrial Contractor and we went to various plants, usually paper mills or coal-fired power plants to perform repairs and maintenance on their boilers. The boilers are often located in the very back of the facility (sometimes a mile or more from the gate), and so the company we worked for provided a bus to transport us from the gate to the worksite.
All associated contractors had busses, and it was very reminiscent of school, all those busses lined up, trying to find yours while toting your lunch box…except we’re all adults wearing hard hats and safety glasses, and males out number females like 20:1. Oh, and whoever happens to sit in the driver seat is who drives the bus. It was on private property, so they didn’t even ask if we had a driver license. Usually one guy would show up early and drive it daily, but not always. I ended up being the odd man out a couple times and found myself in the driver seat. One time because I figured out the “trick” to getting the bus to start, so the guy got up and said something like “you can have this mother….” laughing.
The busses were retired type C school busses from the 90s/00s in fair to poor condition. They were often overloaded at the end of the shift, with every seat taken and a few standing, as seemingly nobody was willing to wait for the next bus after working 12 hours, lol! At one plant, it got so bad that they had to have people out there to limit the number of passengers. I found it ridiculous that it had to come to that.
I forgot to mention, excellent article!
Great article Jeff. Your photo of the blonde student is one of the few captures of the quite rare mid 70s Dodge s600 school bus, I’ve seen in service in the US and Canada. Impressed, and jealous, they were in your fleet. More modern-looking IMO at the time, compared to the Internationals, Chevs and GMCs more typically seen in many school bus fleets.
I’m surprised your mid and late 70s Montgomery County buses didn’t already have their hoods painted glare-free flat black, for safety. A trend sweeping many school bus fleets at that time. Perhaps, it was because your latitude was lower than here in Canada. And a low, rising or setting sun was less an issue during school hours.
I had a long bus route, both in public school and high school, of around 1.25 hours. Allowing me to do much of my homework on the way home. It also involved transferring to a Catholic school board school bus on occasion, to cut down on route duplicity. While the public board school buses were usually filled with regular student chatter, boarding the Catholic board bus, it was common to hear hits from the AC/DC album ‘Back in Black’ blasting. They definitely showed their ‘rebellion’ more than us. lol
Interesting about the nonglare hood paint. A fine idea, but we didn’t have that at all in and around Denver in the ’80s and ’90s. Also, it hadn’t yet dawned on them that painting the bus roof white helped keep it cooler inside on hot days.
Air Canada was doing the same thing back then.
I’m sure the era of the school bus is near its end, at least around here. It seems no one wants a low-wage job with no benefits, daily split shifts, and the requirement to deal with often ill-behaved children.
Currently, the school bus runs start at 5am. Not because schools open that early (they don’t) but because the driver shortage means that each remaining driver must operate 3-4 routes each morning. I’m not sure what happens with students who arrive at school 1+ hours before the school day starts.
Meh, around here, they just cancel the route. So, parents get a text with something like “Bus Route 34 will not run the week of xx-xx, please make other arrangements”. Now there’s an additional 30+ cars crowding around the schools. It’s a nightmare trying to get through (unavoidable) school areas some mornings.
Jeff, you’re not alone in your fascination with flat-front buses. My 15-year-old daughter is mesmerized by them as well — pretty much for the same reason, which is their rarity. It seems that our District’s bus fleet is about 80% Type C and 20% Type D. And we all know that what’s rare is also what’s interesting. Incidentally, she’s never ridden on one.
My own kids rode the bus to elementary school, but after that we’ve driven them. The pick-up lines here are all various forms of organized chaos, but it seems that those lines are longer than they were a few years ago, since for various reasons parents have increasingly opted not to have their kids ride the bus. We call my daughter’s high school pick-up line the Line of Doom.
At my kids’ elementary school, 5th graders could volunteer to direct traffic at drop-off and pickup times. It was a good program because it not only taught kids responsibilities, but also prodded parents into behaving a bit better in that line since they were (in theory) unlikely to be obnoxious to a 10-year-old. In theory.
And 16-year-old bus drivers… my goodness! I had to re-read that portion of your article just to make sure I understood that correctly. I didn’t grow up in North Carolina, but I attended college there, and lived in NC for most of my 20s as well, and somehow I don’t remember anyone mentioning that (though honestly, school bus rides weren’t common sources of conversation). If I’d grown up there at the time, I’d be first in line to apply for that job! It’s truly astonishing by today’s standards.
We had 5th-grade (or thereabouts) “patrols” too – kids that directed traffic and pedestrians before and after school was in session. I’m amazed looking back that kids that young are given a job with such awful consequences if not done well, but I don’t remember any incidents. 5th graders (and younger) were trusted to ride bikes to school too, and I’d never heard of a bike helmet back then.
OH! I call dibs on writing the article about “Patrols”, as it seems that this subject hasn’t actually been written about on CC. Amazing…given that their very existence was underwritten and established by AAA.
Let’s just say for now that Patrols existed in all of the elementary schools of my youth. They were deployed as crossing guards near schools AND had a role in many schools both in loading the buses at schools and in some schools riding the bus and hopping out at stops to stand in traffic and stop it. Yet another thing that probably wouldn’t fly in our modern world.
I always wanted to be a Patrol, but never stayed at a school long enough to get into the system (it was if I recall correctly a multi-year process). One of the particularly good parts of being a Patrol was the chance to go to DC for the national convention, but once my family MOVED to DC (ironically, so that my Dad could start working for AAA…although he didn’t have to wear that orange strappy thing or get a silver badge…) some of the glow faded from that rose.
Where I went to elementary school (graduate ’73) we didn’t do traffic control in front of the school probably because there wasn’t much to the front that would allow long lines. I vaguely remember maybe a bus there, but most students walked (I did), rode bikes (all guys, one had a unicycle), or were driven. Traffic was notably worse during rainy days. My high school had a lot more busses because there were like 3-4 elementary schools feeding into one high school in DeKalb Co, so it was a much bigger catchment area. I did crossing guard duty, but there weren’t at the school itself, but the 4 way stop just 20 feet away from one entrance and the 3 way stop much further away (the one no one wanted to do) which was the quickest way to N Druid Hills road, the main road for everyone. There was no national convention, but we weren’t the only school district sending their patrols to DC in the spring.
Yes, they called it Patrol duty. My two daughters had different roles assigned to them. My elder daughter held a sign at the parking lot exit that said “right turn only” (to keep traffic flowing, only right turns were allowed during drop-off and pick-up times) and also opened car doors for kids being dropped off in the mornings.
My younger daughter operated the megaphone, which was the coolest job available. Various patrol kids would go to the cars waiting in the pick-up line, and then radio to my daughter who the drivers were picking up… and she’d use the megaphone to call their names.
Kids didn’t do crossing guard duty, but I was pleasantly surprised that the school would allow kids to have patrol jobs that entailed them directing traffic, moving among the car line, etc. A bit of a risk, but it’s great experience for kids their age.
I’d never heard of school Patrols before this experience, and I don’t think all the schools around here do it. At the end of the school year, the kids would teach the rising 5th grade patrols how to their jobs for the next year. We’re out of that school now, but I hope they’re still doing it.
School buses are a reminder of my Sep to Jun rules, don’t leave the house until 9 AM and be home before 2:30 PM. Rules you can follow when you’re retired.
You might enjoy these videos showing retired old school buses in scrapyard filmed ages ago. 😉
Stéphane, thanks for posting those videos! That guy in the first one…he too is excited about finding the Dodge bus. Until I starting reading the comments here, and seeing this video, I really had no idea that Dodge school buses were so rare or could elicit such interest. Neat!
The mouth on that guy though…he’d fit right in on the non-parochial school bus 🙂
Thanks to 2 hours spent daily riding a school bus, I had a chance to read a lot of great books when I was quite young. Enjoyed all the books in the Lord of the Rings series in the fall and winter of 1977, riding the bus.
Every bus also had AM radios with roof-mounted speakers leading to the back.
Why I developed such a strong knowledge of Top 40 songs between 1975 and 1986.
Even the obscure ones.
This new wave song only reached #37 in 1982. Should have done much better.
That song…so 80s! Thanks for linking 🙂
And wow, AM radio and roof-mounted speakers. That seems like high luxury compared to most of what I experienced (aside from the driver’s personal radio in 6th grade).
I also was a Walker. My school district (USD 259, Wichita Kansas) did not provide them if you lived less than 2 miles ish away. But for 3 years I was in a gifted program and had an IEP. Because of this, I rode a short bus. This was 1992 thru 1995. They were either Chevy or GMC van cabs with Thomas bodies. We did not have cool kid seats because we were all geeks.Unlike the bigger buses (International 3800s with Thomas regular bodies) these did have seat belts. They had really cheap vinyl seats that would burn when it was hot. One bus that sometimes subbed had black vinyl which was even worse. I also was fascinated with the flat bodied busses, they seemed so alien to me.
That would be – as I now know – the Type A or B bus. Although I think “short bus” (or something worse) will probably be a term that sticks in the popular culture for ever and ever.
And yes, to Paul’s point above, those do all have seat belts due to their more car-like crash characteristics. And also probably because it’s a lot easier to get the smaller number of kids on the small buses belted in than would be the case with the full-sized buses.
Loved this so. Much. Nothing else to possibly add or opine on the fine writing and pictures.
This marked the maybe the first time the CC Effect actually got inside my brain, and I saw a school bus pass this morning and I thought to myself how thankful I am to be past that phase of my life. It’s possible I saw pictures from this post while scheduling my own essays, but I doubt it.
Excellent work, and a fun read.
This post brings back a passel of memories beyond the ones in my school bus COAL post. That infographic about one school bus doing the work of 36 cars brings back this 1980 segment from ‘3-2-1 Contact’, replete with Moog-y rendition of “The Thieving Magpie”:
And 2015’s big, flashy, red-letter news in the field was—wait for it; are you sure you’re ready?—the gasoline-powered school bus!
The thing about teenaged school bus drivers makes my beard stand on end. It jest ain’t right how them do-gooders come meddlin’ without an invite, kickin’ up a ruckus about ‘child labor’ like it’s a bad thang! (Sacred poo; i.e., holy ѕhit)
Also didn’t know about the statewise rejection of National School Bus Yellow. Wonder if there was any substance to that beyond refusal to be told what to do.
Great pictures! Those must’ve been some of the very last Dodge-chassis school buses, which is nifty, but for me, the archetype of school bus will always, shall always, must always be the butterfly-hood IH Loadstar—in accord with Scripture.
(I’ve never seen a flat-top milk carton like that, though I did live in Ontario for 11 years and so got good practice rolling my eyes at buying milk in plastic bags that fit into special milk-pitchers, neither of which would’ve been readily transformable into a toy school bus)
That 3-2-1 Contact episode is great…that sort of programming was a staple of my youth. If my neighbors knew that, they may better understand why I stand in my back yard calling “Come on a Zoom ma Zoom a Zoom!” to my dog Zoom.
And yet, I’ll bet that 80% of those kids in that segment will be headed out to car line to pick up their kids a little later this afternoon.
Mine too! Here:
Daniel ;
I have a lighting question, could you please contact me off list ? .
TIA,
-Nate
Gasoline powered bus. How quickly they forget:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrollton_bus_collision
The district I grew up in had both gas and diesel buses. The gas buses were weaker than a 4 cylinder Fox Mustang.
I can’t believe this is even a consideration.
A timely thread indeed .
In the 1950’s and 1060’s all the rural school buses I rode were Typ C .
I always liked sitting over the rear axle because once in a while we’d go fast enough to bounce us out of those seats, only the ones over the rear axle .
Upon entering high school I encountered the beloved Typ D made in Los Angeles by Crown, many high school students had jobs there riveting panels, installing seats or whatever on the assembly line .
Yesterday I was out and about junkyarding and tried a different route and discovered a closed/private/abandoned (maybe) junkyard with 20 or 30 of these old Crown buses including at least two L.A. County Sheriff’s jail buses .
I’d have used seat belts if offered, even as a child I’d seen too many thrown from wrecks .
Thanx for the detailed response Paul ! .
I don’t think I’ve even ridden in an air conditioned school bus, would have been nice in high school .
My high school as well over 5 miles yet no bus so I had to walk a few blocks in the other direction to board one .
-Nate
So what you’re saying is, someone is hoarding those wonderful Crown busses for future use/restoration/display/etc? Lol
I hope someone is doing the same with a ’60s Gillig or two. Even back in the 2nd/3rd/4th grade, I used to imagine how I’d reconfigure the bus as an adult. I remember I wanted my record player right behind the driver’s seat. Where else? I used to imagine myself driving it around and camping. I’m sure people were doing bus-to-RV conversions then, but I don’t recall seeing any in particular that inspired my ideas.
(I still listen to vinyl.)
Well no sadly .
They’d all looked like they’d been driven in directly from the sales auctions, then allowed to sit for a decade or more, most now have graffiti and a few broken windows =8-( .
-Nate
That is sad. Would love a Crown logo/emblem, but I’m not suggesting anyone break in and take it, just to be clear, lol
I used to have a Gillig one, it was in my antique steemer trunk that was destroyed by someone who thought they were destroying someone else’s property (they didn’t even know me). Angry guy. He’s in prison for life, now, so I suppose I get the last laugh?
I’ve seen busses (Type C of 15-25 years old) for sale around here for $500 and nobody buys them. You’d think it would be worth that for a storage unit, if nothing else. They don’t have the charm of an old Gillig or Crown, so I wasn’t interested.
Well, there are of course plenty of people still doing the “skoolie” thing.
https://www.skoolielivin.com/ is one website celebrating the Skoolie Livin’ life. As is https://pavedtopines.com/ . Both of these also offer links to companies that will do the conversion for you or sell you a completed skoolie if your resources outstrip your mechanical/architectural abilities.
But the dream of converting an old school bus into a camping/living vehicle is an old one that still resonates with many folks. Here on CC, Paul posted pics of one that he found not too long ago — https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake/driveway-outtake-the-old-hippie-bus/ — and I suspect that there are quite a few of those still roaming the roads in that upper right corner of the country (and Vermont).
This book (pic) “Rolling Homes” is a good resource for someone looking for pictures of converted vehicles from the high times of Hippiedom. It’s a great read, and all of the men either look like James Taylor from 1970 or Jerry Garcia (there’s not much in-between). Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I think you can find this book rather easily used, although many copies (like mine) are marked up with notes about where to find stuff like old buses, lumber, goats, etc.
Maybe someone who knows more about these old conversions than I do can explain why all of them are based on Type C buses and there are no Type D (i.e., not the Crowns or Gillings) buses.
There’s plenty of Crown and Gillig conversions. I’ve written up a number of them, links below.
The reason is that Type Cs are just much more common and cheaper. That may change, as type Ds of various lengths have become more common in recent years. Our school district has lots of Ds that are short and medium length as well as long ones.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake/bus-stop-outtake-crown-bus-the-well-schooled-bus/
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-gillig-transit-coach-school-bus/
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake/curbside-classic-capsule-1973-gillig-40-bus-big-red/
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1957-blue-bird-all-american-bus-the-all-american-dream-comes-in-many-variations-and-colors/
There’s more; I’ve done lots of type C conversiosn.
That red Gillig is a killer! Too bad it’s an auto. I only say that because the ones of my childhood were all manuals. Some in the other articles look very familiar. We evidently had old ones and even older ones. They all had 1963 license plates, but some were far more rounded on top like the early ones you showed.
Thanks man! And yeah, I’ve seen plenty of Type Cs, but its the Ds that have my attention.
I’ve seen people convert Type Cs into car/buggy/race car haulers, some with living quarters. Interesting use of a discarded vehicle.
Jeff, I too, was a Wash DC school walker, albeit a decade or two earlier (mid-forties – mid-fifties).The family lived between a grammar, & a Jr. High in the SE quadrant with a three minute walk to either one. Kids who lived over a mile? away got discounted bus tickets, & rode public DC Transit buses. I was “city kid” & the idea of riding a gaudy yellow bus to school seemed “country”, & only what the “hicks” had to put up with. So, when we joined the the white flight movement of the mid-late 50s, I was transplanted to hicksville, way out in the country (about a whole mile outside the DC border) in Prince Georges County, & was now subjected to the inevitable bus stop bullying as the new city slicker in town. I put an end to this behavior by confronting the ring leader at the rear of the bus by growling, making fists, & life threatening gestures. It worked – I became one of them. So, gradually much of my earlier disdain for yellow busses faded. My ‘burb was serviced by Bus 6 – The only one with a single digit assigned in the fleet that serviced a high school of over a thousand kids. Bus 6 appeared to be a relic from the 1940s. I think it was an IH, but I never paid much attention, as the feminine occupants sitting within were far more interesting. But, I did notice, when it was lined up with the other busses, it was the longest, & definately the loudest. In fact, I found its “blada-blada-blada” exhaust noise when coasting to a stop right up there with musical tones of a modded ’50s Mercury flathead with much envied dual glasspack mufflers. That bus may have been washed, but never waxed (do they wax busses?) – because its yellow tint never had a shine; just a dull paint primer look. It was definately due for a trip to South America for a new life. I only commuted to school via bus for my sophomore year, as “cool juniors” now had their own jalopies, & my “bus” became a ’55 Plymouth; not mine, but my ex-bullies became lifelong friends…with cars. Thus continued the infatuation we all share.
My school district had a 1.5 mile rule: no school bus service if you lived that far away from school or less. My house was 1.6 miles but my buddies lived a few blocks closer so I normally walked with them. Except when it was 0°F; then I would hop on the bus.
Where I live now I’ve heard that school start times are staggered with the elementary school kids starting at 7:30, the middle schools at 8:30, and the high schoolers starting at 9:30. Something to do with adolescents needing more sleep than young kids. No doubt it helps with the bus driver shortage too.
Are you in CA? Yep, that’s the new rule in CA. High schools cannot start before 8:30. As anyone who’s parented a high school aged student knows, that’s a blessing to the kids’ circadian rhythms (as opposed to elementary school kids who are natural born dairy farmers, up before sunrise). On the other hand, it messes with American high school tradition, so I understand that many school admins out there are having difficulty adjusting. (the later start also wreaks havoc with sports schedules)
We are 9am here for high school (ends at 4), this changed a few years ago. Middle school is 7:50am. Elementary is around 8:30. The high school schedules are more like college schedules with classes every other day but for twice as long over a two week cycle. Various electives and being able to graduate with (only) a certain number of credits mean that lots of high school kids either start as late as noon on some days and others get out as early as noon on some days, some middle school classes give you high school credit in advance and some co-taught JC classes at the local college get you other credits. All very different from my day which was a rigid 8-3 or thereabouts, and every day the same.
In the grand tradition of sports for some reason being deemed more important than education, doing outdoor high school sports mean that you’re likely to miss multiple classes in the afternoon depending when and where a game is being held, this has obviously gotten worse with the shift to later school times.
If you live further than a mile from the neighborhood elementary you are eligible for the bus, 1.5 miles for middle school, and 2 miles for high school. Except if you choose to “choice” in to a different school than the neighborhood one, no matter the distance, then no bus for you. The same school buses without seatbelts are employed to shuttle student athletes up and down I-25 with a 75mph speed limit and sometimes treacherous conditions.
My sister is a teacher in CA and this is a long overdue need the rest of the country needs to follow.
Sports schedules have always been the excuse. They can practice at 6am if they’re that committed.
Wow, that thing that sticks out five feet from the front of the Type D bus, never seen one of those (like many areas it seems, we had only a small percentage of buses with flat-front design). For years I noted how school buses were the one vehicle type that never seemed to change much. Except the occasional new front styling, the buses barely changed in 50 years. At some point they added flashing amber lights next to the flashing red ones to warn of an impending stop, the semaphore stop signs, and flashing strobe lights on top, but mostly the bus body looked the same now as when I rode them to school. Then, about 10 years ago, I started seeing much more modern-looking school buses like the one in the top photo here. I haven’t been in a school bus since high school, wonder if the interiors are updated too.
I recall nearly all school bus seats being upholstered in dark green vinyl. Why this color? A few really old buses had a ’50s diner look to their interior, a mix of coral pink and aquamarine vinyl. The reeealy old buses, mostly used only as spares or just left rotting away in various places, had a very rounded rear window area that resembled the back of old-look GM transit buses.
I ran the gamut of school transportation. I walked to the nearby elementary school with friends and neighbors when I was in kindergarten, then, with no explanation, was told I would be attending a newly built, far-away school that required a 25-minute drive, a carpool of about four to six kids, only one who lived anywhere near me, by a rotating set of parents that each drove one day a week. Nearly always this was in a full-size station wagon, sometimes sitting cross-legged in the “way back” in 2-row wagons. This was the early ’70s, so “busing” to achieve racial integration may have been involved, yet both old and new schools were predominantly white so I’m not sure. What I do know is this played havoc with my social life since I could no longer see any friends after school, since they all lived far away and out of biking distance. I had no phone in my room to talk to anyone either. There were pretty much no cordless phones back then, much less mobile phones.
I finally rode a school bus in 7th grade and maybe 8th, though I remember some carpool rides during that time too. (I don’t remember the cruel antics or misbehavior reported here occurring very often). Finally in 9th grade (last year of junior high in my area – why did junior high get renamed “middle school”? I never hear anyone call high school “upper school” though that term exists), I got to attend the local public school again. I rode my bike rather than walked so I could sleep in each morning an extra 10 minutes or so. This continued at my local high school until 11th grade, when I dated a girl who lived a block and a half away. Now I had a reason to walk to and from school again so we could spend more time together. We drifted apart by late 12th grade but I was used to walking by then so kept it up through graduation.
– why did junior high get renamed “middle school”?
I think when they changed to 6/7/8th grade instead of the old junior high 7/8/9th grade. Something to do with kids growing up faster and not wanting to mix sometimes adult-sized 14-year-olds with little 12-year-olds.
That flappy thing that comes out from the front of the bus is something that as far as I can recall was only/primarily deployed for the elementary school buses and bus runs. To keep the kids from dashing out in front of the bus when getting off (doesn’t serve much purpose for getting on). By middle school/high school I guess they figured that Darwinism had taken place and any kid so-inclined to run in front of the bus had been effectively sorted out of the herd. 😉
Good question about the green seats. I don’t know…other than to say that they’re nearly always green, sometimes with accents in that coral/pink-ish color, but predominantly green. The interior paint on the buses is also always that pale green (you know, the one that psychologists say is “calming”). I’m not sure it really is calming on a school bus, but I also don’t think I’d want to gamble that it wasn’t. School buses need all the help they can get.
“Middle School” was essentially invented first as an educational philosophy based on the idea that students would benefit from a unique arrangement of core curriculum “teams” that would help students transition from the self-contained classrooms of elementary school to the purely subject-area classes – and frequent class changes – of high school. That shift from “Jr. High” (essential the high school model for younger kids) to “the middle school concept” in the early 1980s. For the most part, that’s still the idea; although in a lot of school districts the structure is as much driven by physical issues like building capacity as anything else. In my district (and in many others), middle school now starts at 5th grade with a “special” somewhat segregated junior version of middle school for the youngest kids…since most people would agree that aside from the economics of how to fit as many kids as possible into a building, it’s not a good idea to mix 5th graders and 8th graders in the same building.
Army green is my name for it.
Yeah, we had buses with brown seats and off-white interior for a few years. It didn’t last and it was back to the green sensory overload.
That bumper arm—which I never saw on a school bus until many years after I was a rider—is intended to prevent kids going in front of the bus below the driver’s sightline (i.e., hidden by the hood). It appears to have occurred, at least generally, to at least one person decades before; see attached.
There were numerous different greens; take a look—more than one green for most of the coachbuilders, as well as other colours. Blue Bird switched from green vinyl and light green interior paint to brown vinyl and very light brown paint around 1989, at least for the buses my district bought. It never seemed right; school buses are meant to be yellow outside and green inside.
(I’d be keen to see a cite on that idea that the green paint is meant to be calming.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6379348/
It’s an interesting read but points out that most of the scientific studies about the psychology of color have related to the impact that color has on exercise. Nevertheless (as the authors of this study point out, and their sources do as well), there’s a persistent notion in the culture that “green is calming” whether or not exercise is involved. Scientists cry out for more rigorous work in this regard.
Our well-endowed school district has its own fleet with drivers. They are tip top and do a superb job. Problem is, most kids won’t ride them. You know why. These kids feel unsafe by the bus or by with the kids they share the bus. Each year when the “green” push comes through in April on Earth Day – I recommend to my kids that they suggest that in recognition of that week – the school has a contest as to which class has the most bus riders. Each year, my kids acted like I was asking them to recommend smallpox.
So, for the past several years, I have had to wait in line with the $55,000 SUV driven by a parent, dropping off their kids. It is an elaborate early morning dance that I have hated every school day. It frustrates me to see so many parents dropping off their single child when our taxes provide excellent busses with cameras and enforced rules. Every parent, usually the mom, has a anecdotal story about some kid with a weapon threatening our kids. One story I’ve heard involves a butter knife, and that poor girl who lives in those trailers by the river. Never heard so many justifications for daily school commutes in 5000 pound Armadas, Suburbans and Excusions in my life. Pretty sad.
As for my personal experience, school was a block away. High school was a city bus ride. School busses were exciting rides, for me, kind of like riding in a Jeep – primitive and interesting. As an adult male, I have rode on special school outings as a chaperone and I swore I needed to wear an athetic supporter from the ride these busses provide. Horseback riding is more comfortable. I never thought my kids were unsafe, we personally knew the no-nonsense bus driver, yet my kids were told that only trailer-trash rode those shiny nice clean school busses and by Junior High, my kids wouldn’t ride them.
Now I drop them off in my ’03 Crown Vic and they embarrassingly skeedaddle away from me like they were riding in an Amish buggy. Honestly, I just don’t get it anymore. So spoiled.
One interesting public school school bus memory, was crossing a Canadian Pacific railway line every morning and afternoon by my rural public school, that had no gates the first several years of my elementary school career. The rail line ran adjacent to the Trans-Canada Highway, and there was just enough room for one bus to fit ahead of the rail crossing, and before the side road’s stop sign. The odd time a train passed, with the school bus safely past the rail line and stopped at the stop sign, remained a hairy experience for kids at the back of the bus. Having no gates, and it being a busy CP route, almost every kid in those buses would look left and right with the driver, to make sure it was safe to cross. lol
A petition by local residents, finally got proper gates with flashing lights at that crossing, by the late 70s.
Fantastic article, Jeff! It immediately brought back memories of a bus driver I had in Junior High. He was clearly the model for Otto in the Simpsons.
I have been driving through Ayer, MA most weekends this summer, going to and from autocross events at the old Moore Army Airfield. In a variation of the CC effect, Dee Bus Service (ref: your last picture) has some signs along 2A advertising for bus drivers.
Yes indeed. I’ve seen those signs (right across from the Dee depot near the Shop n Save) and have been tempted! Maybe down the road (so to speak) a bit…
Regarding student bus drivers: In Iowa back in the day kids who lived in the country (many, back then) could get a special driver license at 14, so they could drive themselves and other kids to school.
Given that most of them had been driving tractors (and other vehicles) for years, it wasn’t exactly a big jump.
Same here in California. I was driving grandpa’s IH tractor by age 11 and dad had me driving the family car (unlawfully) at 13. We did, however, live in a suburban area with school buses, so no special license for me.
Minor, picky point of order:
NHTSA did not exist in 1966; that agency was established by the Highway Safety Act of 1970. Its predecessors were the National Highway Safety Agency; the National Highway Safety Bureau, and the National Traffic Safety Agency. Some combination of those three devised the initial Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.
+1! I misread National Highway Safety Agency for NHTSA.
Never have had the experience of riding in a school bus. Was always close enough to walk to school from 1st-9th grades. Last three, 10-12, had to be driven since it was parochial school 15 miles away. All in all probably a good thing given what I have read here about events on these buses. I would have hate to hear what was said on them, in Maryland circa 1962-66, that would not have gone down with me very well.
I remember so many small, but important, evolutionary changes during my school bus riding time, that genuinely made the experience safer for students and the driver.
I recall the oldest buses I rode, had small mirrors for the driver to watch passengers. Interior mirrors later almost doubled in width on some buses, allowing the driver to easily also see the full righthand side of seats. Without having to angle themselves in the driver’s seat to see passengers to the far right, while driving.
All my later buses had speaker systems, so the driver could easily communicate to the back of the bus, without having to yell over kids.
The small outward opening ‘stop sign’ to the left of the driver became a fixture around 1980, on my buses. The driver employed when students were boarding or disembarking.
Besides full padding on seat backs and sides, padding became thicker. And steel handrails disappeared. As aisles also became slightly wider.
Driver’s seats, and seating area ergonomics got better.
By the time I was in high school, exterior convex mirrors were mounted on stems at the edge of the front bumpers, so drivers could always see small children going around to the front of the bus. My buses in the 1970s, never had this feature.
I noticed a few years ago, at least one school bus company in Central Ontario was employing strobe lights on their rear roof, aiding bus visibility when kids were getting on and off. This was along the Trans-Canada Highway. So, it made practical sense for safety.
Interesting, that back then it was very rare to see cars pass buses that had their lights flashing. And when it happened, often everybody on the bus who noticed, was upset and cursed the passing driver. With the bus driver often honking their horn.
I left my house sharply at 6:58 AM every morning for the Wardlaw Elementary route. The route was complete in 35 minutes or so and the elementary students were delivered at 7:40 AM to the school on Park Street.
I left Wardlaw and immediately ran the Columbia High Riverside and Belmont Estates route. Students were delivered to Columbia High on Marion Street at 8:30 AM.
I then took the bus to the holding area off Huger Street where the Riverfront Park is now. It would be fueled and serviced for the afternoon routes and the drivers would be ferried to school for the class day.
We would leave at 2:15 PM from Columbia High on a bus for the 5 minute ride to the holding area. I would be at Wardlaw at 2:30 PM and deliver the students back to their homes.
Back to Columbia High at 3:15 PM for the high school route and pull away at 3:30 PM. Drop the last students off around 4:15 PM and park the bus around 4:30 PM.
We were constantly coached on safely and we never had a serious accident in my time there.
We took lots of pride in the buses and kept them clean.
It was good training in a responsible position that served us well in later years.
David, thanks for the details on this. Incidentally, my own kids were fascinated hearing this, and knowing that high school students were given so much responsibility.
That’s a huge subject on its own. Kids used to be given vastly more responsibility at early ages; I know you know this, but I’m old enough to have experienced it. The whole concept of “helicopter parenting” is a relatively recent one. It’s a massive shift that has steadily occurred over time.
I was just reading about Giacoma Casanova, who is famous for his seduction exploits, but had a very fascinating life outside of the bedroom. He entered the university of Padua at age 12 and got his law degree at 16. And then went to work as a lawyer. Ok, he was undoubtedly brighter than average, but stories like this were much more common back then. There was no such thing as “high school”; if you were capable of university work, you went at any age.
High school in the US before the depression was comparable to university now, with rigorous training in serious professional career paths. I remember reading about on who became a ship’s captain after graduating from a Philadelphia or Boston high school in the early 1800s at the age of 16.
Modern high schools were invented in the depression specifically to keep kids out of the work force, as unemployment was so high.
And if you didn’t go past 8th grade, you got a job or vocation or such, and went to work.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to advocate for a return to the “good old days”, but the ever-lengthening extension of childhood (parents checking in regularly on university students to micro-manage, for example) really is an interesting phenomena that I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. The Mennonites I used to spend summers with were still living in the 1800s in that regard, and I’m still waiting on my (adult) kids to “grow up”. 🙂
A huge subject indeed.
Totally 100% true, and a historical fact that is often over-looked when it’s assumed (as some do) that the reason why we have extended formalized education (as opposed to informal – in this context – more on-the job/vocational education) to increasingly older ages is because there is nowadays “more to learn”. For the most part, that’s nonsense. Now mind you, I’d have no problem with the extension of formal education if our educational system used the extra time to teach the learning, thinking and social skills that humans really need (and that can in fact be taught by skilled teachers in formal educational contexts)…but unfortunately we’ve instead managed to extend time in school and (arguably) simultaneously reduce what it is that students actually learn.
I’ll get off my soapbox now.
Paul and Jeff, definitely a fascinating subject and one that affects me sharply since I have two kids currently in public school. The lack of actual education at school is shocking to me, not to mention the general societal shift to (like Paul puts it) an ever-lengthening extension of childhood. One of my kids is self-interested in a lot of topics and essentially educates herself. The other has virtually no interest in learning and unfortunately is barely literate at age 15. It seems that the current education system is hurting the kids who need it the most.
As far as providing children with responsibilities, I feel that every successive generation has probably complained about “kids these days” – but wow, my kids’ generation lacks basic life and communication skills that I’d taken for granted.
Well, enough of my grumpiness – Jeff, this was a great article and it elicited some fascinating comments.
I too have one self-learner (the youngest) interested in an extremely wide range of topics from airplanes to rivers to currently reading about bringing down Mr. Nixon (actually, he checked out the audiobook as well as real book and says he prefers to “follow along”, it’s more engaging) and he is regularly able to make me feel a little stupid and ignorant. 🙂
My other two kids (the older ones) went to the same schools as the younger one is attending (for the most part, but still same district) and were interested in school and the lessons there but not particularly self-motivated to learn much OUTside of school – but stayed on top of and appeared mostly interested in all of their work at school etc.
In the end they all seem pretty bright and intelligent as compared to some in their friend groups.
But I think you may have an issue with the particular schools your kids are attending or the school district in particular. I get that school isn’t for everybody (and doesn’t need to be), but a barely literate teenager needs assistance – and not just forcing them to do work but figuring out a way to engage and interest them to in the end achieve the result – i.e. that’s what a good teacher or more accurately, a good district and administration should, can, and will do. It’s also VERY possible that there is a learning disability in your older kid that is undiagnosed. Not my business I know, but hard to tell if that’s been explored or not, and I’d frankly rather risk offending slightly than just ignore it and move to the next comment.
There are certainly aspects of the schools here that I’m not a huge fan of, but compared to the schools that we moved from and the priorities there, I feel it’s night and day. Not all public schools are the same, and that doesn’t mean just between states but sometimes just in the next county or even city.
While telephone skills (verbal communication) for example are developing later than when I was young (as in actually talking on the phone and being able to discuss something), they do have other skills, i.e. it’s amazing how much they can get written and how fast with just two thumbs on a cell phone. Frankly that’s probably how much of future communication is going to occur rather than “the old ways” that we learned, i.e. pen to paper, and how to leave a clear and succinct message. A lot of teachers get that too, especially some of the younger ones that can engage with the kids on a completely different level than Mr Fuddlydudd in Algebra 2 with 30yrs of tenure…
I didn’t want to get too detailed or personal in my comment, but yes, Daughter #1 does have learning disabilities. We knew that she struggled from an early age, but unfortunately, we didn’t catch on until it was too late just how far behind she had fallen. Her elementary school and middle schools just passed her on with excellent grades and encouraging words, year after year. Yes, I wish we had been more astute, but not all parents are perfect. I’m certainly not.
We’ve spent an ungodly amount of resources (both time and money) on tutors and teaching her ourselves, which is why she can read and write at all now. But many families don’t have those resources, so those families’ kids are essentially being cheated out of an education. I’m appalled at our School District, but it seems to me that most of the districts around here have similar problems. It appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon – families around here with kids 10+ years older had a much different level of education than our kids and their cohorts. I could go on and on about this, but I’d rather not – drifting far afield from school buses – but I appreciate your concern and comments.
I understand completely, at least you are aware of it (now), and able to help. Districts can change very fast (both ways), it’s hard to keep on top of that as it’s not something any parent actually has any experience with before they are thrown into it…(beyond actually going to school themselves, but it’s soooo different now in almost all respects, many difference such as the start times for the better but others worse.)
Thank you Paul and others, education is a serious need and so many simply drop the ball .
That students are allowed any typ of electronic devices appalls me .
My son and his close at hand buddies all tell me they remember my leaning on them that they now as adults appreciate the concern after the fact .
Children in general raise to meet challenges .
Of kids are complaining you’re too restrictive you’re on the right track ~ they crave attention and will do anything to get it, being good alone is often not enough .
Helicopter parenting should be made illegal, too many think parenting is a popularity contest .
If one cut up on the bus when I was young, you got kicked off and you had to walk or worse, your parents had to change their schedules to drive you, guess how I leaned this ? .
-Nate
Appreciate the kind words, Eric.
I often think now how young people in high school could benefit from school bus driving.
I credit Mr. Merlin Roosen, our district bus superintendent, for creating an environment that worked well for his driver’s and the district.
He would come see us monthly and coach us on when to put the stop sign out (100′ before the stop), to keep the students calm during a rear door evacuation, and to not move the bus until our riders were seated.
Fire drills were taught regularly on handling engine fires and the first thing we did was pull over and evacuate the students with the driver being last out of the bus.
He always told us that we were Richland 1 school bus drivers and we were somebody.
And we had to work and run the routes safely and on time.
I remember a few times running our routes in snow. Nowadays it seems like if the weather is below freezing, school is cancelled.
Anyway, it was a great experience.
And I believe young high school people today could be just as successful at it with proper training and coaching like we had.
With the driver shortages now, maybe it would be worth a look again.
It worked fine 45 years ago and it would instill pride and responsibility to those that would earn it.
“It worked fine 45 years ago and it would instill pride and responsibility to those that would earn it.”
The insurance companies do not care and they run this country. High school kids in the drivers seat of buses would never fly today. The insurance LOBBY would insist on it.
Between 1965 and 1970 our family lived in Minnesota, just north of the Twin Cities. I distinctly remember all the school buses, while otherwise contemporary to other buses of that time, were all orange instead of yellow. Presumably for better visibility in Winter conditions?
During those years we had exactly 2 snow days!
When we moved back to Wisconsin we had a bus driver, an older man, back a school bus into a power poll and snapped it off. He just moved forward and we left the seen. With this same driver, we were on our route to school when the exhaust pipe broke off the manifold and the bus got really loud! He just continued with the route and delivered us to school.
I never Dodge buses were so rare. Our school district in Wisconsin contracted with a local bus company. for bus service. The entire fleet of buses were Dodges.
Nice article thank you!
My experience with school busses was brief, just my first two grades, in FL, 1966-68. My bus during first grade was I think a Flxible Flyer (Bus 50A) and it had automatic transmission (it is striking from the above comments how rare AT was among busses). My parents cars all had manual, so routinely experiencing the automatic shift points was uniquely thrilling, I could predict (and mimic) the points by the pitch of the engine. I vaguely remember bus driver was a humorless man who glared at us through this ginormous rectangular rear view mirror above him (my first hint of what Big Brother was). Generally our bus was elementary school age kids, and at the bus stop one of the older Girls would stand near the street (two lane blacktop with a yellow stripe) and shoo us away from the edge until the bus came as well as anyone who had to cross to be at the bus stop. We didn’t stop at the school but across the main drag, disembark and walked through an underground tunnel to cross the street; going home there was a busses only area with overhangs and Bus 50A was parked as the 3rd bus from the school exit. In retrospect the use of busses in Pensacola was well thought out much like a public transit station I would encounter later in life and more organized that what I would observe in GA. The only time I was ever on a school bus after that were for school field trips like to the planetarium during elementary school, and when I played junior varsity football early in high school, as my parents were wise to find houses near public schools within walking distance. I was bullied in high school so I missed out on being trapped in a bus every day with my worst enemies.
The bus thing here just reminds me of my first (!) Girlfriend (for lack of a better word), Rachel, who I think was a navy pilot’s brat like me. We were in the same grade and neighborhood, and she could have been the model for Susie Derkins in Calvin and Hobbs–she had no fear and took no crap from anyone, especially boys, yet chose to hang out with me. Most of the time we rode together if we could. Once she talked me into trying to sneak a turtle onto the bus for a show and tell at school (the pot we carried gave it away the busdriver and the older patrol Girl busted us before we boarded. The turtle survived). During second grade is when I moved away to GA and never saw her again. I hope did well with her life.
In southeastern Ontario, in the 1970s, it was always heavy snow that got my buses cancelled. Usually accumulations of 25-30+cms (9.8 inches), would do the trick. One to three genuine blizzards per winter, was common. By the mid ’80s, It was almost exclusively freezing rain, that got my buses off the road. Blizzards, and really serious snowfalls, were now very rare. Perhaps, an early foretelling of climate change.
Many moons since I boarded a bus like this.
I’d take the front seat, watching the driver shift thru the gears. 1st was a granny gear & he’d only use the last 3.
Best memory was the day the driver called me over — While he had the clutch depressed, the driver allowed me to shift from 3rd to 4th. I guess I was about 9 – A thrill I’ll never forget!
Great article! In my hometown in Maine, when I was in elementary school in the late 70s I rode one of the last of the old gasoline IH “Cornbinder” conventional buses that the town had – Old #9. I can still hear that thing wheezing and whining up the big hill down the road from my house – there was a kid who lived right at the bottom, so it was a hard grind from a dead stop all the way up the hill. I was the last stop. Which was great in the morning (10 minutes to school) but sucked in the afternoon (35 minutes home). Automatic too for extra slowness, though they had some with stickshifts – and a couple of gasoline type Ds with sticks and a crazy multi-bend shift lever snaking around the back of the doghouse. By Jr High they had gone to entirely Blue Bird Type Ds with screaming Detroit Diesels in them, all automatics. After I was gone, they went to all Blue Bird rear-engined pushers. It’s a wealthy coastal town…
Today, they are phasing out the diesel buses entirely other than for a few they keep for sports team and field trips. It’s a tiny town area-wise, so not many miles put on them, and the modern diesels cost too much upfront and cost too much to maintain. So back to gasoline, still Blue Birds with gasoline V8s. They have gone back to gas for the smaller single-axle plow/dump trucks too. One of my cousins has run the town garage for 20+ years, so I get the inside scoop.
Someone mentioned the difficulty of finding drivers – that town has solved it since I was a kid by mainly having the school custodians be the bus drivers! The town is so small the longest bus route is only about 40 minutes, so it works out just fine. And I actually had the same driver in elementary school that my mom did! And you misbehaved on her bus at your peril..
I was teetering on the edge of posting a your-school-bus-post-goes-well-with-my-school-bus-post comment, but then I really noticed your lede pic up there at the top, and it reminded me of this what I wrote (including the headline, thank you) for DVN in 2015. I wasn’t makin’ it up, either; see here. I’m disappointed to find the maker—Weldon—have redesigned the lamp so it no longer shows as a 5-pointed pentagram star antichrist satan devil naughty no-no thing.
Ms. Wilkins must lead quite the outraged and agitated life, given that she lives in a state that features 3 devil symbols on its state flag.
And arrrrggghhh. I missed your school bus post in 2021! I’ve generally taken to doing a site search here on CC before creating (theoretically) new content just to see whether, or how much, I might be retreading. I somehow didn’t do that with this post. Mea culpa.
Habitrails…man how I wanted one of those when I was a kid. But then I realized that I’d have to get a hamster. Nope.
Then I’m glad you missed my post, because I like yours! Neither detracts from the other.
And wow, yeah, I sort of wonder how big a deep freeze Ms. Wilkins must need to contain her sincerely-held religious beefs.
I call B.S. ! stars have _NOTHING_ to do with the devil .
I remember living in a Parish house that’s street number was 666 in 1964 and no one batted an eye ~ the fear mongers and retards that also claim everything causes autism are responsible for this ignorant tripe .
-Nate
Hi Jeff! I’m working on a book about the American School Bus and would love to talk to you if you’re interested. My email is belleboggs@gmail (dot) com.