depend on their playground position , citizenry who took the bus to school as kidskin either have fond or not - so - fond memory of that childhood ritual of passage : those gargantuan leathery seats , the difficult to open upright windows , and the flashing red stop polarity that stuck out from the driver ’s side . Perhaps the most easy recognizable aspect of the school bus is its unique jaundiced hue , which has remained the same for decades . Just how was this colouring chosen ?
In the former 19th and other 20th C , kids came to school in any fomite that could get them there before the Vanessa Bell rang , whether it was ahorse - sop up carriage or a wooden cart on a motortruck shape . There was no consistent mean value of transport , a fact that frustrated both instructor and parent — who were interested about students ’ safety — and the companies that made the fomite , who require normalization for mass production ( which would enable them to turn a net income ) .
In 1939 , using $ 5000 in funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and postdate his own study of schooltime transportation , Columbia University prof Frank Cyrorganized a conferenceat Teachers College on the University ’s Manhattan campus . He foregather together engineers and specialists from post like the Ford Motor Company and DuPont to found national standards for schoolhouse buses .
The conference create 44 school day bus standards , including height and width specifications — and the fomite ’ color . To figure out which hue was best , the group laid out a broad array of spectre fromlight lemon tree - yellowness to grim Orange River - redalong the wall in one of the rooms of Columbia ’s Grace Dodge Hall , finally constringe the field down tothree refinement of yellowed . Golden yellow was ultimately chosen by the specialists because the distinctive tint — originally called “ National School Bus Chrome ” and later update to “ National School Bus Glossy Yellow”—is the easy colouring material to see during the early morning and eve time of day when buses operate . bluff bleak lettering covering the material body completed the eye - catching smell , which Cyr and ship’s company hop-skip would make mass more careful when walking or force near the heap .
bus are n’t the only vehicles to apply the distinctive color ; you ’ll also find it on European ring armour hand truck and cabs buzzing around New York City .
