Emergency School Bus Evacuation 1976 American Automobile Association04:33

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Published on September 22, 2017

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“Teaches youngsters basic understanding of all procedures for evacuating a school bus under emergency conditions.
Shot in Carlsbad, California, there are some nice shots of kids (all ages) jumping out of the back of school buses in a stiff, orderly fashion.”

Reupload of a previously uploaded film with improved video & sound.

Originally a public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

Wikipedia license:

A school bus is a type of bus specifically designed and manufactured for student transport: carrying children to and from school and school events. Outside North America, the term can often be applied to an ordinary bus used for a school service or an older bus or coach retrofitted to become a dedicated school bus.

The first school bus was horse-drawn, introduced in 1827 by George Shillibeer for Newington Academy for Girls, a Quaker school in Stoke Newington, north-east of London (UK), and was designed to carry 25 children.

The primary vehicle used for student transport in North America, school buses are distinguished from other types of buses by design characteristics necessitated by federal and state/provincial regulations. Federal safety standards recommend school buses to be painted school bus yellow and equipped with specific warning and safety devices. This service is almost always provided without charge to families. In other parts of the world, the term “school bus” refers more to the destination of the bus and its student passengers than the specific vehicle designed for that purpose; the vehicles used for student transport are more closely related to other types of buses than their North American counterparts.

In the United States, school buses provide an estimated 10 billion student trips every year. Every school day, over 480,000 school buses transport 26 million children to and from schools and school-related activities; over half of the country’s student population is transported by school bus…

In 1980, there were six major school bus body manufacturers producing full-size school buses in North America:

– Blue Bird Body Company
– Carpenter Body Works
– Superior Coach Company
– Thomas Built Buses,Inc.
– Wayne Corporation
– Ward Body Works

The “Big Six” manufacturers produced bodies for chassis from three truck manufacturers (Ford, General Motors, and International Harvester) in addition to two coach-type school bus manufacturers who serviced the West Coast (Crown and Gillig).

Through the 1980s and 1990s, several manufacturers filed for bankruptcy or were purchased by other manufacturers. One of the few new firms that gained entry into the industry was Freightliner, who became a chassis supplier in the late 1990s. By 2005, only three of the original “Big Six” had survived (Blue Bird, Thomas, and IC Corporation—a rebranding of Ward successor AmTran)…

Emergency exits

In addition to the entry door, all school buses have at least one emergency exit door (in rear-engine buses, a window exit) in the rear of the bus. The rear door was a feature retained from when school buses were horse-drawn wagons and the entrance door was rear-mounted to avoid frightening the horses.

Additional exits may be located in the roof (roof hatches), window exits, and/or side emergency exit doors. All are opened by the use of quick-release latches which activate an alarm. The number of emergency exits in a school bus depends on the size of the bus (its seating capacity) along with individual state regulations…

1977 safety standards

The focus on structural integrity spurred new requirements in the U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for school buses, most of which became applicable for school buses on April 1, 1977. These standards are still in effect today.

Standard No. 217 – Bus Emergency Exits and Window Retention and Release (Effective September 1, 1973)

This established requirements for bus window retention and release to reduce the likelihood of passenger ejection in crashes, and for emergency exits to facilitate passenger exit in emergencies. It also requires that each school bus have an interlock system to prevent the engine starting if an emergency door is locked, and an alarm that sounds if an emergency door is not fully closed while the engine is running…

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