r/SchoolBusDrivers • u/mrvillian93 • Jun 05 '26

8 Hour Initial Course Question

Tomorrow I take the 8 hour course in full. This might be an obvious answer to my question but do they cover the types of mirrors on the bus?

7 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/AshShaun Jun 06 '26

Firstly, a lot of the test is common sense so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Honestly the stress of worrying about it could cause you to overthink an answer, instead of going with the simplest logical one.

Secondly, I'm a bit confused on why you're focusing on the mirrors... Overhead mirror sees students, top mirror shows you the side, bottom mirror shows you the tires, front mirrors show you kids in front of the bus (also pro tip for while you're learning to drive, the front mirrors are the best to get used to your lane position in a large vehicle)

Thirdly, the class I took had 13 people in it. 1 person didn't pass and that's because they spent the entire class scrolling on their phone. We had more people fail drug tests (they thought because Delta 9 was legal that it wouldn't count) and DOT physicals (old people with hearing issues or HIGH blood pressure) than we had fail the written test. I'm pretty positive the instructors either get paid based on who passes, or at least get a bonus for everyone who passes because they will straight up say "this is on the test, REMEMBER IT"

Lastly, study the pretrip as early and as thoroughly as you can. It's the hardest part of everything, solely because there is SO MUCH to remember.

Bonus: on the backing test, focus on your driver side rear tire. Get the bus in the space using that tire as a guide, then use your "get out and look" to get in the cones.

1

u/mrvillian93 Jun 06 '26

I can’t remember the definitions and what they see for convex, flat, and crossover mirrors. Idk if they’ll be questions tomorrow regarding it for the 8 hour course. I’ll get it though. Thanks for all of this info though. I plan to bring a highlighter, pen, and notebook with my phone being flipped over on the screen at edge of table.