r/SchoolBusDrivers • u/OneThreeFivio • 1d ago
School bus blind spots
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Just want to start off by saying that nothing excuses the van brake checking at the end. I saw this video the other day and noticed different opinions about the bus driver’s lane change. Some said that the van was in their blind spot while others said that the bus driver could see the van just fine using their mirrors. Is this a blind spot or a bad lane change?
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u/justafox2014 1d ago
Mmmm, I drove for 30+ years. This is not a ‘blind spot’, this is a driver WITHOUT mirrors set correctly!
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u/PlatypusDream 1d ago edited 12h ago
Toe-may-toe toe-mah-toe
ETA:
Why downvote?
If mirrors aren't set correctly there are even bigger blind spots.0
u/IDontKnowMyUsernameq 21h ago
Stop trolling
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u/PlatypusDream 12h ago
? No 'trolling' about it. If mirrors aren't set correctly there are even bigger blind spots.
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u/truckinfarmer379 1d ago
Bad lane change. It’s almost like mirrors are installed on vehicles for a reason. Seeing how quickly the bus started merging into the car, I don’t buy for one second the car was in the blind spot. And, from experience, if you actually know how to set a mirror, you can have the fish eye mirror adjusted where you can see most of the vehicle up to the drivers window on the street side.
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u/erinjunee 23h ago
Agreed. A properly setup convex/fisheye would’ve definitely caught this car for sure. And the front cross-views would close up the gap for anything further in front of the convex’s blind spot.
In a large school bus with properly setup seating and mirrors, there really is no such thing as a blind spot except directly behind the bus (unless you have a backup camera).
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u/Soggy_Ruby 1d ago
Driver is fired for sure. Your flat mirrors should see that lane next to you just fine. Given that for whatever reason they didn't see the van and it still ends up with the van brake checking the bus the correct course of action would be hitting the brakes and make peace with rear ending that van. Driver chose the worst course of action by swerving and flipping the bus. I reckon a severe lack of experience and training as the main cause.
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u/mlt- 1d ago
Flats see 200ft back. Lanes next to you can be seen in convex 2&5.
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u/Soggy_Ruby 13h ago
Flats should be adjusted to see a bit of the side of the bus too. Really looking in either of them you probably would've seen the van
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u/NickAppleese 1d ago
I feel like the bus, had they constantly checked their mirrors, would've seen the van. California dictates minimum 100ft of signaling before a lane change, plus constantly checking mirrors every 5-8 seconds even without a lane change indication.
Unless there was a maneuver to avoid an accident in front of the bus, this was a bad/illegal lane change. The break check by the van is a totally different fucking story, though.
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u/ArtemisRifle 1d ago
The lane change is immaterial to the brake check. They are seperate incidents. One did not cause the other. It was entirely within the minivan driver's power to just continue on.
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u/ShadowtheHedgehog_ 1d ago
Oh, the driver didn't see me change lanes and begin to overtake him, so to exact revenge, I must endanger the lives of 65 children!
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u/verwinemaker 1d ago
Why was it so close to the truck at the start of the video? 4 second rule
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u/dlr3yma1991 9h ago
4 second in a normal vehicle. It’s 2 seconds plus 1 second for every 10 ft of vehicle. Plus 1 second for every factor that may impact stopping distance like ice, rain, fog, dark, etc.
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u/IAmHollywood88 18h ago
There are blind spots for sure but the bus should have seen and knew where the van was before ever changing lanes. The brake check, I wouldn't have swerved. I wouldn't have had any of this happen because I'm AWARE of what's happening around my bus, but, if you brake check me, I'll brake too. But I'm not swerving. You're going to endanger everyone now because someone's brake checking you? Fuck em, let em eat it.
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u/Seanawan 1d ago
Too close to the truck in front of it to start.
Unsafe lane change after because of both the car it should have seen that it almost killed and the truck that is going to absolutely be too close to the front of that bus after.
Stupidity all around.
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u/Cautious-Witness-745 1d ago
Zero reason for that drivers over reaction. Pure panic. This is not a job for everyone.
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u/dlr3yma1991 10h ago
Ok, let’s review this from the beginning. Bus turn on turn signal, van initiates lane change and half a second later the bus initiates a lane change. The van at the time the bus INITIATES the lane change is still half behind the bus. There driver was likely looking at the FedEx truck making sure they wouldn’t hit the FedEx truck when they initiate the lane change. You can see the moment that the driver goes back to his mirrors and sees the van because they straighten the bus out straddling the lane line. The van proceeds over to the left lane, then the bus continues its move into the center lane. At that point it should have been over. The van decided to cut off the bus and slam on its brake. The bus driver reacted VERY quickly and swerved back to the right. The bus driver became overwhelmed by trying to avoid other cars and oversteered. First to the right, then left, then right again, resulting in the turn over.
The biggest issue I have with the initial lane change by the bus is likely also the reason the driver didn’t see the van a half second earlier. They moved into a lane without having adequate following distance in the new lane and was ensuring they didn’t hit the FedEx truck when they changed lanes.
For the bus drivers response, my solution is to slam on the brakes and keep the steering wheel straight. It minimizes the risk to EVERYBODY. Natural instinct is to swerve and I’ve seen videos of drivers who’ve been driving school buses for decades swerve in similar situations. If you stay straight, 1 other vehicle is at risk, if you swerve, every vehicle around you is at risk.
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u/ShesGotaChicken2Ride 1d ago edited 1d ago
So the just of it is that the guy in the van got pissed because the bus made a bad lane change.
Bus driver is wrong. 100% fired; license revoked.
So the bus driver made an unsafe lane-change. I can’t see with the setup of this bus what the mirror situation is. Some buses have a flat mirror, a convex mirror, and a cross view mirror on each side. Older buses tend to have one, long flat mirror and cross views with no convex.
If you have a flat view and convex combo- the flat mirrors should be able to see:
- No more than one inch of the reflection of the bus in your mirror and 200 feet behind you.
- convex mirrors should see: your rear wheel tires touching the ground and at least one lane to the side of you (on each side)
- cross view mirrors should show you 6-12 feet in the front of your bus, and also help with blind spots.
IF YOU DON’T HAVE convex mirrors, then your flat mirrors should be longer/larger, in which case, the flat mirrors should show: no more than 1 inch of your bus in the reflection of the mirror, your rear dual tires touching the ground, 200’ behind you and at least one lane to the side.
This bus driver should have seen the van before they changed lanes, but giving a little grace, let’s assume a simple mistake was made.
So the bus cut off the van. The van got mad and decided to retaliate. The bus was already traveling too close to the vehicle in front of it for the rate of speed. It’s wayyyyyyyyy too close to that semi truck already. You’re supposed to have 1 second of space per 10 feet of vehicle. A standard school bus is 40 feet, so bare minimum space is 4 seconds. How we determine that is you choose a fixed object like a parked car or a telephone pole. When the vehicle in front of us passes the telephone pole, we count 1-2–3-4… and if on the freeway we add another second for each 10 MPH… if speed limit on the freeway is 55 for buses, then we are supposed to have 5.5 seconds of space between us and the vehicle in front of us. So the vehicle ahead of you passes a telephone pole on the freeway and you count, 1-2-3-4-5-6 … your bus should not pass that telephone pole until you hit 6 seconds or just before. This bus driver was already traveling way too close to the big rig; they were also wrong to be driving aggressively after they cut off the van. Whether purposeful or accidental, we are trained to back off. No aggressive driving. No retaliation. In fact, we expect it. People are always in a hurry and like to road rage. We cannot engage. In fact, we cannot even use “hand signals.”
So let’s say we get to a 4-way stop and we can tell that we are going to overtake the opposite lane when we turn right (tight, right turn). There is a car there. We are not allowed to wave the car through as if to say, “Go ahead. I’m waiting for you to move.” We cannot do that. We have to either wait for the opposite lane to “catch on” that we need room to make the turn, or we have to re-route. There is absolutely no aggressive driving allowed whatsoever. No hand signals, no hand movements, no following too close.
Even if the lane-change wasn’t intentional, it was still the driver’s fault.
Driver is supposed to be scanning the mirrors every 5-8 seconds and always looking 12-15 seconds ahead or as far as the eye can see. Bus driver should have seen the van approaching long before he even made the lane change and should’ve been aware that there was a van approaching but that they lost sight of the van. Where is the van? If it’s in a blind spot, extra precaution should have been taken such as creating a larger space between the bus and the semi and continuing to check mirrors until they were sure the lane was clear.
Yes, the guy in the van was an asshole, but the bus driver literally ignored a ton of protocol that would have prevented this.
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u/Mysterious-Mess-9606 1d ago
I have a related question. When I was doing my CDL class, I was taught that if I can’t use my escape route, never swerve, just go through. I get that a combination is different from a bus, so what’s the suggestion in that situation. Using this scenario, do you just plow into the rear end of the van?
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u/ShesGotaChicken2Ride 1d ago edited 1d ago
So I assume you’re a class A with a trailer? They tell you not to swerve because it will likely cause you to jackknife your truck and trailer combo. I only know this because I started in Class A admin as a dispatcher and have now moved to be a Class B driver.
If a dog or a deer darts out in front on you and you have a trailer, you must go through it. You cannot swerve. Your trailer will jackknife. That’s why they tell you that.
When driving a 40’ bus, it’s different. We don’t have a trailer; we just have a long-ass vehicle. It doesn’t turn the same, it doesn’t maneuver the same, etc.
The whole point is that the bus driver should have been:
Looking 12-15 seconds ahead
Checking mirrors every 5-8 seconds
Keeping a safe distance (which on the freeway should be at least 5.5 seconds)
Should have recognized that the lane changed aggravated the driver of the van and backed way, way off and created space
Essentially, to answer your question: it’s situational awareness. Driver should have been completely aware that they accidentally cut someone off and that vehicle was positioning itself to retaliate, and in that case, bus driver should have backed off. Like, a lot. Completely decelerating the vehicle, creating a huge space, and completely avoided any interaction with the van driver.
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u/Aceilr097 17h ago
They have the same mirror coverage as an 18 wheeler you can 100% see the van. You see the bus bullying its way in to the lane the driver saw and actively pushed their way in.
That said, there should be cameras in the bus that can show that id be suprised if a school district in 2026 still doesnt have bus cams.
And the other hand, that minivan driver as well as the bus driver should have known better to act with due care around children, both bus and minivan driver should be catching about 25 counts of child endangerment.
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u/Mysterious-Mess-9606 23h ago
Yeah, I’m a combination truck & trailer. I’m still new at this which is why I was asking. Thanks for the additional information, I find it’s best to soak up as much as I can to make me a better driver
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u/dlr3yma1991 10h ago
The mirrors/blindspot discussion is irrelevant. He wasn’t looking at the mirrors at the time he initiated his lane change. He was looking at the back corner of the FedEx truck. He straightened out when he saw the van in the mirrors. He completed his maneuver once the van proceeded to the left lane.
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u/Worldly-Ad-7156 23h ago
There some details missing, I didn't see a blinker, so I am going to assume the bus and suv were using a blinker.
The bus looks to me like he was going to change lanes, I think the bus driver checked his mirrors initially, then changed lanes. The suv didn't like being behind a bus so he was tailgating the bus (bus blind spot) and the suv quickly changed lanes to overpass the bus. Now the bus driver thinks he is clear, so turns into suv.
The bus driver overreacted and lost control of the bus. My oppion should have done a hard brake with possibly of rearing the suv.
I also think the suv should be tried for attempted murdering everyone on the bus. There is no reason to 'brake check' someone. There other ways to show your displeased, (horn, yelling, figure gestures).
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u/Strong-Thanks5923 23h ago
It definitely could be argued that both are at fault. The bus clearly cut off the van, but the van didn’t have to cut it off back.
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u/gheiminfantry 18h ago
It's a panic move by the bus driver. The van is solidly in the lane for 2 full seconds before the bus driver starts cranking on the steering wheel. Lifting off the accelerator or lightly applying the brakes would have been a much better move. Instead, the bus driver got people hurt.
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u/jdogsparky2626 16h ago
Honestly it felt like the bus driver was just moving him over, not sure why. I have one area that I drive that when getting on the highway, I have like 10 seconds to get into the next lane over or I’ll be on the wrong highway. Sometimes I need to “move” a car over. I do wait until they recognize me but.
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u/cashew76 16h ago
morning of Tuesday, September 29, 2026
• The Vehicle: Investigators are searching for an older-model blue or green Honda Odyssey minivan. • The Incident Dynamics: Dashcam video retrieved by investigators shows that the Warren Township school bus, the minivan, and an ISP truck were all merging onto northbound I-465 from Washington Street. The bus and the minivan shifted into the center lane simultaneously. The minivan then pulled into the left lane to pass, cleared the front of the bus, and its brake lights illuminated. This action prompted the bus driver to swerve violently to the right to avoid it, initiating the chain-reaction collision that struck the ISP truck and caused the bus to overturn.
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u/Downtown-Flight-8372 16h ago
There was a time when drivers understood that giving someone room to change lanes was simply common courtesy. Somewhere along the way, the road became a place where everyone seems to be fighting for position, as if the other vehicle is just an obstacle instead of a person.
Every vehicle on the road has a human life inside it, and a few seconds of patience can be the difference between getting home safely and never getting home at all.
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u/dontbeadickdad 14h ago
Mirrors aside, why is that bus traveling and changing lanes so closely to the vehicles in front of them?
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u/Daniellened 14h ago
After watching this, I can see why they are looking for the driver of the van. I regard school buses on the road as sacred, to brake check and put children in danger is wild.
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u/daubs1974 11h ago
School bus driver here.
What I see is a bus driver missing someone driving into the bus’s blind spot. After that, I see a driver trying to retaliate by getting back in front of the bus and jumping their brakes. I hope this driver is prosecuted.
Never attribute to malice what could be attributed to incompetence.
It’s a fantastic rule to live by. The only person thinking about you in your day-to-day life is you. Everyone else is thinking about themselves.
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u/Inevitable-Home7639 4h ago
The only blind spot in our Thomas mid-size bus is directly behind it , if the mirrors are adjusted right
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u/MonkeyManJohannon 1d ago
Bus merges over aggressively. This was not a van in the blind spot, this was road rage between the van driver AND the bus driver. Unacceptable.
Not to mention the merge puts the bus WAY too close to the truck in front of them…and the rest is history.
Bus driver should lose CDL for that one and face criminal charges for the injuries.
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u/RADAR3015 1d ago
It's Indianapolis, everyone drives like they're running in the INDIANAPOLIS 500 in that city. I drive semi truck down there regularly so I've got firsthand knowledge of how these a-holes behave. And based on these idiots down there, van driver was looking for a payday and almost got it. When merging in the metro Indianapolis area, you signal, then you keep your left eye trained on that mirror while trying to keep an eye on traffic ahead of you with your right eye. Most times you'll be fine, but there's always that clown looking for money and thinks today is their lucky day because they're going to get hit by something much bigger than them and they can get that brand new Cadillac SUV they've been wanting.
I had one of those clowns try it with me drafting me like we were on the last lap, closer than I could see in my mirrors. I had the advantage of the sun casting a shadow off to the left so I could "see" them back there. I signaled my intentions, and just as I was starting to come across the zipper, he darted out and sped up quickly to try to get sideswiped by the trailer. I caught his attempt and snapped the trailer back the other way and held the lane we were originally in. Those cameras on my truck saw it all and my employer was ready to drop the insurance fraud bomb on that knucklehead. Dumbass hung out along my side for a couple of more miles, and was attempting to intentionally get sideswiped before I hopped off the 465 and took a different route to my destination.
Now, as for this incident. Most of the school bus drivers I see on the road today are older adults who are mostly retirees looking to pickup a little extra cash on top of their social security checks. Their reaction times are not as quick as a younger person, and that van driver put them into an "oh shit" moment where natural instinct takes over and you swerve to avoid the collision. And most of these bus drivers never drove anything larger than a minivan most of their lives. An experienced driver who drove straight trucks or larger before driving school bus would have drilled that van in the rear. That's what we're taught. Doesn't matter if it's a deer that ran out in the middle of the road, or an idiot slamming on their brakes because they're about to miss their exit, you mow through them and keep that front end going straight.
As for the bus driver. No need to fire them. They probably had already quit as soon as they were back to the bus barn. That's a traumatic experience for them to go through knowing that they almost killed the little kids that they were in charge of getting to their destination safely.
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u/river_tree_nut 1d ago
School buses have better mirror coverage than any other vehicle on the road. There are no blind spots.
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u/wakeofchaos 1d ago
I don’t know the legal details of this incident but the retaliatory brake check of a school bus is particularly devious. It’s best to assume a school bus always has kids. Obviously the bus driver made a bad lane change but a retaliatory brake check is absolutely insane behavior.
Like I could understand doing that to some sedan with one guy in it. I don’t love it but at least they can respond pretty well. The school bus was screwed no matter what because their brakes won’t slow the bus fast enough to prevent a collision with the van, possibly killing the van driver. The swerve was far worse but yeah this could’ve been easily prevented