Why Do School Buses Have Those 3 Black Stripes?

You know a school bus is yellow. You know they have the stop signs and flashing lights. But have you ever noticed, almost every school bus has three black stripes on each side? Those black stripes are there for a reason.

ClawBoss is the YouTube channel for a real-life bus driver. Clawboss posts videos on social media about a day in the life of a bus driver. He knows a lot about school buses. So he posts informational videos on YouTube about them. As a DJ would do, he even takes requests. If you get a question to him about a school bus, ClawBoss will usually give you an answer in the form of a YouTube video.

ClawBoss covered a topic recently that made over 2 million people click one of his videos. He answered the question, "What is the purpose of the three black lines on each side of a school bus."

The three black rails have a very important mission. Not only do they add strength to the side of the bus, but in the event of a crash, they also tell police, firefighters and EMTs three important things.

The bottom stripe marks the floor of the bus, the black rail in the middle notes the bottom of the seats and the top line shows the top of the seats.

If emergency personnel ever have to cut into the frame of the bus, the black rails show key areas of the bus to protect the children on board.