A schoolbus, stopping in front of a residential home, is rear ended by a full size truck
1mon 6d ago by feddit.uk/u/Wudi in crazyfuckingvideos from cdn.imgchest.comThe initial investigation indicates that the pickup driver was following the bus too closely,
Nothing to do with too close, there's plenty of distance. They just didn't stop.
Yeah. The driver of the truck wasn't paying attention.
And was going way too fast.
And was driving a ridiculously oversized fragile ego compensation vehicle
I mean, you can drive a ridiculously oversized fragile ego compensation vehicle and also keep under the speed limit, watch out and brake on time
If you crash (and people tend to do that quite often in cars), the damage is bigger with a bigger vehicle. If you don't need it to move big things ,a smaller vehicle is better for everyone.
Speed limits can be useful to reduce accidents (though I do think they're also often used to line the state's pockets, especially on highways) but the fundamental responsibility is on the driver to drive at an appropriate speed for the context and conditions.
If you can't stop in time to avoid an accident such as a bus gently stopping, the speed limit is totally irrelevant -- it's on the driver to be alert and in control.
40, according to Google Maps.
Which is what that truck looks to be going.
While the driver is either asleep, staring down at his phone, drunk, or all three.
Yeah didn't even attempt to swerve
There's was an Olympics swimming pool worth of distance between them. The driver was clearly playing with their phone, not looking out the windscreen.
Huh, I've never heard "Olympics swimming pool" used to measure something that isn't liquid. Isn't the proper freedom unit of length measured in "football fields"?
As an American who is bad at sportzball and has no interest in it, it only recently dawned on me that the reason so many people use yards to estimate distances is because of football, and possibly shooting ranges, which I also have no interest in.
How about a compromise? You use the metric system, km in specific; BUT, you get to call them "clicks" so you sound like you are in the military?
(j/k I'm also American and I only use km for running distances, not driving distances.)
Sounds like they need to fire their investigators.
When your intake valves are clogged with lunchables and protractors, yeah…you’re too close.
Protractors? That must be a typo, right?

You never used protractors in math class?

I did not understand at all what you were saying. Now I do
Why does every "initial investigation" made into literally anything always come to the most shockingly, obviously wrong conclusion. Did they not have this video?
In a terminally car-centric society, the idea that drivers are inherently stupid and unsafe and that most people should be using public transport so they can look at their phones as much as they obviously want to is blasphemy. So they always come up with the story that leaves the driver with the least amount of fault and no real repercussions; was he using his phone and totally distracted? No! He was following too closely and the bus slammed on its brakes! Totally unavoidable accident where no one needs to be slapped on the wrist or have their licence taken away.
He’s was following too closely fir not paying attention
That's a good dad right there.
A hug being the immediate first reaction is nice yeah <3
And second reaction: go see and help.
A most decent person.
...
Though what are the odds he initially said to the youth "you'll never leave this place" before going to loot 4 PBJ sandwiches in the wrecked bus
I felt the relief in that hug, just by watching it. What a real one.
Also debris barely missed the kid’s head, what a near miss on many levels.
came here to upvote dad
Well one of them.
Can we just talk about how sweet that hugs was?
Thats a good dad right there.
It made me quite emotional.
The initial investigation indicates that the pickup driver was following the bus too closely, Jiron said.
Just for curiousity...did the police think to check the fucking doorbell camera?
"Too closely"? My man he's a good 50-100m away from that bus at the start of the clip, and the bus didn't just jack on its brakes, that was a slow and diliberate stop.
Following to closely. Lol.
Probably not, because it says 'initial'?
Maybe they meant on Instagram, because broski was clearly distracted by his phone.
The definition of "following too closely" is relatively circular. You have proper following distance if you stop in time to avoid a collision. If you don't avoid a collision, you obviously didn't have enough following distance.
"The cars wouldn't have run into each other if they had been further apart" is basically them saying "driver wasn't dunk or impaired, no sign of mechanical failure, and no evidence they were distracted.
Driving into the back of a school bus is evidence that you at the very least should have been further back, assuming you did everything else by the book.
Yes, technically he was following too closely to account for the fact he was looking at his phone.
If you are looking at your phone you should probably be leaving much more space between you and the vehicle in front due to the fact that your reaction time will be significantly delayed. So technically too close. If he wasn't on the phone it would have been proper following distance.
In most drivers ed programs, they teach 4 second following distance. You pick a landmark, start counting when the car in front of you passes it, and you should count to at least 4 by the time your vehicle passes the same spot.
Unfortunately I don't think it's actually a law in many places.
Yup, they taught me that rule of thumb too. It's not a specific law because the law says you must dive safely with appropriate following distance for road conditions, which can be longer than 4 seconds in bad weather.
Like my state has:
(1) The operator of a motor vehicle shall not follow another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent, having due regard for the speed of the vehicles and the traffic upon and the condition of the highway.
It's both good and bad that there's no objective measure, depending on if you're the one getting a ticket for driving like an ass.
No reason it couldn't be a minimum
I think the video might be evidence of being distracted.
That dad coming out, seeing that, then giving his son a hug was probably the most relieved he’s ever been in his life.
That truck didn't even attempt to brake. Driver asleep? Or too busy reading Twatter on his phone?
You can hear the brakes being applied right before impact. Way too late, way too fast. Definitely phone.
I’ve been rear-ended twice, and both times heard the other cars brakes just long enough before the impact to think “oh shit”… I can’t imagine what a school bus driver would think in this situation given all the kids…
Probably automated driver assistance breaking. Lots of new vehicles will do that when they sense an imminent crash.
Those trigger way earlier.
Those safety features are really inconsistent though.
My car sometimes thinks I try to crash into cars parked at the roadside and starts screaming at me. The moment the alarm starts I'm like 10m away from the parked car at most, and then the breaks didn't even engage.
My work van has trouble with fir trees when backing up. I assume somwthing about the mass of multiple ones in a row swaying together or somwthing makes it think its closer. But like 3 on 10 times it will auto brake at 20 feet and wont let you go any further. the easiest solution is for the passenger to hop out an stand behind the van, so it can tell how far away he is.
Agreed, to the point of ridiculousness.
Ugh I’m sorry D: I’ve been rear ended quite a few times, it’s awful. Only one car was fully destroyed, and I told my passenger “that car is gonna hit me”. 10 seconds later, BAM. Another time was low-impact, kid on his phone. Another time a crazy tweaker guy was driving nuts, hit me, and tried to run. I chased him down and he wanted me to get out of my car to look at the back of my car… I told him I’d wait for the authorities and he got in his car and sped off. He definitely was going to attack me if I got out. Wild stuff.
I've had the same thing happen multiple times. I've been hit three times while being stationary in traffic, it really sucks and there is essentially nothing you can do about it. I've seen it coming each time in the rear view and just said "oh shit!".
After watching too many dash cam videos where this happens, I’ve started using my hazards when I’m stopped at the tail of traffic on a fast road. I don’t know if it really helps but it could and at least it’s an attempt to be more visible
I had a coworker who was permanently and severely disabled in a situation like this.
He was stopped at a red light behind a few other cars. Someone not watching the road plowed into him at 40-45mph, pushing his car into the one in front of him. Brown back, broken teeth, don't remember what else other than that it was a lot. He was in the hospital for weeks.
Now I'm extra careful to leave some space between the car in front of me and mine when stopped, but even that can only help so much when you've got people driving around in heavy trucks like this.
I had that same thing happen but the car was going faster according to the police, the guy didn't even break just hit be going 55 or so. I had I not borrowed my fiance's far which was much safer than mine I'd have been in a similar position to your coworker. The entire back half of the car looked like a metal flower from the way it crumpled.
OK, I had not had audio on, so I did not notice that. There was no noticable deceleration, though.
The "too fast" part depends on local regulations and his real speed before applying the brakes. Someting that can be determined from the video.
Because it's an overweight truck with chunky tires useless on asphalt, the ABS engaged.
Following too close on Instagram.
The initial investigation indicates that the pickup driver was following the bus too closely
Did they not see the video? Bus was almost at a full stop and it still took the truck 5 seconds to hit it at Mach Fuck. Not even a nervous driving instructor would call a >5 second follow distance "too close."
I wouldn't be surprised if the driver is a cop or at least knows the investigators. Sounds like a very fishy conclusion, the video makes it obvious he definitely had time enough to react.
Guys the bus just jumped outta no where, he had no time to react. Plus it wasn't dressed in bright enough colors to be visible
Everything happened so fast, he had only minutes to react!
Mannn, this is exactly what maga said when renee was murdered. "He had seconds to react!!"
As a school bus driver, it is consistently shocking how invisible I am on the road
So what exactly was the driver fucking around with in the cab? Because they sure as fuck weren't watching the road.
Unless the driver was in the middle of having a medical emergency at the wheel, they are 100% at fucking fault and should be banned from driving for life, assuming they survive.
As someone who is on the road daily for work. He was on the phone. People are fucking insane. The latest "trend" i saw was that people in new-ish cars use their phone for navigation and the double din screen to watch tv shows or movies. The other day i was in a traffic jam. It was quite a big one. Like no one was moving for minutes. The 40 something lady next to me was just rolling back and forth like 4 or 5 meters, not even looking up once. She didn't stop, didn't turn off the car, just rubbing the clutch for minutes, reving their car. Absolutely insane
Years ago I was driving on Lincoln drive in Philly and there was someone looking at chest X-rays on a tablet while they were driving.
I'm hoping it was a patient and not a radiologist catching up on their reading...or a surgeon prepping for the morning's first surgery.
Lincoln drive in Philly is a twisting, winding road. The speed limit is 25 mph, and you rarely encounter anyone going less than 50.
This was pre-pandemic, and in my estimation drivers have gotten exponentially worse since then.
I already ranted about this ex once today, but what the hell. He's such a shit driver that I can share more.
This guy loved podcasts. We'd listen to some together when we drove. But what bothered me was when he'd have a video podcast - he'd put it on his iPad and sit it up over his infotainment screen with the video playing. He insisted that it didn't distract him, but I saw how often he glanced down at it. Hardly 10 seconds could go by without him looking over. Meanwhile, he'd be driving down the highway 70 mph.
That's about when I told him that when he's driving, I'd be holding the tablet. I wouldn't be surprised if he kept doing it when I wasn't around though.
Absolute insanity. I remember when my best friend got his license, like 24 years ago. He was the first of my friends to drive. Phones weren't really a thing back tgen, but these full matrix car radios just came up, and he had one. I still remember like it's yesterday when we were driving and he said: it's kinda crazy, that you look at your radio and dial ome nubs and suddenly you are like 400 meters further without looking on the road, that shouldn't be legal. And i thought: yeah, that is crazy. Boy, we had no idea back then
JFC
Family guy funny moments compilation w/ vertical scrolling rail shooter gameplay on the bottom no doubt
I literally seen that. I fucking honk my horn and pointed to the asshole on the freeway watching fucking video while driving. Fucking insane.
Definitely the phone.
Now imagine that it was a sedan doing a carpool. Fuck everyone who drives a truck to commute around town. Fuck everyone who thinks, I'll buy a truck because I'll be safer. I hope gasoline goes up to $15 per gallon and every truck driving piece of shit has to choose between eating or driving because of their moronic vehicle buying decision.
Truck or no truck, you can't fix stupid.
And thus, for everybody's safety, no truck.
If it was a sedan doing a car pool they'd probably all have been decapitated.... So him having a truck saved his life
Dunno what your argument is but it's kinda insane
they'd probably all have been decapitated
If that's a risk, do you not have underrun bars?
But also as someone else said they meant if it was a regular car instead of the bus, not the truck.
They were talking about the bus. If the truck rear ended a sedan, not if a sedan rear ended a bus.
No... a car doing a carpool instead of a bus.
Sedan instead of a bus. I'm guessing you drive a truck to commute to an office job every day?
If you drive up the arse of a goddamn school bus with that much stopping distance you deserve to hurt only yourself, not the kids in the back of that bus.
Just for that ignorance, on my next finance, I'm going to trade in my toyota and get a 2500 ram with a cummins. Cause fuck you.
I just asked a question but your response is pretty telling
Lol you didn’t even ask a question.
You told a bunch of people to fuck themselves.
pretty telling
Lmao
Well you're responding to a thread that did have a question in it and then pointing at the original comment instead of the one with a question.
That being said, you're still correct. If you drive a truck without a specific use that you use it for almost every day then go fuck yourself.
Is that clear now?
It will have a specific use every day. To drive my children around so they are safe.
Yeah, you're right, children in smaller cars don't deserve to live.
It's more important for you to feel cool.
Well you're responding to a thread that did have a question in it
No I’m not. There is no question in this thread.
Not unless you’ve edited one of your comments to add one after I made this comment.
Is that clear now?
Ok fine, now there’s one rhetorical question.
Nothing was ever unclear.
Trucks r bad grrr. I get ya brother.
Best to tell people to fuck themselves and see if they react calmly and rationally. If they don’t, be sure to act like it’s pretty telling.
Was referring to the question further down. Thought you were responding to that one not the main comment. My bad!
Yes, the people who are so rational and calm that they purchase vehicles specifically designed to kill toddlers and hurt other people when traffic accidents occur. Making a conscious decision to spend double or more on purchase price, gasoline, tires, oil and other maintenance just so they can say, fuck you I got mine. Rational and calm people who, when given the chance of a car crash only causing injuries to both parties, they'd prefer to kill the other people as long as they don't get hurt. How dare I be mean to them!
Next time you see someone going out of their way to hurt others make sure to ask them kindly to stop. You wouldn't want to be too assertive and make them upset. I can't imagine anything worse. Well, maybe running over a toddler with a vehicle that was intentionally made to have less visibility than an Abrams tank. But that's just me. At least certain people don't need to worry about driving safely because they're more protected than everyone else. Pretty good trade off, right?
Anybody that writes whole paragraphs ranting against straw men should go fuck themselves.
Lol, I enjoy the nonsense most folks preach on this platform, so many of them are out of touch with reality that it makes me actually believe that most people online are in fact bots and basment dwellers. Just bench racers at end of the day.
Look here bud, that's not much of an insult. Seeing as how anyone can be a potential child murderer. Just as easily anyone can be a potential billionare, just as anyone could be a potential athlete or potential homeless person. Every one has potential to be what ever the fuck they want.
Wtf are you talking about? Lol. Buying a child killing machine is a conscious choice that also costs that person double or more on the purchase price, gasoline, tires, oil and other maintenance. You have to overlook all of that and still say, I don't care that there's no way I would see a child right in front of my truck. I'm still going to make a terrible financial decision because I'll be more protected and more likely to kill someone else. I got mine!
Look here bud, that's not much of an insult.
Jesus fucking Christ man. Take a look at yourself. You don't think being called a child murderer is much of an insult. Fucking wow
Do you actually own a veichle? Or do you just pretend to know what you are talking about?
Nah, all you priks and your shit attitudes regarding pickup trucks is pissing me off. So instead of huffin and puffin, I'll just get me a new truck. Because I can. Yall act like every pick up driver is 100% guaranteed to kill your kids/dogs/grandma's the moment they leave the lot. Yall act like pick ups are these thirsty fuel guzzlers. Funny my loaded 2011 3500 cummins gets better fuel economy than my 2023 highlander with a 4cylinder. And I don't even have to pay premium in the cummins. What else. O my truck insurance is $250 dollars less than toyota. And guess what quotes for new trucks are 150$ less.. tires? Tire cost less because I can put on a set of LT rated tires they will last longer and can get better deals on them. My trucks have needed so little maintenance over the years that when I took the new car i was Hella unprepared for that headache.
Imagine being so dumb you miss something as big and yellow as a school bus. Fucking moron
That bus jumped out of nowhere!
Thought it was the sun.
That driver is so stupid, being a fucking moron would be a huge step up. Who hits a yellow rectangle covered with flashing lights? Fucking hell, I hope they haven't reproduced.
His kid was in the truck with him, so too late.
Sometimes you find a real good match on tinder
"Lemme show you how hard I can hit your backside, bby"
The height of pickup trucks should be capped by law. No crash compatibility with normal vehicles, automatically hits pedestrians in their vital organs, can't see anyone sitting or fallen in front of it. What an absolutely idiotic society to let this kind of thing be driven on public roads without a special licence.
That's not a full sized truck. That's some wankers oversized support vehicle
Needs a truck that big to fit his magnum dong
That hug hits hard. A few more steps forward and it would have been a terrible situation.
I know! Also, if you watch closely, the kid just narrowly missed getting smacked by flying debris. Thank goodness!
And the sun was behind that driver… it wasn’t even in his eyes. That’s probably the best lighting conditions imaginable, and they still missed the school bus.
Like WTF, dude. Why is it we don’t immediately revoke licenses for shit like this? Some people need to re-start from square one, yet we keep giving them fourth, fifth, and more chances to seriously injure or even kill others.
Probably on his phone
I remember reading a news report 20-30 years ago about bus accidents. A surprising number of people who ran into buses just "didn't see them". Human minds are weird, confusing, and haven't really evolved for modern society.
I can believe it. I've only ever had 1 major accident (not counting deer). I rear ended someone and I still don't know how. It was on a bright clear straight road I'd driven down hundreds of times before. I had no distractions that I can remember. I know for sure my phone was in my pocket because I remember having to dig it out with a mangled finger after the crash. I wasn't in any rush. I leave more space behind other vehicles than most people do. All I remember is driving like any other day, suddenly noticing brake lights, and then stomping on the brakes far too late.
Thankfully it was only 30MPH and nobody was hurt except me. All I had was a peeled finger and a seat belt bruise. Still don't know what actually happened that caused me to not notice. I bought a dash cam immediately after that.
It was a route I drove basically any time I needed to go into town so autopilot is my best guess too. But I'm also not sure how much of me not remembering anything is caused by me not actually noticing anything durring the crash vs post adrenaline dump amnesia. Maybe the course of events that lead to the crash made perfect sense and I just can't remember any of it because of the adrenaline dump immediately after the crash.
But yeah not much point hyper analyzing it now. Besides any way you lay it out rearending someone is never not your fault. I screwed up, I just wish I knew in what way.
Oh I do understand that for sure. My worst such case did not result in an accident luckily.
I had gone back to my hometown and was driving around and there was a new traffic light that I somehow didn’t see. I was so used to that intersection not having a light that even after years of being away, even in good conditions, even without any distractions, my mind somehow edited out effing traffic lights
Benefit of doubt, maybe the person was having a medical situation. How about not selling these giant stupid pickup trucks as commuter vehicles so there's actual crash compatibility when accidents do happen?
The people who hit the bus would be dead if they were in a smaller vehicle. Im not sure what your point is apart from shitting on pickup trucks.
The reality of what we watched was actually the best outcome to happen in my opinion.
2007 Dodge Ram
https://smartfinancial.com/car-brands-with-most-accidents
#2 in accidents. No surprise here.
Well at least it is living up to its name...
I get a 403...
it's dead, Jim
Dodge RAM? Yes...no wait.. No! Wait, yes actually! Gooooorsh!
OK the dodge did ram but the ram didn't Dodge!
Holy crap, that truck driver only looked up in the last quarter-second. They most certainly were not "following too closely", that's bullshit.
The driver of the 2007 Dodge Ram pickup was taken to Wynn Hospital in Utica for treatment of minor injuries...
In the past, that accident would have been fatal to the driver. The only thing that saved him was government regulation requiring safety features, paid for by taxes--just to put a nice, fine point on it. Not everything our governments do is horrible, but I suspect the motivation in this case was insurance company lobbying, not empathy. It's never empathy.
Bro Dozer is no match for the construction of a school bus. Thank goodness. That guy needs a timeout without a license.
I'm pretty sure he's getting a timeout.
i’m a firefighter. seen a few of these “slams into a taller object like a bus or rig…” and that pickup is very lucky if he lived. i am glad to see that hug. and calm walk to the scene too. guy was smart.
I have seen more drivers not just using their phones, but holding them up in front of their faces, in dumb giant trucks more than all other vehicle types combined.
It's the standard duality of stupid conservatives that also makes them susceptible to fascist politics, like the thing where the enemy is both weak and strong.
They have to drive the biggest, most intimidating vehicle possible because of all the druggie minorities who are going to crash into them. But their Dunning-Kruger confidence in their flawless senses plus being in their rolling fortress "safe space" combine to make them some of the worst fucking drivers. And that's when they aren't carelessly driving drunk!
Holding them up is arguably better than staring at the floor trying to be sneaky. Either way it's fucking stupid though. No message is that important, if it is they'd call.
That IS a crazy fucking video.

Distracted by cell phones me apparently
I'd like to know what was on the driver's phone that was so much more interesting than a stationary bus a hundred yards in front of them.
It's because they just and out driving licenses in the US. There's no respect because they got the licence between clasa periods back when they were 16.
They didn't have to work for it.
I learned far more from my truck driver grandpa and grease monkey uncles than I did from drivers ed or from the instructor who kept doing the opposite of what he told us to do.
You'd think a bus would be tall enough to get inside the vision cone of a lifted truck...
It would be, but his cell phone blocked it.
I'm betting his phone was found jammed against his face.
Wonder what the reason was. Messing with a phone?
As he (lets face it, this is most defenatly a he) is not even trying to break, and the school bus is as visible as an object can be I assume he was not looking at the road. Telephone would be my guess as well
He had 2 kids on board too. What an insane piece of shit
Yep. Big-ass brodozer truck almost guaranteed to be a guy. The sun is behind them so not blinded by that. There aren’t too many excuses other than OUI (medication or otherwise) or messing with a phone.
Something similar happened to me years ago. Our bus stop was infront of a fire station but just after a turn in the road. There were about 15 of us kids waiting for the bus. The bus comes around the corner and we all go pick up our back packs and form a line to get on the bus. I was front of line. The bus stops, puts on lights and the little stop sign on the side goes out. The doors open and I go to step on the first step and hear something. I look behind the bus and see a garbage truck doing everything it can to stop but rams into the back of the bus.
Luckily we were the first stop, no kids on board, only person was driver. The entire back of the bus crumpled but the driver was ok as well as the garbage truck driver. I heard later there driver claimed he was covering another person's route and didn't know there was a bus stop there. He came around the corner but the heavy garbage truck was just unable to stop quick enough when he saw the bus. This was I think 2001 so he wasn't on a cell or anything like that and he wasn't drunk or something.
If it was 10 seconds later I probably would be on the bus at the time and would not be alive to post this message.
infront
Not a word, my dude.
Dodge Ram = Drunk driver
(removed because of nonsensical data included in the graph.)
Where is this list from?
I like the data but the only result that I could find looks wildly different -- https://insurify.com/car-insurance/insights/car-models-most-duis/
But it also looks like a different X-Axis...."DUIs per 1000 drivers" vs "Drivers per 1000 with one or more DUI citations on their record". So the one I found could be counting multiple DUIs differently.
Still, interesting if true.
I searched for vehicles with highest rates of DUI which put Dodge Ram at #6, then just searched for trucks with highest rate of DUI and it pooped up as a source on Google's ai overview.
Now I'm even more confused. The graph says cars and you say trucks...but the Audi A4 and BMW 4- and 7-Series are all sedans. I don't think I'd call the WRX a truck either.
You have a good point, I don't think I've ever seen the Subaru WRX with a bed on it. Removing it to prevent further confusion.
I knew pickup drivers were above average.
Should have Dodged instead of Ramming.
My dad made drunk driving look so easy in his Dodge Ram.
Name checks out
Definitely holds true in Alberta, and every stupid inbred fuck drives a big truck up here. But those driving Rams are especially fried. Beyond saving, to be honest.
My former neighbour (God rest his mullet) drove not only a white Dodge Ram, but wore matching white Dodge Ram sunglasses to boot. Anyway.. His girlfriend kicked him out of the house last autumn and as a result, a giant skeleton decoration got left up in their yard all winter long.
Mullet and white Dodge Ram glasses? That's Canadian special white trash.
Fuckin A, bud..
They have called them DWI Cadillacs since I was in high school. That is thirty plus years ago.
Dumbass too big american car smashes into a dumbass american bus that is so high up that a dumbass american car that's too large can get under it.
Imagine if that was a smaller car. 100% decapitation.
Edit: Some pics for the angry americans:




That would be easily solved with a Mansfield bar, should be mandatory on buses that high.
As i said in another comment, busses intentionally do not have Mansfield Bars so a vehicle rear ending the bus goes under instead of transferring all of the force of the impact into the bus.
Yeah, busses carry people, not cargo.
Yeah that's a fair point, I wonder if is not possible to have something like a Mansfield bar but independent of the passenger zone.
As I said in another comment the american bus design is dumbass to begin with.
A Mansfield bar would still prevent decapitation on mild rear-end situation with a smaller car.
We are all personally responsible for the design of our vehicles so thank you for pointing that out we'll bring it up at the next meeting
I love that you said it sarcastically, like it was something impossible.
That's exactly how changes happen lmao
Correct! That's the cheap option at least.
The expensive solution is to reduce the mass of the passenger vehicle and lower the bus. Maybe even put the engine of the bus in the back.
The bus is tall for two main reasons. First, to avoid getting high-centered on bumps. Since the rear wheels are fairly far forward on the bus, and the tail sticks out behind them so far. Notice that on a semi trailer, the wheels are near the very back of the trailer:

Think about how steep a slope would need to be in order for the back tail of the trailer to scrape the ground. Even with the Mansfield bar shown in the image, it’s still an extremely steep slope, right? Just eyeballing this image, it looks like about 30° of difference, which is an absurd “the truck would never even realistically be driving on that” slope:

Now let’s compare that to a bus:
Notice that the tail sticks out behind the wheels a lot farther? And notice how the tail would hit the ground on a steep driveway or rail crossing a lot sooner? It only looks like about 10° of difference before the tail hits the ground:

The tail of a bus can easily land on top of a steep hill (lifting the rear wheels off the ground, and effectively immobilizing the entire bus) if the tail is too low. Or more commonly, the rear wheels will get stuck in a dip (like a rain gutter) while the tail and front wheels are on the ground.
“Just move the rear wheels back, so the tail won’t land on anything” I hear some people starting to type out. Except that would inevitably prevent the bus from making necessary turns. Busses need to be able to fit into residential areas to pick up and drop off kids. Residential areas tend to have narrower streets, more street parking, and tighter turns. Semi trailers don’t need to fit into those smaller side streets, and are okay with a wider turn radius. So semi trailers are able to keep the wheels way back at the end of the trailer. But since a bus needs to be able to fit into those tighter residential areas, they need to have the wheels set closer to the front of the bus, so they can make those tighter turns.
The second reason the bus is tall (and I’d argue, the most important reason), is that lowering the bus or reducing the mass would increase the risk to the kids inside of the bus. By allowing the car to slide under the bus, a lot of the kinetic energy is distributed vertically, (picking up the tail of the bus and pushing the rear-ending vehicle down) instead of directing it into crumpling the back of the bus. Because the back of a bus has very little room for crumple zones. The back seats are essentially right up against the rear wall of the bus. If you lower the bus and expect it to crumple, you’re going to crush kids. And if you lower the mass, you’ve just given 60-70 kids permanent whiplash because the bus was pushed too hard. A pragmatic vehicle engineer who remembers their humanities courses could easily argue that the design shouldn’t intentionally shatter twenty kids’ femurs (and give every kid in the bus whiplash) just to save one negligent driver’s life.
Modern school bus designs are basically the culmination of engineering for a very specific set of requirements: 1) keep kids safe, 2) be able to fit into residential areas so the bus can pick up/drop off near the kids houses (which helps keep them safe), and 3) avoid getting high-centered on anything. And “keeping people who rear-end it safe” wasn’t on the list of requirements. A Mansfield bar at the back of the bus would defeat at least one of those requirements, by making high-centering much more common. The needs of the many (the kids) outweigh the needs of the few (the rear-ender) in this case.
Thank you for not giving a brain dead response. I saw so many people arguing for things that would get hundreds to thousands of kids killed.
Thank you for giving a braindead response whithout having a slightest clue what you're talking about.
Why?
I have ADHD, but I don't see what in their answer made you believe they have ADHD. Is it the fact they are knowledgeable about a subject?
Much text = smart. Must be the ADHDs.
Have you never been outside the US?
This is an explanation why the dumbass bus is shaped like it is, not whether it's safer thaan the conventional bus designs, that the rest of the world uses.

Saying this can't get over bumps or make tight turns is just being stuck up your own ass.
The US has busses like that too. They drive bus routes that keep them on the main roads, instead of going into all the residential backroads and side streets where they would get stuck. Do you think buses just drive whatever route they want, without any forethought? Actual planning goes into that route, not just for getting people from A to B, but also for ensuring the bus is physically able to fit. And school busses simply use different dimensions, to be able to expand their potential routes.
Wait, are you saying the US roads are too narrow for that type of bus?
The US just cannot use a metric bus! It's not compatible!
Ok be real, we're taking about the USA here, they're not going to reduce the mass of anything.
Certainly not shootings.
Lol
If someone is dumb enough to not see the giant yellow thing covered in flashing lights and crash into it they deserve to eat steel.
Dumbass american take 🦅
Go take your angry ass back to reddit, begone bus-obsessed weirdo who must comment upon every comment.
I'd rather be bus-obsessed than say that "if you make a mistake, you deserve to die"
I'm okay with being a weirdo in the eyes of an american. I've seen what you worship.
Btw, I'm not the one who's posting about reddit on Lemmy, so that's a bit of a self-own on your part.
I read or was told at one point as a kid that that was an intentional feature on busses- they made the floor that high on purpose to make them safer for the occupants- instead of a rear collision hitting the frame head on eith their grill, and transferring all that momentum to the occupants, they were hitting the bus with their windshield/ chasis, and, much of the force that did transfer would be pushing the bus up because they were going under it like a wedge
Exactly, would you rather an accident kill a dozen innocent students or 1-2 dumbass(es) who rear ended a bright yellow bus.
Or, you know, kill 0 people, in the normal world.
Edit: only in dumbass america this is a hot take lol
hold on what was the social credit score of the children
None of them have created any shareholder value yet!
This is the normal world.
I have some bad news for you, kid...
It's not that it's a hot take it's just not how things fucking work lol
Yeah, not in the US, that's for sure. You guys think that the solution to gun violence is to shoot before you get shot.
They didn't count on a society so absolutely idiotic that they would make trucks practically as high as a school bus deck legal for people to drive without a special licence and express, present purpose.
I don’t know, the bus has a lot more mass than most cars - even in a bumper to bumper collision they should come out pretty well
You’re assuming a perfectly rigid system. The school bus has a lot of mass in front of the rear wheels and under the hood. But behind the rear wheels, it’s basically just aluminum sheeting bolted onto the frame, and children sitting in seats, packed in like sardines. That means the mass at the front of the bus is actually working against you, because you run the risk of sandwiching all of the kids at the back of the bus. If the tail of a school bus crumples, you’ve just shattered 20 kids’ femurs and the fire department is going to spend the next 6 hours cutting them all out of the wreckage. The ideal method is to direct as much energy away from crumpling the frame as possible. And the best way (aside from adding a cow-catcher wedge to the back of the bus, to fling them off to one side or the other) is by turning it into vertical force that lifts the tail, instead of crumpling directly into it.
Hey let's explore the cowcatcher idea. Could you design it so the texting rear-enders do a sick barrel roll?
How about A giant ramp so they get launched right over the bus like Evel knievel!
A normal car doesn't have a bumper to bumper collision with a schoolbus. My car would have a bumper-to-headrest collision at that speed.
A bus has a lot of mass in the front, the rest of the bus not so much.
The goal of safety design of vehicles is to dissipate as much energy as possible, at no expense to one or the other side.
This is still a rather mild accident of a pasanger vehicle rear-ending a bus. But it's made so much worse simply because of both-sided idiotic vehicle designs.
Most of the world realised that and rectified it rather qucikly.
One car getting under another car is never the "safe" solution.
Are you talking about ideal safety design, or American design IRL?
Because weve been in a weight and height arms-race for decades explicitly because whoever weighs more and is higher is safer, at the expense of the other vehicle.
The cars I'm talking about are far from ideal. Ideal cars would look awful, and since, "for some reason", we're very touchy about what a car should look like, it's a shape of an inefficient, unsafe brick.
But yes, the issue is the arms race, as you've put it. And it's starting to infect Europe as well, so education on vehicle safety is paramount.
Vechicle safety is not "as long as I'm in a tank - I'm safe, and that's all that matters". (This is not aimed at you)
excuse me the multipla looks more like a mangled duck
Imagine if the bus was smaller.
Imagine if the two kids inside ths bus were seated in back.
Think about how many people are typically on a school bus, compared to a a car which likely has just one occupant.
obvious troll is obvious
The 100% decapitation is a bit outrageous. That isn't true. Even in rural areas, school buses do not stop in places where there is any risk of a highway speed collision. Which also lowers the risk of death anyone in a smaller car.
And there are reasons beyond them being built on medium duty truck chassis, that in the US school buses sit that high. Part of the idea is, that if the bus gets rear ended, whatever hits you get deflected down and under the bus. This makes an accident much less likely to injure passengers in the back.
You've just watched a video of it happening, and you tell me "that doesn't happen"
I understand the idea, I'm saying it's a dumbass idea. Might have worked in 1940s when the "school bus" was designed, but it has no place in today's world.
The whole idea "if I'm in a tank, I'm safe, I don't care about the cars under me" is the exactly ass-backwards thinking that leads to the ridiculous "trucks" being so popular in the US.
You seem incapable of wanting to think past your nose. And do not want to consider why something is designed the way it is. You just want to be outraged and hate on something and someone. This conversion is at an end.
"Nuh-uh" is not a very good counter-argument.
Did you born fucked or did mama hit you silly?
"Did you born". Intelligence of an american dumbass car that's too big owner.
american dumbass car that’s too big owner
oof, you just couldn't stick the landing. being unfamiliar with a dialect is no reason to mock it.
from which dialect is "did you born" ?
fuck if i know, i don't know it either. there are a shitton of dialects tho. How general or specific do you want to get? I'm only an amateur linguist so like, that's the quality you're getting here dude
If you don't know any examples, how will specificity help ?
I mean it sounds like it could be aave but like every city has its own dialect. Like I said, shitton of dialects.
Did your mama orphaned you, when you was littles cause I hearded it from her. :)
She orphaned me with a stick I tell you

The dialect of where education is illegal. The red bits.
Right, can you believe the utter audacity of these uncultured bigots. To insult what they have not yet witnessed for them selves. For shame.

You state it's a dialect, yet can't name the dialect?
I'm perfectly ok with mocking someone because of how they write, especially after a comment that is just an ad hominem attack.
I was born, by my mother. She had to bear me. I did not bear. Nor did I born.
of course i can't name the dialect. most dialects don't have names. don't be dense
So how can you state it's a dialect and not a grammar mistake?
What's the difference between a dialect and lack of education of English language & grammar?
common usage
Using "your" as "you are" is more common than "Did you born". I suppose that classifies it at as dialect then.
Like dude, my overall point is that people different places use language differently. We shouldn't need to code switch to talk like the Queen of England (and won't, but the way) just to appease some grammar Nazis. Dialects that all of us are unfamiliar with exist
They are free to use language differently, and I'm free to make fun of them, if, by trying to offend me, they use their "dialect", which can be mistaken for is just poor English grammar.
okay, just be aware that your mockery has a bit of a racial element to it.
Americans educating other nations on racism is peak.
Tell me about the roma, european
That's the most Dodge Truck thing I've ever seen.
Ask yourself why you don't need a seatbelt on a bus. Then you know why physics dictates that the driver of that truck is probably very dead and the children are probably mostly scared.
Tldr: there is a massive difference in mass, its like the truck driving full speed into a wall.
You do realise the thing under the video is a "source link", and takes you to a website where there is more information on the crash?
So no need to speculate, the drivers of both vehicles went to the hospital for apparently minor injuries, as did 2 children from either vehicle.
Thanks. Read that later, you are correct and I'm happy they are all fine. :)
Bigger problem with no belts is bus driving into wall. Or another bus. Or rolling. Or hitting a bump that launches kids into the ceiling.
But yes, generally it's safer due to a few things related to their mass. Primarily, conservation of momentum and material strength/crumble physics. A truck or car in motion suddenly transferring that energy to a bus is going to have that energy distributed over a much larger mass, meaning the bus moves much less quickly. It also has more material to crumble and absorb the impact, making the collision more inelastic, distributing kinetic energy into deforming the metal instead of pushing the bus and occupants forward. Accordingly, it doesn't increase acceleration as quickly as you might expect which is what causes injury (the rate of change in acceleration is called 'jerk', btw, which is a pretty accurate name in collisions).
The truck driver also benefits from the crumble of both vehicles reducing the kinetic energy, a bit. But his vehicle has a lot less material to crumble before that material includes his organs. That's also assuming the vehicle isn't short enough to have the front end slip under the bus's bumper leaving their face to absorb the impact.
Also school buses are designed to put the kids very high up off the ground. The video is a good example of how, even with an outrageously tall truck, hitting a schoolbus will do damage primarily to its undercarriage. The engine block of the truck was well below the school bus seats at time of impact.
Bigger problem with no belts
Back in my day, the only seat belts on a bus would have been lap belts.
And with the backs of the seats being all metal - including the top edge - any crash would have resulted in all the dentists, denturists, and periodontists in the region becoming filthy fucking rich in just a year or five.
I mean, when even a one-on-three for both the upper and lower costing about that of a new car, doing that for 20-50 kids ends up being one hell of a payday for any implant specialist.
That's not a "full size" truck, that's a pickup truck, like the article headline and the url say.
A full-size truck is defined by the automotive industry as a quarter-ton or heavier that remains roughly within the same body size as a quarter ton. They typically have higher payload ratings, accepting upwards of 2,000 lb in the bed, and also larger towing capacities, upwards of 10,000 lb.
So an F-150 is a full-sized truck. An F-350 is also that, but an F-450/550 is considered a heavy duty truck as it is markedly larger. But a Ram 1500 and 2500 are also full-sized trucks, as is the Chevy Silverado and the Toyota Tundra.
Conversely, the Ford Ranger is NOT a full-sized truck because it is physically smaller and cannot officially carry/tow that kind of a payload. Neither would the Toyota Tacoma or any of the Mazda B-series trucks.
So a Dodge Ram - as it appears in the video - is most definitely a “full sized truck” as defined by the automotive industry.
The full-size Ram 1500 pickup faces an uncertain future in 2007 as rising fuel prices and a shift to smaller cars threaten to curtail last year’s brisk sales momentum
https://www.kbb.com/dodge/ram-1500/2007/
Today I learned something new about pick up trucks. I'll change my complaint to: that's a dumb marketing term and there's no need for the title of this post to be so different from the headline of the article.
Pickup truck mows a school bus and almost the kids inside too would be a better title for what I am seeing in the video

If this is in reference to the way the pickup goes so far under the bus, that is intentional. Busses do not have a Mansfield Bar, so if a bus is rear ended the impact sends the vehicle under the bus rather than distributing that incoming force into the bus. Essentially, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
We paint school buses a distinctive shade of bright mustard yellow. They stand out in every environment in the United States, granted they blend in with the filter they use in Mexico.
Didn't knew that. I can understand that aproach, but isn't it possible for the bar to absorb the force?
You didn't know that, because it's an idiotic reason that is only applied in the US.
A car getting under another car is always big bad due to increased risk of decapitation, even in mild situations.
Not unless the bar has an incredible capacity for deformation
Nope, it would likely need to be made out of vibranium to do that. With conventional materials (ones that actually exist) the force that hits the bar is spread to the rest of the bus, pushing it forward. If the rear of the bus is solid then bus moves forward and it is possible the bus hits children. If the rear of the bus crumples to absorb the impact any children in the rear of the bus crumple.
The safest thing to do is have the impacting vehicle go under the bus.
Dude damn near got beaned by that mirror. Edit: actually looks more like the headlight getting ejected instead
Did anyone get hurt? I don't wanna watch of anyone did
2 adults and 4 children were hurt according to the article, no one life threatening. None of the injured are visible in the video.
The most important and missed part of this video is that dad hugging his son.
Forget everything else you know about America or this accident. That hug shows who we are in America. Look closely. That's us. Love each other!
I don't see a video on this link at all
Some deepshit dog walking lady did this to us a few weeks ago. The popo gave her a ticket for tailgating... Fucking tailgating!!! Our van moved like 26ft from where we were waiting for traffic to open up to make a left. The spot is a school bus pick up zone. That's the part I hate the most. Dude, take that driver off the road, clearly they should not be driving.
I know there is lots and lots of righteous anger here. And that everyone can't wait to hate on the vehicles in the US. But even a quick and dirty cursory search reveals that school bus transportation is extremely safe and accidents are very rare. So let's add some context.
School buses travel about 16.5 million miles EVERY morning in the US. Double that for total route distance every day.
There is one crash roughly per 311,828 miles. That's 501,822km for those of you living in West Texas.
Buses travel 7.3 million miles/11,748,211km for every reported injury.
The rate of fatalities is .4 per 100 million miles. And for those anywhere in Alabama, .4 fatalities per 160,934,400km. And that is the total of deaths inside and outside the bus.
Hopefully I can trust Lemmy users understand that zero injuries and fatalities are statistically impossible to achieve. Nor is it possible to reduce stupid to zero. This driver is a prime example of that. Regardless of the vehicle being driven. At best, we can just change the type of stupid. But stupid still going to happen. And apparently even Dodge Ram drivers are statistically very safe around school buses......
Cool now do F-150s
zero injuries and fatalities are statistically impossible to achieve
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zeroshould still be our goal, and the U.S. lags behind most other countries in achieving it.
The bus wasn't the problem here.
The bumper on the school bus it way too high.
On the back? Not being from america, I believe they are designed to be wedge shaped at the back to shove any impact down and protect those in the back seat.
Was it? There are children in there. I have a feeling that the extra height may have saved the children in the back seats from being crushed by a truck half the size of the school bus.
the bus is designed against such an impact to protect eh children.
Add spikes for more protection.

fuck anyone who rear ends a school bus.
the only thing that matters are the kids in that bus.
You need help.
And the resale value of the truck.
And any scratches on my rims, bruh.
can't upvote a link to an adblock-disabling site, sry
Look at the shadow direction in the video.
Look at the angle of the shadows in the video -- the sun is behind the driver
Maybe he was looking in the mirror!
If they couldn't see well enough to see something as large as a bus, the correct response is to slow down, not plow through at the speed limit.
The point is the fault is 100% on the truck driver regardless of how well they could see. If they could see, but didn't brake, it's their fault. If they couldn't see, and didn't brake, it's their fault.
Someone in the comments said the speed limit is 40.
The stupid school buses in my area stop on the road with 55mph speed limit when it would take an extra 15 seconds to turn into the neighborhood with 30mph speed limits. I'm surprised this exact wreck hasn't happened yet.
Sounds like the speed limit should be lowered to 30 on the road with the school bus stops
Yes I want to drive 20 miles at 30mph when they could just take a few extra seconds to pull into the neighborhood.
i don't doubt the safety hazard it creates. when i was a kid, all it took was a concerned parent going to the school board asking [why the school bus stop was on the 55 road with no sidewalk and no street lamp when it could be around the corner on the 25 road with a sidewalk and a street lamp] for them to move it. the parent was my neighbor who has some kind of dog rescue thing going on i'm not sure i don't understand, she was so proud of that victory she's still talking about it.
Horribly unsafe for the kids too, I guess none of the parents around here are concerned.
my point was for you to be that parent dude
I don't have kids, I'm only concerned about my safety on that road.
There's still probably someone at the school I could contact though.
find out when the school board meets. share with them your concerns as a local community member. they are just as valid as the next citizen's. you will probably have to show up early and sign up in advance to say something, but they'll hear you out. if you don't have the time to do that, email the principal at the local district elementary [need more coffee] in june, RIGHT after school is out for the summer. perfect time for them to rearrange the bus routes. they are too busy in may to do anything. may is crunch time at us schools. (apologies, i am running off our district's calendar and assuming you are too)
Ah yes, stupid school buses. Not stupid road design or stupid speed limit. Wouldn't want the idea that people live and commute on a road to get in the way of traffic.
Fucking /s
Don't get me wrong, we need more buses. The cluster fuck of SUV traffic at the school is even worse, but they shouldn't be stopping traffic on a busy 55mph road.