Where are the metal tubes that were the seat-backs, with the ragged cut fabric from the seat front???? Where are the bench seats???? These aren’t “busses”, they’re “limousines”!!!!

Don't forget, we didn't have tinted windows, effective heaters (except maybe at the front blowing on the driver's feet), a/c, or nice, soft air-ride suspension either.

And now after 35+ yrs as a truck driver I will start wearing my seatbelt. My philosophy, as so many others was, "when they put seat belts in school buses I will wear mine". Damn it, I wonder if mine works.

Monkey bars too. At least one kid a year would fall, jump or get pushed off, and get knocked out. Kids today are really missing out on the opportunity to prove that Sir Issac Newton fella was right

Buses also had metal seatbacks and no AC - in Florida. Our bus driver would intentionally go fast over this one bump so we could catch extra air. Times certainly have changed.

I remember my school busses didn't have AC, or even working heat. I remember no belts either. And every bus I ever road in seemed to come with exhaust manifold leaks from the factory. Kids have it easy today.

Exactly there's no adventure now

My dad used to drive school bus. One day he had about 12 kindergartners on the bus. One little guy whispers, "Let’s all move to this side and tip the bus over." Ah, the good old days. 🥰

Dadbod, you forgot about the padding on those seats. We never had padding on the school bus seats when I was growing up.

We had NO seatbelt, NO heat, NO A/C, A huge steel bar around the top of the seat in front of you, and 3 kids per seat. Our buses always sounded like a tractor on its last leg . I don't think that our buses had as many seats and they weren't as long either. 😏

Sitting in the back seats of the bus was an adventure. If u hit a bump u went flying

There were years that my school bus had 3 kids to a seat. It was only a few, thus too few to field another bus. But obviously too many for limiting 2 per seat. Nevermind the poor music kid(s) that had to haul their huge instruments along, too.

School bus was wilder than playground ❤😂

Nothing like riding on a school bus designed for a maximum of 50 students crammed overflowing with 80-90 because your school system was too cheap to buy additional buses and hire additional drivers. Having the smallest kids sitting on the laps of the teenagers because obviously the teenagers cared more about safety than the school system or the alcoholic in the driver's seat. Growing up with an alcoholic uncle you learned to recognize the smell. And this was the 80s and 90s in Indiana. When I started driving to school my senior year I took the neighbor kids so they wouldn't have to ride the bus that year either

I remember the old Crown busses. They were loud, bumpy, the bench seats had the pipe frame, textured stainless on the back of the seat and green vinyl back and seat cushions. Then the driver would stand up and tell everyone that if we didn’t behave, he would turn the bus around and go back to the school. We were happy we were going on a field trip!

As a senior, I swear retired school busses are being used ...lol

Part of our bus rpute was over a very bumpy rural road, and we would stand in the back and ride over the bumps and also jump at just the right moment to get real good air. Yeah, good times!

Our school bus was a old commuter bus from 1970s with no anti-lock braking system and no seat belts

I vividly remember sitting in the very back row when our driver was going through an intersection that had a gutter across the road. He hit that at speed and when the rear wheels hit it, me being on the smaller side I catapulted out of my seat like one of those carnival games where you try to hit the bell using the giant mallet and actually did hit my head on the ceiling. Every time we went through that intersection after that the driver was much more cautious to ensure nobody made a return trip to the ceiling because by the late eighties the sue happy culture was well known. every time I went through that intersection myself it always brought back that memory even after they repaved it and covered over the gutter.

And broken windows that wouldn't close as the rain came in.

Do you remember those handle bars on the back of the seats. Always fun when the bus slammed on the bus and we all got propelled face first into them. So many racoon eyes -- looked like we survived a brawl when we got off of the bus.

Being launched into the ceiling of the bus was a multi daily experience

I know that you'll find this hard to believe but in the 60's, in North Carolina, we had students driving school busses. Yes, 16 year old drivers. Oh, how the times have changed.

We would actually TRY to hurt ourselves on the bus by occasionally talking our bus driver into go over certain places to fast.

I remember open windows or just openings in the sides of the busses due to the windows having been smashed...much like lockers having been blown up so unusable

Lol true what's the fun in safety measures. 😂 as kids we just rolled with the buses movement. Literally

As a retired bus driver ahhhh. the memories. the little kids (and even the older ones but) *loved* me hitting the bumps as hard as I'd be willing - they squealed with delight as they hit the ceiling! when I saw seatbelts were now in buses I could only think about who'd be responsible for them wearing them? would the drivers be held responsible? cause kids can be a bit like herding cats.it would have added untold time to a route, especially for the younger kids. would you also need to stop the bus anytime the belt is removed by a kid? Even more time & a bit unsafe to do for everyone. I was trained (and watched boring but informative trade movies) that the seats were made a specific way that contained the child even w/o belts. the height of the back, the dimensions, etc. buses rarely drive at high speeds and the buses I drove were tanks. I never had an injury occur and I drove long routes in very rural areas which could be challenging but the thought of buckling in every child? well, by the time you'd get them to school it would be time to bring them back to their homes,

My son works on and inspects school buses. Don't worry, there are so many other things that will go wrong, even on a brand new school bus, that they will still get to have many adventures!

Back on the first day of school last fall we had a fatal school bus collision here in Ohio, and it's happened in more places that here, that's why the seatbelts are being installed on the seats now. It'd because people do not know how to drive anymore and just don't care who they hurt.

Back in the days when I rode the school bus, the bus driver didn't have seat belt, cars didn't even have them

Not wearing a seat belt was the only thing, that made riding on a bus bearable, the safety nannies have gone too far this time.

I rode on one of the really long school buses. There was a particular bump in the road that used to launch all off us at the back on a daily basis. The boys reflexively ducked, the girls automatically clamped an arm across our chest, until the day we all collectively had enough, and by some psychic accord, all ended up bellowing OW!!! as we hit that bump for the umpteenth time. The driver got the point, and started to slow down for that spot in the road.

Any time people wouldn’t sit in their seats, the driver would break check us. It’s how we learned to take a fall.

on school bus that slid into ditch..we bounced around...driver just said, I guess you walking home, now. And he went to find a phone. We walked home. No one complained , we were just happy he was a good enough driver that when we skidded in, the bus remained upright...lol

I remember trying to get on the bus early leaving school so I could get a spot right on top of that wheel well. There were a couple good bumps on the way home that would give us some pretty sweet air when sitting in that spot 😁

I still remember about 35 years ago. There was this one spot on the gravel road where there was a bump. The bus driver would intentionally floor ir coming up to that bump. Those of us in the last 2 or 3 rows of seats got some pretty good air time when we hit that bump. Still surprised no one broke their necks because we came pretty close to banging our heads against the bus ceiling.

I just had to explain to my eight year old that when I was his age, car seats were not required. Or that when I was born, car seats for babies were not required, although my Dad had the nurses show him how to install it correctly before he took me home. Or that seatbelts weren’t required when I was his age.

We would fight to get a seat on the back wheel hump. Flying up when the bus hit a pothole or speed bump was the best part of riding on the bus. My bus driver would actually speed up to hit those bumps so we could fly up higher. Where are the metal bars on the back of the seats? Also we didn't have AC, if it was hot you had to lower the window that only went halfway down. One more thing. In my day, the bus driver was allowed to smoke while driving. One year I had a bus driver that smoked from a pipe. To this day I love the smell of good pipe tobacco.

Those were nice cloth seats, too, not vinyl that burns in the summer and is a block of ice in the winter cause the A/C and heat only really worked for the driver.

If we got to school bus age, we had already learnt to not tense up on impact. 🤣 That's why we would bounce then laugh 😆✌️

I am a 90s kid and I miss riding those bus rides and always sat in the back because every time the bus driver would hit that speed bump and Oh wow, we would fly. I didn’t know they start wearing seatbelt and school buses now that’s sad to be honest.

Seat belts came to be on school busses because the Beaumont Texas school district rented tour busses to take sports teams to away games and one had a very horrible wreck two students were killed several more lost limbs the parents lobbied the legislative people for better safety on school busses not tour busses go figure. Now the school busses I rode in/on in the mid 70s had no ac no heat were very crowded kids standing up the younger kids 4 or 5 to a seat if a bus broke down the back up bus was a 1950 bus that held 10 kids talk about crowded kids 2 or 3 deep on the seats. My mother rode this 1950 bus when she went to this school. Man I miss those good old days 😂

I ALWAYS wanted the Back! Like. A roller coaster, you had more bumps jumps and thumps! But, that was in rural Kansas

LOL we used to basically compete for who got to sit in the back of the bus for this very reason. Was like riding a rollercoaster when the bus was getting a bit of speed and hit those small hills that littered the countryside. Was about the only entertainment we had for the hour long ride home besides throwing spitwads at each other.

Fighting over sitting on that wheel bump, urging the driver to hit the bumps at speed. Such a loss.

A fat best friend sitting by the window as an unknowingly first ever side-curtain airbag was all you needed back in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s. Good old days…

Hit myself on those metal bars too often.

Don’t forget about chipping a tooth on the metal bar on the back of the seat in front of you.

I did not even have that much padding on my school buses let alone a seat belt

Is he for real??😂😅😂

Where are the thick padded bench seats the steel poles. It’s nice after all these years that they’ve had seatbelts our generation we got into an accident. We just flew around the bus or hit our head on the back of the seat in front of us

Is there anything different?? Hell yes, the KIDS are different! They are making them soft. I remember our bus driver would purposefully build up speed to go over a bump to see how high he could make us fly in the back of the bus, and we loved it!!

Our school busses didn't have A.C. Come to think of it the school wasn't air conditioned either. Schools would save alot of money getting rid of the air conditioning. Then these little snow flakes might develop a little character

We sat in the for extra bounce!!

forget the mysterious black straps, are those seats actually covered AND padded? More often than not my bus seats were metal bars and open plywood bench seating and I wish to god I was joking

The further you could get to the back of the bus as a Gen Xer. The cooler you where as a kid. Rosa Parks could hang with the cool kids any day!

And they aren’t allowed to put the windows down anymore.

No holes in the floor letting water spurt inside.

Seatbelts shouldn't be on a school bus...especially for elementary school age kids. It's dangerous. With only one or sometimes two adults on a bus, what happens if there was a fire or other incident where you need to get off the bus fast? Two adults can't help 60 kids unbuckle their belts in time. Some kids will do it themselves, but not everyone will. This was always the reason for not having them on school busses.

Wow, usually the front two have seatbelts, but they were mainly for special needs kids. They also have fold out "car seats" in the front.

And kids fought to be on the seat over the tire hump😅

And they have ac!

Those seats look like they are bolted firmly to the floor as well. And definitely looks like it doesn’t smell like feet and vomit