For those who rode the school bus, did they do fire drills on the bus? Mine would do an annual fire drill, where we had to go out the back door. It’s pretty difficult to do that.
Yes–late last decade, our school district began to conduct bus evacuation drills as required by Michigan state law. There are usually 2-3 each school year, and I would evacuate through the front of the bus or the side/back of the bus (depends on bus manufacturer). There is a continuous buzzer that activates if the side or back door of the bus is opened.
Twice a year. we would have to leave our stuff in the seats, go out the back of the bus, wait for a minute, and then go back in and get our stuff.
Haha, well, I haven’t been on a school bus in a few years, but I do remember having drills twice per year, one in October and another in April. We had to file out the back door. I remember me and a couple friends jumping out the back door instead of “properly” sliding out on our asses. They told us to go back and do it again, which we thought was funny and replied “Go back? Isn’t the bus on fire?” 
They stopped doing back door drills a few years ago. They are not hard to do… but apparently they are “too dangerous” to practice. From what I heard, a kid fell out and got hurt (just a few scrapes and bruises) and the kid’s parents sued the school department, and must have won.
Never. But back in elementary school, once a year, they brought a school bus with a safety instructor to teach us about bus safety. We sat on the bus for about 10-20 minutes, talking all about safety, emergency exits on the bus, etc, and end it off with a pratice evactation through the back door. In my high school we don’t really need it.
We do. It’s a law in Mass, I think. Twice a year we had to ‘sit and scoot’ out the rear door. This was in elementary school, so they placed down mats to minimize injury (if any). Our driver told us how to activate the CB radio, pull the brake, and open the door.
All you talking about all across the country, or just in your area? I don’t really know how my area is as I haven’t been on a school bus in years.
Just in my area.
Thing I have noticed about school buses is that most of them just have emergency windows on the sides that can be pushed out in an emegency, whereas some of them (not very many) have doors on the sides just like the emergency door in the back.
…and then there’s the rear engine “flat nose” buses that don’t have an emergency door–some of them have a window on the back while others have a pair of side doors just before the engine compartment.
Now, back when I went to elementary school here in Tucson, we would do school bus fire drills too. Only they started in the classroom, and they called them “bus evacuation drills.” The fire alarm would go off, we would go outside like a fire drill, but we would walk to the bus bay, get on the bus, and listen to an emergency instructions lecture by the bus driver. Then he would open up the emergency door, yell “EVACUATE THE BUS!!!” and we would all evacuate via the emergency door.
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Once again, old post, but to answer the question originally asked, I remember doing a few of them when I was in elementary school but that’s about it.
Once at the beginning of the year.
Mine does about two or three bus evacuation drills per academic year. I think they are called evacuation drills, and not fire drills.