Why are school buses yellow?

They're not just yellow. They're National School Bus Glossy Yellow. Why use it? It's not just a good idea, it's the law:

All school buses should...be painted National School Bus Glossy Yellow, in accordance with the colorimetric specification of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Federal Standard No. 595a, Color 13432

OK, not actually a law, just a guideline, from the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency. But you ignore them at your peril, and most states have adopted that guideline as law.

Uniform Guidelines for State Highway Safety Programs

The standard was adopted following a 1939 conference run by Frank W. Cyr, which consulted vision experts, transportation administrators, and paint engineers. They decided that this color was the most eye-catching and made the most legible background.

There's also another bonus: now, everybody can identify School Bus Yellow. Like Safety orange, it identifies "people", and you know that if you have to hit something, aim for something other than that.

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Joshua Engel on Quora:

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