Have you ever wondered, Why are school buses yellow? There's a very good reason for this cheery color choice.
If you live in the United States, there is a high chance you’ve seen a yellow school bus. Heck, you probably even rode on one at some point in your life. After all, there are 480,000 of them across the country, they’ve been around for decades, and they’re all the same color! But why are school buses yellow rather than another eye-catching color, like those bright pink taxis you might find in other countries?
We were curious—and we’re guessing you are too now! Well, we spoke with Jonathan Marques, a commercial-vehicle training instructor who is well versed in the history of buses, to get to the bottom of this color choice. Read on to find out why school buses are yellow, the interesting history behind this decision and whether that ubiquitous color might get a makeover someday.
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Why are all school buses the same color?
School buses are the same color to make them easily recognizable to other drivers.
Before 1939, Marques says, there was no standard for school transportation. A century ago, children traveled to and from school in whatever transportation was available in their area. Some kids rode in buses, others were transferred in trucks, and still others went to school in horse-drawn wagons. Back when school transportation came in all shapes, colors and sizes, it was difficult to distinguish which vehicles were transporting schoolchildren. “Drivers wouldn’t immediately know that they’d be passing a school bus (and should therefore proceed carefully),” Marques says, so the risk of accidents was higher.
Frank Cyr, a rural Nebraska native and a professor at Columbia University Teachers College, recognized the need for standardization to improve safety and also to save money. Many rural districts, like the one Cyr was originally from, were often underfunded. “They needed to save money where they could,” Marques explains. “By standardizing aspects like paint color, the manufacturers would be able to save money and could then pass that savings on to the school districts,” putting the purchase of safer, standardized buses within reach.
In the late 1930s, Cyr received a $5,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and brought together experts to brainstorm solutions for these issues. Paint was a big topic of debate, but in the end, yellow was chosen. Dozens of shades of yellow were under consideration, ranging from lemon yellow to deep orange-red. Deliberations carried on for seven days, and ultimately, the group opted for the yellow that’s still in use today. Cyr’s efforts changed history, and he was dubbed “the father of the yellow school bus.”
So why are school buses yellow?
Bright yellow was chosen because it stands out in early morning and afternoon light. “These are the times kids are usually picked up and dropped off,” Marques says. “Plus, black letters are easy to read on it.”
The color of school buses is easy for our eyes to see because it falls right in the middle of the colors that trigger the red and green parts of our vision. “Our eyes have special cells called cones that help us see color, and the red and green cones are the most common,” Marques explains. “If a color like green only triggers one type of cone, your brain gets a certain amount of signal. But if a color hits both red and green cones, the signal is about twice as strong.”
And that’s exactly what you want in the case of school buses: a color that prompts a strong response. “The yellow used on school buses does exactly that, which makes it super noticeable to our eyes.” Our eyes also notice this hue before other colors, including red, in our peripheral vision.
Now you know why school buses are yellow, but do you know what the specific shade is called? The original name was “National School Bus Chrome,” a reference to the lead-based paint that was made with hexavalent chromium. As the hidden dangers of lead paint became better understood, and the federal government banned lead paint for consumer use in 1978, it was time to move away from using lead paint and the name. “To dissociate from the lead-paint origins, the United States General Services Administration calls the color National School Bus Glossy Yellow, or Color 13432, in the Federal Standard 595a color collection,” Marques says.
Can any yellow be used for a school bus?
School bus color is not legislated, so any yellow could be used. “Despite what you would expect, there is no federal regulation dictating that school buses must be National School Bus Glossy Yellow,” Marques says. “However, as part of the 2009 Highway Safety Program Guideline No. 17, they do recommend that buses be painted that specific shade of yellow.”
So while another color could be used, National School Bus Glossy Yellow continues to be the chosen one. “States have chosen to keep the standard yellow partially for safety reasons and partially for branding reasons,” Marques says, “like the black cabs in London, so that drivers can immediately recognize the vehicle as a school bus.”
What other colors were considered for school buses?
Other options were considered when choosing the color of school buses, but none proved as popular as yellow. “There were some people who wanted to paint the buses red, white and blue to instill a sense of patriotism in the children,” Marques says, “but that was voted down pretty quickly.”
Are there any colors that would be better for school buses?
A yellow-green or a green-blue may be a better color for school buses, given what we now know how our eyes perceive light. “When the National School Bus Glossy Yellow was chosen, there wasn’t a full understanding of how our eyes use rods and cones to see color,” Marques explains. “If the same convention was assembled today to choose a standard color, a yellow-green like chartreuse would be chosen. This is the most visible color to the human eye. However, it could also be more of a green-blue color that is more visible to people in lower-light situations, where you really want the bus to stand out for safety reasons.”
Could this traditional “school bus yellow” ever change?
It’s possible … but not very likely given how ubiquitous and well-established it is. “I don’t think the yellow school bus will ever change because it’s so universally recognized as a school bus,” Marques says. “You can see a school bus from miles away, and instantly you’d know it’s a school bus.” It’s the ultimate in branding, just like the most famous company logos.
Plus, the standardization of school buses, including their color and size, was incredibly effective. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, school buses are the most regulated vehicle on the road, and one of the safest. The bottom line: There’s no need to fix something that’s not broken, especially when it would be costly. As Marques notes, “the logistics and expense of painting the almost 500,000 school buses in the U.S. would not be worth the insubstantial safety gains.”
Additional reporting by Bridget McCusker.
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Sources:
- Jonathan Marques, commercial-vehicle training instructor and founder of Driving Academy; email interview, July 17, 2025
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: “Uniform Guidelines for State Highway Safety Programs”
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: “School Bus Safety”
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: “School Bus Regulation FAQs”
- New York School Bus Contractor Association: “School Bus Fast Facts”
- United States Environmental Protection Agency: “Protect Your Family from Sources of Lead”
- PBS: “How a Doctor Discovered U.S. Walls Were Poisonous”
