Information on South Carolina School Buses.

Besides Miss Teen South Carolina 2007 (she's just the best I'm sure her husband won't mind me saying that and to Mr. Miss Teen South Carolina 2007 if your reading this, all I can do is give you a thumbs up!) Fun fact her and I are the same age and obviously she did a little bit better in the genetics lottery, not that I am unhealthy or anything like that mind you although my left eye isn't so good which represents a genetic deficiency, but if I was her and looked like her I wouldn't have to consider sleeping in till 3:00am a luxury, of course I can do all the supposings and ifs and buts that I want until the cows come home, but as a friend of mine said to me "Tornado if if's and buts were fruits and nuts we'd all have a happy Christmas":

In your dreams friend.

Anyhow (boy I already started off on the wrong foot) my other favorite thing about South Carolina and I've been meaning to start a thread on this is there fleet of public school buses, well used to be.

I hope your all ready because I am about to drop some serious knowledge here that your only going to find on TTR and could only possibly be shared by someone like my self.

South Carolina is the only state that owns all the school buses in the state. It's kind of a screwy system and I don't know why they did it that way, but the way it works is unlike every other state where either the school board owns the buses or they schlubbed it off to some corners cutting third party carrier um which would be indicative of a corners cutting town no shortage of those.

Anyhow, the South Carolina Board of Education owns all the school buses in the State of South Carolina and distributed the buses to each school district based on how many they need give capacity and rules for how long school bus routes can be so on and so fourth. The actual law states that no pupil can ride a school bus in South Carolina for more then 90 minutes unless the geography and what not requires longer routes due to population density or what ever.

Anyhow in 1995-1996 The State of South Carolina made a massive purchase of Thomas "Pushers"
The State of South Carolina has in there fleet 5,582 School Buses.

Now here is the kicker, the state of South Carolina passed a law saying that School buses must be phased out every 15 years.

Well in 1995-1996 they made a massive purchase of buses like bought the entire fleet. They bought the same kind of bus the Thomas Pushers:

The rule in South Carolina is like each county is it's own school district an the state gives each county school district the amount of school buses it deems necessary for how many route it deems that county school district should have. Anytime you guys go to South Carolina and see SOUTH CAROLINA PUBLIC SCHOOLS on the side of a school bus, that means, that school bus is owned by the South Carolina state board of education if it says GREENVILLE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS that means that bus is not owned by the state department or board of education.

Anyhow they purchased a 5,582 buses between 1995-1996 and said okay good will never have to do that again. Except the law they passed said in 15 years they would have to buy new buses, well you know how much those buses cost? The state can't afford to replace them all so they broke there own law. Now they did replace bits and pieces and certain units over the years on an individual basis, but by in large the fleet of buses went untouched for years. Actually from what I read those Thomas pushers are really not bad buses and I don't really get what the big deal is, so what there 21-22 years old, the state has the money to maintain them, it's not like that can't maintain them the news media would have you believe the buses are all duct taped together and falling apart, I don't know how this can be considering they don't have pot holes or harsh winters like we do up north, what I would do is throw out the law that is impractical and they can't fallow anyhow, and keep them all going best they can, if they get a few that don't work right and are constantly breaking down then get rid of those individual units. However it's been a huge deal in South Carolina for years now because the fleet is now way past there so called legislatures laws replacement age and it's all "Our school buses are old and economically obsolete we must get rid of them the same way Union Pacific side lined all there DD40X Centennial Locomotives that were built in the late 1960s and thrown into storage in the 1980s except in 1985 when there was a freight surge on the line and they were all pulled out of storage and thrown back into service for a little while and then permanently gotten rid of after that."

It's not a freight train it's a school bus, it just does some city work I don't understand what the big deal is, keep the ones that are good get rid of the bad ones and little by little replace them.

Doesn't Wilson Express the LTL company from down south send like it's 1998 generation 2 Volvo's to some works type shop to get rebuilt?


The same way Sir Top-ham Hat another great leader and mover and shaker to the transportation industry (They say if Sir Top-ham Hat hadn't retired he could fix YRC) sent Henry to "The Works" to get a new fire box put on so the Great Western Railroad could save money on coal because they had to buy special Welsh coal for Henry all of which was documented in the episode "The Flying Kipper":

File Photo


Anyhow,
back on track no pun intended I don't quiet get the problem, just replace the buses on an as needed basis, in order for them to keep up they would have to replace 383 buses a year, I don't understand where they had the influx of cash to buy almost 5,000 buses 22 years ago all at once.

They say that the maintenance and fuel and other expenses costs them more money then just buying new buses and that the cost of running older equipment is getting to high and interest on a loan is cheaper then there current operating costs.

Now this is still an issue for the state and while they replaced some of there buses I guess many of the Thomas Pushers are still around. The average school bus in South Carolina has 236,000 miles on the odometer?Is that a lot? The truck I drive for work has 134,000 more miles on it, of course, it's a lot newer then your average mid 1990s school bus, but school buses are built fairly tough heavy metals and what not there pretty strong machines.

One of the reasons for the state owning the school buses and not the county school districts which is another South Carolina thing here in Ohio every city is it's own school district responsible for it's self, anyhow the state I guess in theory supposedly has better buying power and they thought if the state was in charge then they can throw there weight around and buy school buses better then each county school district can. Of course that's not really working out because the state of South Carolina wants to buy school buses like I want to buy new ball joints for my car (thank god I got a clean bill of health from the shop today).

They said in an article I read there was a county school district in 2015 that contracted it's school bus driving out to Durham School Services which in Ohio operates under the name of Petterman. Durham School Services is pretty much the Swift or USA Truck or JB Hunt etc etc of the School Bus business.

And let me stop right there, aint nobody going to drive a school bus and all it's liability for $12.00 an hour with no benefits. A decent Class B driver could get a box truck job that pays a few bucks more an hour and have half the liability and some fringe benefits, obviously there are some things wrong with this picture.

Now according to a Dec 2016 article 5,624 buses is the amount of buses the South Carolina Public Schools board of education operates. Now they said since 2007 or what ever the amount of students enrolled in public schools has increased by 40,000.

Now that would mean more routes and more buses because each bus can only do one route.
I don't know what the capacity is of a mid 1990s Thomas Pusher the reason it's called a "Pusher" is because the motor is in the back of the bus and pushes the bus. Here in Ohio there were some pushers, my school district had maybe 3 or 4 of them, but most of our transit style school buses had the motor in the front. My school district where I went to school was a big buyer in the 1990s of International Lonestar School buses flat nose or "transit style" with Wayne bodies. They did however have 2 Carpenters which the got rid of because Carpenter's had a defect in the welding where the roof caved in. Carpenter was a Michelle, Indiana company and I don't even think they are around any more.

Anyhow you figure 75 persons per bus, and each school district is different on this, some like to pack the buses full 3 to a seat others only 2 to a seat, but you figure 75 persons per bus that's about 534 new routes which would mean 534 new buses at $90,000 bucks a pop that's a cool $48,060,000 bill so all you South Carolina residents better get out and start playing your state school bus system needs you! The lottery they say all that money goes to help the schools. Well here in Ohio they gave up on that lie. They no longer say the Ohio Lottery helps the schools in fact I was watching Cash Explosion tonight and they no longer say "Money from the Lottery Year to Date or since Inception has gone to help the schools by X amount of dollars."
Actually in South Carolina they were going to use lottery money that was unclaimed to buy new school buses? Excuse me, but who wins lottery money and then doesn't claim it? Oh sure, I'm sure it's happened, but I can't believe there would be enough of that to replace an entire school bus fleet. Of course, that's the thing there isn't enough of that so they keep the same buses.

At any rate though certain counties in South Carolina have realized that big government has failed them and have taken things into there own hands. Counties with money have added to there bus fleets them selves buying there own buses getting there own maintenance people and making there own routes and subsidizing them selves. I guess not every county can do that because of monetary issues, but the ones that can have.

However, my favorite video on You Tube and it's a shame because the actual video it's self was taken down, but in 2008 The South Carolina Public Schools Department of Education paid money to have a school bus safety video made and in that video they blew up an out of service 1995 Thomas Pusher School bus. Anyhow they really did blow the school bus up they exploded the heck out of it.

Here is the behind the scenes making of that video:
I've actually seen the real film but it was pulled from You Tube.


Anyhow I hope you all had as much fun reading this as I had writing this and that everyone learned something I know I sure did!

Oh they said that the school bus they blew up the explosive force and explosive rigging was the same amount of explosives force that was used in the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. I guess the military and police rigged the bus with explosives at the Fort Jackson, Military Explosives training compound in South Carolina. I gotta give the state of South Carolina credit though they are the only state I know of that blew up one of there older out of service school buses.

Anyhow here is a media report if you like the news and there spin:

The one thing I don't get though is it's in the pre trip on any commercial vehicle exhaust leaks are a no no regardless of age of vehicle so I don't understand why that's a factor at all and in 1988 when some of those buses were brand new they didn't have any exhaust leaks, but in 2017 they can't have any exhaust leaks either so what's the big deal because if there's an exhaust problem it has to get fixed no matter what.

Anyhow I hope you all enjoyed this and learned something like I said I did.

 

Thanks for that reply. I appreciate that.

 

I know that was a long post and to most it would be if no interest, but I know we get a lot of the same topics so I like to throw a zinger or new one I. To keep it fresh around here and I like to share information after all that's what the Internet is. Maybe somebody somewhere is a bus driver we do get them once in a while and they have an opinion on the subject! Actually the important part is the video where they blow up the school bus it's the second last video about 4-5 minutes in that's what I wanted everyone to see and the rest was just background info.

Oh he does! Well I knew he was somewhere, in the works!

At any rate you all know now a lot more about the school buses in South Carolina!

 

Sometimes I think it would be fun to have an AM talk radio show dedicated to trucking topics people could call in and I would do research and try to give my opinion we would have guests on like @Chinatown when new people call asking where to work.

I would also have @Naptown on because I think he's an interesting fellow and like his LTL stories. @MACK E-6 to I also enjoy his stories.

@Big Don would be a regular call in guest and it would be a fun 3.5 hour radio show.

 

Are you a Browns fan? I used to reference Cleveland Browns Stadium as a great place to pan handle.

 

I read it again and all that info would be perfect for public radio presented smooth and smarmy. They could have me on and deem me as an "expert" lol!