Driving behind a yellow schoolbus, I spied and heard chains dragging from the axle. There must be a reason for them.
Ground wires so an electric charge doesn’t build up?
They’re called “on-spot” chains, and their purpose is to keep the wheels from spinning on snow/ice when the bus pulls away from a stop. They’re attached to an arm with a spinning head that can be deployed in front of the wheels when they’re needed, and moved away when they’re not.
They’re for students who misbehave on the bus.
In Soviet Russia, the gulag trains had chains at the end of the train with hooks on them, so if you managed to escape through the floor of a car the hooks would catch you and drag you to a horrible death. Just sayin’.
Worst Yakov Smirnoff joke, ever!
I’ve always wondered what those were, but not enough to Google it. I was behind a school bus a few weeks ago with those, and it had a sticker that said “Automatic Tire Chains”. I still can’t figure how they work, even with the description above.
That’s pretty slick.
No, in fact it’s the opposite.
Zing!
For the kids that don’t behave.
Confucious say, he who laughs last thinks slowest!
So far, as I have driven a school bus and been behind my fair share as I cruise down the road, I have never seen those.
I have seen a few recently with chains dangling below across the rear axle, but those are just for preventing kicked up debris from hitting the car behind, especially since they don’t seem to keep mudflaps on buses around here.
I’ve seen those on cars. Particularly in soviet russia now that we mention it… What do they do again?
See, I almost posted this, but then I read the thread and realized someone else had already made the same joke.
I recently read Child 44 which had that in it. Can’t quite remember the specifics of what happened to the characters though.
That’s where I got it from. They escaped the train by throwing a guard’s body out first and letting it get caught up in the hooks. I think he got caught by one of them, though, and tore free.
Maybe it was a school bus with highly flammable children and they need them to prevent explosions from static electricity.
I find it pretty hard to believe that chains dragging behind a train, with hooks on the ends of them, would not get snagged on something and pulled off of the train in very short order once it was in motion. This sounds scary but I think it was probably the invention of the author; I can’t find any references to this actually happening in real life.