I thought the reason was because someone might be exiting the truck at any moment and they didn’t want cars to venture close to the back where they might blindside a worker who dismounted the tailgate at an inopportune time.
That’s so if there’s a train coming, it can pass right through?
My grandmother was on the train. My father was waiting at the station to pick her up. He was the first medic on scene. "As a result of this accident, federal legislation was passed by Congress requiring the drivers of certain commercial vehicles, including school buses, to stop, look, and listen for a train at all railroad tracks prior to crossing the tracks. "
https://www.courts.state.co.us/Courts/District/Custom.cfm?District_ID=19&Page_ID=320
The point of the cone is the driver is required to walk around the truck before leaving.
There used to be, 50s -60s, PSA’s on TV that when approaching RR tracks you should STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN.
I once had a Berlitz guidebook whose Chinese section included a bit about warnings about railroad crossings. It showed four Chinese characters that appeared on signs at grade crossings; the characters read “small heart fire wagon,” with the implication, "When the fire wagon comes, make your heart small. " In other words, “Look out for the train.”
I get the fire wagon, I don’t get the small heart.
Does opening the doors also cause the caution lights go on so that vehicles behind the bus know it has stopped and (possibly) not to try and pass?
… what?
I can find one other reference to this online. It’s a comment on a “Funny Engrish Signs” webpage, by a person with a name so similar to your username it can’t be a coincidence. Given the popularity of these Mysteries Of The Mysterious East Orientalist Nonsense memes, if this were a real example of such, it would be much more popular and not point back to you both times it’s ever been used.
It would also, you know, make some kind of goddamned sense.
Can’t speak for modern buses, but back in the day, no. The lights were a separate switch, plus another independent switch to bring out the stop sign (after they were added).
I can’t recall exactly, but on our bus the driver either turned on the red flashers or the hazard flashers when we stopped at the crossings.
Ghosts.
Sorry, but this is in fact an authentic reference…the guidebook was published by Berlitz in the 60s. I have never posted it online anywhere else, any similarity of usernames notwithstanding.
So have I, this part I don’t get. They drive onto the tracks, stop and then open the door.
I should also have asked for the web address for this site so I can see the item you refer to, myself.
Well, since you asked: Scroll down to the comments.
The characters for “small” (小) and “heart” (心) combine to make the Chinese word for “careful”: 小心
It makes some connotative sense as an idiom based on the idea of “heart” as being shorthand for “chutzpah” or “boldness”. I doubt those characters together would ever be parsed as “make your heart small”.
So what the sign actually says is, “Careful, Train”, or “Be Careful for Train”.
Monkey motion? Fight my ignorance, please?
Big heart = Bold
Small heart = Cautious
There’s a time for each. Boldness in the face of an oncoming train leads to pancake heart.
Scroll down to that sleep mask. Can anybody explain this to me? It appears to be fluffy rather than functional . . .
Back to the OP: Whenever our school buses stopped, they always cracked the door open a titch. That served to turn on all the blinking lights on the vehicle, so that other drivers wouldn’t miss the fact that they were stopped.