Whew! Now that was a close one. The big bus had powered itself out of that snow bank and now it and its driver, and its passengers, trundled merrily along.
Right about now, you are probably asking yourself " If his yellow school bus is now also a dirty yellow school bus, why doesn't that driver guy get it washed?"
Good question. And there is a one word answer. Winter.
It is snowy and cold these days. Weather conditions are constantly changing out here. Yes, it is always about "the weather." (see video) Why wash the bus when it would only be dirty again within a matter of hours? He'll wait until warmer days before taking on that task.
"Fine", you reply, "but why is the bus yellow?"
Good question. In fact, the driver himself was wondering about that just the other day. So he did some research. Turns out buses and other pieces of big equipment are usually painted yellow because yellow is the colour that works.
In fact, the driver's crack research team had tracked down a web page called COLOR MATTERS and had learned that the colour of most school buses is " not a pure yellow (like the color of lemons). It's not the same color as an orange either. The color of a school bus is yellow-orange. This color is a mixture of lemon yellow and orange ... like the color of the fruit of a mango. (see www.colormatters.com)
So why do we still refer to a school bus as yellow? Back in the 1930’s in the U.S., school buses were pure yellow. Thus, the term "school bus yellow" came into the English language. Same holds true for Canada.
Yellow (and the yellow family of colors) gets your attention faster than any other color. People notice yellow objects first.
Even when you are looking straight ahead, you can see a yellow object that is not in front of you "in the corners of your eyes" much sooner than any other color even red. Scientists describe this as follows: "Lateral peripheral vision for detecting yellows is 1.24 times greater than for red."
Many experts also point out that colors such as yellow or greenish-yellow are more visible to the human eye under dimmer conditions compared to red.
If there’s fog or any kind of bad weather, drivers will still be able to see yellow cars and any moving vehicle fairly well.
Not only are school buses yellow, but also many earth-moving, road-building and other outdoor machines are yellow because you could get hurt if you accidentally run into one of them. Many accidents occur in farms and outdoors because the victim saw the moving object too late. If it’s yellow, you have a strong warning! And, even some fire engines these days are yellow, rather than red.
Then, the driver of the big yellow (and dirty) school bus made his next turn, and came face to face with that most un-nerving of all sights: a deer caught in the head lights.
(to be continued)
NOTE: U.S. people spell "color" c-o-l-o-r....Canadian people spell it c-o-l-o-u-r. Why? Because they can.
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