Did they get together at a bus manufacturer’s convention or something?
The fact is kind of….yes.
In 1939, with a $5000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation ($100,000 in today’s dollars), Dr. Frank Cyr, a professor from the teacher’s college at Columbia University, convened educators and representatives from 48 states, bus manufacturers and DuPont Paint and Pittsburgh Paint to discuss and agree on safety standards for transporting school children on buses. They debated the width of the doors, the size of the seats, the engines, the windows, the escape doors, the height of the tires.
And yes, the color of the buses.
Yellow is seen by the naked eye first, before any other color, Dr. Cyr’s group verified. They also pointed out that in 1939, there were hardly any yellow vehicles on the road, so a yellow vehicle would stand out. The group studied many shades of yellow to arrive at the orange yellow that became known as National School Bus Yellow by the General Services Administration (FED STD 595-13432).
Then in 2017, the GSA transferred ownership of the federal color standards to the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), who reformulated and set new standards for the old color system for federal colors. The new name of the system is AMS-STD-595A. Under the new standard, National School Bus Yellow is now called “School Bus Yellow” and is federal color AMS-STD-595A-13415. The country’s school busses, in 2025, still are coated with the color agreed on in 1939 at that famous safety summit led by Dr. Cyr.
And the nation’s buses do their job, protecting the safety of millions of school children every day. The safety standards are now managed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. And yes, AMS-STD-595A-13415 School Bus Yellow, is still the standard in 2025.
For more information about the complete federal colors (695 federal colors) numbering system and color formulas developed by SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) please contact Dianne Wampler at AllFacilities, Inc., the national distributor for SAE AMS-STD-595A fan decks and color chips at dianne@allfacilities.com or call or text 724.454.6445 to receive the SAE website link for easy ordering of chips, fan decks and information.
Thanks to “Things You Didn’t Know,” Mike O’Leary for his school bus insights.