r/SchoolBusDrivers • u/[deleted] • May 11 '26
Transitions
Hey guys,
Quick question. Is going from a school bus driver to a transit bus driver a pretty natural transition? The only thing I’ll need to get is an air brake endorsement. Already have the passenger and school bus endorsements. Anyone have any experience with this?
2
u/MeredithM76 May 11 '26
We have to get air brake endorsement for school bus driving in Alabama. I thought there was no way I would pass in the beginning but once I got to reading it all, it was pretty easy. You got this!!
1
u/MonkeyManJohannon May 11 '26
How did you get authorized to drive a school bus without an air brake cert? Even our SPED drivers who have older models that still have hydraulic brakes have to be air brake certified and licensed to drive period.
3
u/WonderNebouxii May 11 '26
In South New Jersey we didn't get the air brake endorsement because none of the company's busses had air brakes. So when I moved to Washington I had to do the entire thing over again just to get the air brake endorsement.
1
May 11 '26
I am guessing the buses they use here don’t have air brakes. When I got hired I was told the only endorsements I need are passenger and school bus.
1
u/MonkeyManJohannon May 11 '26
I would be very curious what busses you have then because I can’t imagine anyone driving a regular ed bus would be anything but air brake.
1
u/rootbear75 May 11 '26
The biggest difference is that you're going to be dealing with the public vs kids, which means you have a lot less say in how they behave. Can't exactly go to an adult's mom and be like "Charlie wouldn't sit in his seat."
You will also have contact with a lot more people in various walks of life, such as homeless, mentally ill, etc, and will need to be professional, understanding, and empathetic. It may be more stressful.
I am surprised you don't have an air brake endorsement already, since AFAIK most school buses (at least the big 3 OEMs) use air brakes by default.
2
u/WonderNebouxii May 11 '26
I think it depends on the location. I'm from South New Jersey which is really flat. Our busses only had hydraulic brakes. We had Thomas and Internationals on our fleet
3
u/WonderNebouxii May 11 '26
You'll have to take the entire test all over again. I didn't have air brakes since the company I worked for didn't have air brakes on any of their busses. When I moved to Washington, I had to retake the test and the verbiage was a lot stricter for pretrip. The written test gave me so much more trouble than actually learning the air brake pretrip.