2023 School Bus Additional Ounce Stamps - First-Class Postage Sheet

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The stamp features a stylized illustration of a 21st century yellow school bus, in profile in front of a silhouetted schoolhouse that is more evocative of an earlier era. Just unde r the building’s gable roof, a clock shows 10 minutes to 8; the morning bell will ring soon.Although vehicles dedicated to transporting children to and from school have operated since the late 19th century, it was only in 1930 that the modern, enclosed, steel school bus came into being. And it was in 1939 that “National School Bus Chrome” first became the vehicle’s standard color. That year, a group of state transportation officials and bus and paint manufacturers gathered at Columbia University’s Teachers College, in New York City, to develop safety and fabrication standards for school buses. The group tested various colors and determined that black lettering showed most legibly on yellow, especially in the dim light of dawn or dusk. Thirty-five states immediately began mandating that color, but it was not until 1974 that all states did. About 25 million children across the United States ride a yellow bus to school every day. Besides providing reliable and safe transportation—a child is about 70 times safer riding the bus than being driven to school in a car—these buses keep millions of cars off the road, saving billions of gallons of gasoline and preventing millions of pounds of harmful carbon dioxide emissions. Yet each bus remains its own little world, where countless childhood dramas play out, friendships form and dissolve, and daydreams are dreamed as the landscape passes. Show more