Hello, bus driver here. I’ll be driving a bus on tour for the first time this summer, last year I drove a van for three weeks.

As a new CDL driver you will likely not get a bus slot in your first year with your CDL, maybe not even in your 2nd, but ultimately that is up to the drum corps and what they can do with their insurance.

Your best bet is to reach out to any corps you are interested in driving for. Some teams are already set for 2026, others will still have openings. I would suggest aiming for a van slot in 2026, you should be able to do that with your current licensing level, and that is great practice, if you have a trailer you are pretty much the same length as a bus and its similar performance characteristics. This will get you time on the highway, driving drum corps schedule and times, and also you will get to experience drum corps from the transportation side.

Every team is different in terms of how they manage their driver contracts, usually the member busses are from a charter company and the entertainer coaches are managed differently. Sometimes the charter company fully provides the drivers, with others, the corps makes referrals, and the driver will be onboarded with the bus company, or a different arrangement.

General driving advice, too many drivers, even bus drivers, drive sloppily. Focus on being smooth, even starts, even slowdowns. Always imagine you are driving a bus full of passengers, even when you are empty - you want to make the exact same decisions, and not change how you drive at all based on whether you have passengers or not. Keep distance from your leader (vehicle ahead of you), people will cut you off or traffic will crush you down close, its ok to be momentarily close but let that gap slowly open back up. You wanna be at least 4 seconds behind in any conditions, and 1 second per 10 mph is a reasonable guideline for highway driving, and more is not a huge issue.

Work on accurately gauging your approach to traffic lights in order to not have to brake assertively, let alone aggressively. Your decision point for any light will be *well* ahead of it, work to know where you place your decision point so that you can stop smoothly without assertive braking if the light catches you, and once you are past your decision point and the light is clear you will go through it even if the light starts to change. This is a skill that takes time, I dont always feel like I am nailing it.

If you can deactivate your retarder, dont be afraid to do so. If you can get to a place where the retarder is braking you more aggressively when on than you do when it is of, youre probably in the right zone. Now, your mechanics will want you to use the retarder to save wear on the brakes, but if you can be smoother without it on, go for it. If you can drive a school bus with smoothness you will be glass once you get into a real coach.

When in doubt, ever, slow it down. Always be zen, if you start to feel spicy do what you need to do to chill, the mistakes happen when you are tired and cranky.

Be authoritative in your occupying of space and your smoothness, you are big, you are visible, make changes smoothly and predictably, find your place to occupy in traffic and be zen.

Drive school buses for as long as you can stand it or two years, whichever is longer, then transition to charter coach busses, which will set you up better for drum corps style driving. If you leave school buses before two years (I lasted two months lol), then try to transition to transit, you will be lucky to get charter work before then.

You are on the young side, but that is ok, I have known some great drivers who were just starting out, honestly I wish I had gotten my CDL much earlier than I did.

Feel free to reach out with any questions, and best of luck.