There’s been a lot of coverage about how the design of SUVs causes them to roll over and injure people when they crash or even take a turn too hard. If this is true of SUVs (and it is), it’s doubly true for buses. Tall and comparatively thin, buses were designed to hold lots of people, and to pack more in by providing handholds to allow them to stand when the vehicles are moving. It doesn’t take much for a bus to tip over, and when there are lots of people inside, that means a high likelihood of numerous injuries.

Because of the high level of skill needed to operate a bus correctly, relatively minor changes can pose a danger. If a driver is operating a new model that handles differently, this increases the risk of something bad happening. Likewise if he or she is driving in an area that isn’t as familiar, because they won’t know the road well enough to compensate for potential issues such as potholes or sharp turns by slowing or moving to avoid them.

Most bus drivers are incredibly conscientious people who take the responsibility of driving around so many people very seriously, but that doesn’t mean they all do this. Some speed. Some cut off other drivers or otherwise make reckless decisions. There are even bus drivers who have been involved in crashes because they were driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Imagine braking in your car on a slippery Florida road. If you’re not careful, you might end up skidding or sliding a bit before the car gets back under your control. Now imagine the same thing happening with a bus. Just like with semi trucks, buses take much longer to stop because they are so much bigger and heavier. This also increases the chances of them going out of control and hitting other cars, objects, or even people, as well as overturning.

You have to take your car in for regular oil checks and other kinds of routine care – buses have to undergo the same kind of maintenance, just on a larger scale. But if these checkups are missed or done poorly, it can lead to breakdowns and equipment malfunctions that cause accidents. Likewise, it is also possible that a part or parts on the bus itself can simply be defective when it arrives from the manufacturer, and this, too, may cause problems.

If there’s one thing you should remember from this list, it’s that buses are big, and this brings with it a whole host of problems. One such problem is that they should only really be driven on roads that were designed to handle them. In larger urban areas this typically isn’t much of an issue, but buses that operate in more rural locales may experience problems if they are too heavy or wide for the roads they need to travel over.

One of the first things you do when you get in your car – something you’re required to do – is put on your seatbelt. But despite repeated calls from the National Transportation Safety Board and a number of recent deadly accidents, somehow buses still don’t have them. Moreover, it doesn’t look like an improvement that’s going to come anytime soon. This isn’t the only safety feature that buses are deemed to be lacking, and people who end up getting injured in a bus accident because of this may be able to file a lawsuit and collect damages.