Newbie questions about license/brakes/etc

[pcdreams]

We are currently in Missouri and looking at purchasing a bus for conversion. We've go so many questions.

How do you manage to get a bus home without getting a ticket? This is assuming you don't have a cdl.

Air vs hyd brakes. Or will I be required to carry a cdl because a bus has air
brakes?

There are a lot of grey areas that worry me. The biggest being those two.

We're looking for a largish bus.. maybe 40' er. speaking of which, is there a place I can find out how long a bus is? I see buses advertised via seat capacity but never length.

Thanks for your patience.

[Scooternj]

Originally Posted by pcdreams

We are currently in Missouri and looking at purchasing a bus for conversion. We've go so many questions.

How do you manage to get a bus home without getting a ticket? This is assuming you don't have a cdl.

Don't do anything stupid that will attract the cops. Remember, slow and steady wins the race.

Originally Posted by pcdreams

Air vs hyd brakes. Or will I be required to carry a cdl because a bus has air brakes?

No. Class As and coach conversion have air brakes, and they don't have a CDL. I checked with the NJ DMV about that on a Class D, and not required, however, check with Mo DMV for local variations.

Originally Posted by pcdreams

There are a lot of grey areas that worry me. The biggest being those two.

We're looking for a largish bus.. maybe 40' er. speaking of which, is there a place I can find out how long a bus is? I see buses advertised via seat capacity but never length.

Thanks for your patience.

Check the manufacturer's websites for length (in inches). But usually a 14 window bus is around 40'

[austin1989us]

I got insurance on the bus before driving it. I figured that if I ended up encountering the police without registration/temporary tags and a CDL they might at least be impressed by the insurance and cool story about turning it into an RV. Technically, if it's still titled as a bus and has enough seats you're supposed to have CDL. But I took my chances and believed in my ability to tell a cool enough story to talk my way out of a ticket.

I drove like there was a kilo of columbian bam-bam strapped under the bus. So I didn't get pulled over.

[pcdreams]

austin. what type of insurance did you get? IE did you tell them it was for an rv or ?

If it's across town I don't worry so much, the ones were finding seem to be about an 8 hour (and two state over) trip.

[austin1989us]

I got progressive RV insurance online. They dropped me two weeks later because progressive doesn't insure RVs. It was enough to keep me legal though. They wouldn't have paid if I crashed. It was just a $30 piece of paper that the government requires. My bus was one state over and 5 hours away. That was a long day, but we got it. We left around 7am and didn't get home until after 2am.