Those hunking blocks of sheet-metal in the US that you call school buses (alternatively, prisoner transport)? Well, yeah. European buses share much with their truck counterparts, except the massively better visibility all around:

https://www.mercedes-benz-bus.com/content/dam/mbo/markets/co...

I can't really share any studies, but some people seem to have more info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30195371

Intuitively it would make sense that being able to see in front of you with no obstruction would have an impact on safety. How much, I can't say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

> School buses typically have a large nose in front of the driver. Are they unsafe?

Guess what, European buses don't have a nose, either :-)))

School busses have a regulatory carve out for pollution controls and seat belts. School busses are most dangerous new built passenger vehicles allowed on the road in the US with more than three wheels.

Yet fatal accidents involving school buses are vanishingly rare.

School busses only rarely get on the highway, most collisions happen on low speed secondary roads, which are rarely fatal. Plus the sheer mass of the bus means it doesn't get thrown around as much as a car would in an accident.

They do have higher standards for the drivers

The standards are basically the same as for a commercial truck driver. The edge cases of what they're willing to accept are slightly different.

How dangerous?

Some school buses have a large nose, but many school buses are rear-engined and have flat fronts.