It really wasn't. The only reason he got sideways was because he tried using his brakes too much. The driver got lucky. The one thing he did do right was keeping his front wheels pointing the direction he was sliding.
When sliding and starting to go sideways at all, it's time to lay off the brakes. They will only make it worse.
*edit- Just wanted to add that I'm speaking from a lot of experience. Commercial drivers license, 15 years of driving fire engines, tankers, and ladder trucks in all weather. Plus my side job is delivering propane during the winter. I've slid on ice while carrying around nearly 3,000 gallons of liquid pressurized propane. That gets your butt to pucker.
At 45 seconds you can see there is some in the way going too slow and in the middle of the road! That bus driver would have hit them if they didn't try to slow down some how. I think they had more skill than you believe.
Believe it or not I'm not doubting your experience and agree with your assessment of laying off the brakes, but can you tell us how you would have done differently to avoid the jackass in front of I'm correct that they were blocking the road?
I would have taken the bus over into the drier looking lane and kept it straight, then tried to slow down, keeping it straight. That guy in front of the bus would have to hope the drier ground would allow me to stop in time. Otherwise he'd have to try getting out of the way, speeding up, or get rear ended. Odds are that the bis could have stopped before catching up to that guy who was in front.
I've slid on ice while carrying around nearly 3,000 gallons of liquid pressurized propane. That gets your butt to pucker.
I worked yard and now work office around propane, I fucking bet.
When I did diesel driving in a smaller truck myself and about 1k gallons of diesel slid down ~160 ft of mud bill because some jackass left their fucking throw mat out before the rain started, it cmgor covered in mud and when my tire hit it I lost all traction and shit went literally sideways from there
Scariest however many seconds that was in my fucking life, I realized almost immediately I had 0 control over what was happening until I hit some flat land, which I prayed gave me enough time to stop before going over into the dry riverbed, likely flipping
It's all good, I hit a rock at the bottom going about 15mpg and put a big ass dent in my bumper is all!
Great for a side job in my neck of the woods. I make about $27 an hour. You'll need at least a class b commercial license with air brake. Then you need a tanker and a haz mat endorsement, but those two are stupid easy to get.
Drive to a spot, pull a hose, fill a tank, and go to the next one, mostly.
The immediate left is the lane of oncoming traffic (you can see this late in the video looking ahead). To the left of the oncoming trafffic lane is a meter or so of grass, then a drop off to a ditch. You can see the left tall grass early in the video.