More school buses outfitted with cameras. How drivers get caught passing such vehicles
In just one six-week period, 111 drivers got hit with tickets for passing a stopped school bus in Rockland County. The scofflaws were snagged in a program launched last spring by the county and BusPatrol, a company that equips buses with cameras on their bus stop-arms at no cost.
Westchester County, so far the only county in the Lower Hudson Valley that hasn't opted into an automated school bus safety camera program, recently passed legislation to join such a program and has issued a request for proposals to pick a vendor.
Companies that run such programs partner with a locality or school district and work with law enforcement. Revenues from the fines pay for the program.
Rockland seeks 100% participation
Rockland County Executive Ed Day champions the program, which he said is free to school districts. “I urge parents in the districts which have not opted in to contact their school superintendents and request they do so expeditiously," he said.
Suffern, Nanuet, and Pearl River, North Rockland, Clarkstown and Nyack are participants.
East Ramapo schools Superintendent Clarence Ellis at the Aug. 15 school board meeting said he'd like the board to consider enlisting the technology. "I'm very excited by it," Ellis told the board members.
Get the Rockland Angle: Subscribe to our newsletter focused on the county
South Orangetown's Board of Education is expected to vote on a resolution to join the bus-camera program at its Wednesday meeting, a district official said.
Rockland BOCES, which owns its own fleet, has been advised that the 2019 state law that granted permission for such programs doesn't cover BOCES. That could change. State Sen. Bill Weber and Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski have sponsored legislation that would allow BOCES to participate, just like school districts.
Hefty fines as deterrent
Drivers caught by the cameras illegally passing a stopped bus get hit with hefty fines, sent via mail.
The first-time offense of illegally passing a school bus in New York comes with a $250 fine.
"Most people who get a ticket never offend again," said Jason Elan, spokesman for BusPatrol. The program can act as a deterrent to "instill a culture of safety."
Stopped school buses are passed by drivers about 50,000 times each year in New York, according to the New York Association for Pupil Transportation.
It's happened here
A 2018 study by New York agencies of 113 school bus fatalities that had occurred across the state since 1960 found 82 fatalities, or 81.4%, involved students outside their buses.
Facial recognition: NY urges caution with biometric technology
In March, a 9-year-old Suffern student was hit by a pickup truck while crossing a Ramapo street after leaving his school bus. The child, a student at Cherry Lane Elementary School, was thrown and landed under a minivan that was stopped for the bus; bystanders lifted the front end of the minivan to rescue the child. The child was hospitalized with injuries.
The New York State School Boards Association supports the program.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: School bus camera use expands in New York's Hudson Valley
