More than 20,000 in just over a month.
20,000 citations for not stopping when a school bus extends its stop sign. It’s a large number, to say the least. Broward County school buses have been equipped with cameras since this school year started. Drivers had a one-month grace period, and then $225 citations began arriving in mailboxes starting on Sept. 9.
Every school bus is fitted with multiple cameras recording various angles, and before a citation is issued, a police officer watches every video to make sure a violation occurred.
“What’s happening is people are trying to beat the bus, and you shouldn’t want to do that,” said Officer Michael Rosario of the Broward County Schools Police unit. “You should be slowing down.”
Rosario watches hundreds of videos every day, showing cars routinely speeding past stopped school buses, disregarding the stop arm.
“It was an eye-opening revelation,” said Michael Gregory, the district’s chief of safety and security. “The goal is to reduce violations. I’m really shocked at the numbers that we see. We’re averaging 2,000 to 4,000 suspected violations a week, and since the program kicked off in September issuing notices of violation, we’ve seen over 20,000 processed by the system already.”
As part of National School Bus Safety Week, which started Monday, Broward County Public Schools is rolling out an initiative to remind kids how to be safe around and on the school bus, but the bigger target may be their parents and everyone who drives a vehicle.
“When the bus stops and the lights start blinking, and the arm extends out of the bus, that means everybody else is supposed to stop, it is the law,” said superintendent Dr. Howard Hepburn.
So why have there been so many violations? The company which operates the system, BusPatrol, says it’s not because Broward drivers are particularly bad, but rather, whenever the system first goes online, it takes the public some time to realize they can’t get away with ignoring the school bus stop signs anymore. They expect the number of citations to start dropping soon, just as they did in Miami-Dade County after the program launched there last year.