May marked the school district’s first month enforcing the paid tickets after installing AI-powered stop-arm cameras on all of its school buses.<\/p>\n
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Cedar Hills Estates has two of the three top locations where drivers were caught, on camera, illegally passing a school bus while the stop arm and lights were activated.<\/p>\n
According to Duval County Public Schools, Blanding Boulevard near Cedar Hills Boulevard and Blanding Boulevard just north of Cedar Forest Drive account for nearly 90 citations in May.<\/p>\n
Rodney Sentz said he commutes in the area often and isn’t surprised that it’s a hot spot for traffic violations involving drivers not stopping for school buses.<\/p>\n
“There’s times that I’ve stopped, because it’s the law and then people are blowing the horn at me for stopping… I don’t think they understand the laws when it comes to school buses,” said Sentz.<\/p>\n
Yicauris Matos-Gomez said she’s not surprised either. She admits to witnessing close calls between drivers and school buses and doesn’t allow her own daughter to ride the school bus.<\/p>\n
“That is scary especially if it’s my kid, that’s why I drive her to school because I do see the danger in having them cross when a bus is stopped and other drivers keep going,” said Matos-Gomez.<\/p>\n
The third spot with the most citations is Merrill Road near Red Oak Drive in Arlington with 35 tickets mailed out.<\/p>\n
“It’s not surprising,” said Tony Benthone. “People get hit on this road quite a bit, so the children’s safety is a big concern.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0First Coast News Traffic Anchor Crystal Moyer visited those top three locations and noticed they have the same traffic setup: four lanes of traffic, divided by an additional turning lane. According to Florida law, in this case, when there’s a stopped bus, drivers in both directions need to stop or they’ll be flagged by the bus-arm cameras and receive a $225 ticket in the mail.<\/p>\n
According to DCPS, in May, 4,012 citations were reviewed, and 3,197 were approved and mailed out.<\/p>\n
So what’s the real issue? Neighbors have mixed thoughts on how to improve safety.<\/p>\n
“At least bring an extra adult, other than the bus driver and help the child cross over [the street] and have a vest,” said 11-year-old Aaliyah Gomez.<\/p>\n
“It’s based on individuals driving habits so what can be done… it’s hard to say,” said Benthone.<\/p>\n
“Harsher punishment for violators… Throw them in jail and throw away the key,” said a driver named Charles.<\/p>\n
“When you get your license renewed, you take the test again… people forget the rules so this will be a refresher,” said Sentz.<\/p>\n
“It’s hard to say… it really is, people just need to be aware of what they’re doing,” said Cedar Hills neighbor, Lyna.<\/p>\n
In a statement sent to First Coast News, DCPS said it remains focused on improving student safety… training an additional officer ahead of the next school year.<\/p>\n
The statement goes on to say “the district will meet with and share relevant findings with law enforcement partners… to identify any concerns where their support may enhance enforcement and compliance… but at this time there are no plans to make any changes to bus stops in high impact areas.”<\/p>\n
A reminder the school district says while it is summer, summer classes will be in session from June 8th to July 17th , which means those bus arm cameras will be activated and giving out tickets to those who illegally pass a stopped school bus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
TOP 20 LOCATIONS FOR DCPS BUS STOP-ARM CAMERA VIOLATIONS<\/p>\n
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Full Statement from Duval County Public Schools:<\/p>\n
“We continue to review the information gained from the stop-arm cameras and remain focused on improving student safety. As we move into the summer months, our next steps include using this time to train an additional officer to ensure we are fully prepared for the return to school in the fall.<\/p>\n
Additionally, we will meet with and share relevant findings with our law enforcement partners, including JSO and FHP, to identify any concerns where their support may enhance enforcement and compliance.<\/p>\n
At this time, there are no plans to make changes to bus stops in high-impact areas. If the data indicates that violations are primarily due to drivers not following the law, our priority will be to address that behavior through enforcement and education before considering other potential solutions. \u00a0Our goal remains to keep students safe and ensure drivers understand and follow stop-arm laws.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"3,000+ citations were mailed to drivers in Jacksonville for illegally passing school buses in May. JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-296023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}