Drivers in Lee County have received their final warning. Starting Monday, those caught illegally passing a stopped school bus will be cited, with fines enforced by <\/p>\n
According to the School District of Lee County, 2,742 drivers were caught on those cameras in November. Of them, 2,678 received a warning citation, while 64 were not upon being reviewed by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. The 11 cameras both inside and outside the buses, captured these violations during a 30-day warning period that was required by .\u00a0<\/p>\n
This initiative is \u00a0between the school district, the sheriff’s office, and , a stop-arm enforcement technology provider.<\/p>\n
But \u00a0like Chelsea Wilson from Cape Coral about the ongoing problem.<\/p>\n
“It’s not safe at all, and it makes me very concerned, not only for my children, but for other children out there,” said Wilson.<\/p>\n
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno shared in a press conference Thursday morning, where most of the violations happened.<\/p>\n
“Where we see the most violations…Fowler Street, Pondella Road, Colonial Boulevard, and the most common violation is when there’s no median, the vehicles are not stopping,” said Marceno.<\/p>\n
Marceno then announced that the warning period ends Friday, and citations will soon roll out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Starting Monday, they’re going to receive citations,” he said.<\/p>\n
The fine for illegally passing a stopped school bus is $225.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“$225 per driver,” said Marceno. “We’re serious. There\u2019s no excuse to drive past the bus stop or a bus where the bus lights are illuminated. Children are walking on those buses. There’s zero tolerance.”<\/p>\n
It’s not just parents; drivers like Joann Knapp from North Fort Myers also said it’s about time something was done.<\/p>\n
“I think they need to keep the fines that if you do it again, they need to double it,” said Knapp. “It’s terrible. The kids have to be safe, and cars just zoom past the stop.”<\/p>\n
The district reports that drivers who are fined through the camera-enforcement program typically do not repeat the offense. The sheriff’s office will review each violation to ensure no one is wrongfully cited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drivers in Lee County have received their final warning. Starting Monday, those caught illegally passing a stopped school…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[2674,209,211,210,7692,41150],"class_list":["post-71718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-bus","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-lee-county-sheriff","tag-student-transport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71718","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=71718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}