Bus cameras a 'no-brainer' for school districts seeking to catch violators

MARION — Elgin Local Schools wants drivers to know it is watching them.

Alarmed by the number of vehicles passing stopped school buses, Elgin is among the latest school districts to implement school bus stop-arm cameras to try to catch drivers who go through buses' red lights and stop arm.

"We've seen people run them and wave to the bus driver as they're going through them," said Shannon Downing, transportation director at Elgin. "No, that does not make it okay." 

It's part of a nationwide effort to install cameras on the outside of school buses in the hopes of deterring drivers from blowing past buses picking up or dropping off students.

In recent years, some states have passed laws requiring school buses to have outer cameras to catch violators or laws directing the money from fines to schools or transportation safety initiatives, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Downing says Elgin's cameras have already paid off.

"We're having people run our red lights like no other year this year," she said.

Since the beginning of the school year, the school district has caught nearly 30 people illegally passing stopped school buses, she said, numbers that she says are higher than normal, especially for a rural district.

Most of those cases have been reported to the Ohio Highway Patrol, she said, and end with a citation.

But Downing worries those cases could have ended much worse.

"All it takes is just one child to step out into the path of that vehicle, and it's a whole different story. It's a really bad story," she said.

In recent weeks, there have been national headlines about children hurt or killed while waiting for school buses or crossing the road to board their bus. In Indiana, three children under the age of 10 were struck and killed by a pickup truck late last month while crossing a rural road to board their school bus.

While there have not been any such fatalities in Marion County in recent years, there have been close calls.

In 2015, a 14-year-old girl was struck by a car while crossing Pole Lane Road to board a River Valley school bus, according to the crash report. The girl was taken to Marion's hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, the report says.

Nationwide, a little over 100 pedestrians age 18 or younger died in school transportation-related crashes between 2006 and 2015, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Downing worries it's a matter of "when" a collision happens, not "if."

"Especially with the numbers we're seeing this year, which is just insane this year," she said.

This school year is the first where Elgin has equipped its 10 route buses with stop-arm cameras, at a cost of $550 apiece, to catch people running stopped buses.

The idea was brought forward by the school district's bus mechanic, Tom Myers, and school officials ran with it.

"It's a no-brainer," said Jennifer Conroy, president of Elgin's board of education. "We've had this problem forever, people blowing past the buses."

The cameras not only capture the license plate number of a violator, but also indicate whether the school bus's stop arm was extended and its red lights flashing. 

That makes violators easier to investigate and prosecute, said Ohio Highway Patrol Lt. Lance Shearer.

"I think the cameras are an excellent tool to use because we really want the school bus drivers focused on the children and their job," he said. "We don't want them to have to be police officers."

Under Ohio law, school bus drivers are required to report violators to law enforcement, but often they are more preoccupied with making sure kids are safe after someone runs the bus's red lights than with noting down a license plate number and driver description, Downing said.

The Highway Patrol has already issued as many tickets so far this school year in Marion County as it had all of last school year.

Since Aug. 1, the Highway Patrol has issued 10 citations for failing to stop for a stopped school bus in the county, Shearer said. That doesn't include any pending citations. Just as many citations were issued the entire year from Aug. 1, 2017 to July 31, 2018, he said.

It could be that school bus drivers and law enforcement are catching violators more often or it could be that more violations are occurring.

Downing isn't the only school transportation worker who believes there has been an uptick in vehicles running stopped school buses.

Scott Hoffman, transportation director at River Valley Local Schools, said he feels like the number of violations has picked up in his district, too.

"This year and last year have been really bad," he said.

Certain bus routes have more violators than others, including ones with stops on Ohio 98, Ohio 95, Ohio 309 and Pole Lane Road, he said.

River Valley has equipped three of its route buses with cameras to catch violators, he said. The remaining 11 buses don't have an exterior camera, though the district is in the process of equipping two more with stop-arm cameras, Hoffman said.

As for the county's largest school district, Marion City Schools has stop-arm cameras on all of its buses, including spare buses, said spokesperson Becky Gilliam. Marion City Schools has over 100 violators per year, she added.

Highway Patrol troopers try to help by following buses in areas where there have been complaints or on bus routes with heavy traffic, where cars are more likely to run a bus's red lights, Shearer said.

"It's not something we take lightly," he said. "We've had students get hit before getting on the bus or getting off the bus."

Troopers in Marion County have followed nearly 100 school buses so far this school year, he said.

Shearer stressed that people need to understand what the law says about stopping for school buses.

All drivers on three-lane and two-lane roads are required to stop for stopped school buses, the lieutenant said.

If a road has four lanes with two lanes going in each direction, such as Delaware Avenue or Mount Vernon Avenue, only traffic traveling in the same direction as the bus is required to stop for a stopped school bus, Shearer said.

Drivers on one-way roads are always required to stop for stopped school buses, he said.

Drivers caught illegally passing stopped school buses could be fined up to $500, according to Ohio law.

svolpenhei@gannett.com

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