BUFFALO, N.Y. — The city of Buffalo began enforcing its school bus stop arm camera program on October 1. 2,250 tickets, worth more than $500,000, have been issued in just three weeks.
“It’s a startling number to me anytime you see how pervasive this issue is,” Bus Patrol president and CIO Justin Meyers said.
Meyers runs the company behind the cameras and license plate readers attached to every single Buffalo school bus.
The cameras catch people who don’t stop for a school bus when loading and unloading students, Bus Patrol reviews the footage and then reports the drivers to the city of Buffalo to be fined.
“The entire bus, 360 degrees, is on camera, it is being monitored and watched, protecting children from every single angle at all times,” Meyers said.
Buffalo Public Schools chief operating officer David Hills says that they have 460 buses in their fleet. This means that these violations are happening to every single bus on average at least once per week.
“We support this issue because we know what is happening. We just now have a number to describe what we see every day,” Hills said.
The first violation will cost you $250. Every following violation, the price of the ticket goes up $25, but Meyers says that most people won’t have to worry about that.
“More than 90% of the time that somebody receives a violation from a Bus Patrol evidence package, they never commit the violation again.”
These cameras will continue to enforce stopping for school buses every single time the red lights are on and the bus has its stop sign out.
The profits from the fines are split between the city and Bus Patrol. The school hopes the fines make drivers think twice when seeing a school bus.
