School bus stop arm pilot reveals extent of violations

A school bus stop arm pilot programme undertaken in Volusia County in Florida has revealed the level of drivers illegally passing stopped school buses when the stop arm is extended and children are boarding or disembarking. During a 29 day pilot period, cameras on just one of the county's 229 buses captured a total of 71 violations. The pilot results also showed that eight out of every 10 violations occurred between 1:00pm and 3:00pm with 67 per cent of the violations occurring on either Tuesday or Wednesda
June 5, 2012 Read time: 2 mins

A school bus stop arm pilot programme undertaken in Volusia County in Florida has revealed the level of drivers illegally passing stopped school buses when the stop arm is extended and children are boarding or disembarking. During a 29 day pilot period, cameras on just one of the county's 229 buses captured a total of 71 violations. The pilot results also showed that eight out of every 10 violations occurred between 1:00pm and 3:00pm with 67 per cent of the violations occurring on either Tuesday or Wednesday of each week. Under the pilot agreement, events were captured, but drivers were not prosecuted.

"Our goal was to measure how many drivers disregard stopped school buses with the stop arm extended and illegally pass them," said Greg Akin, director of transportation for Volusia County School District." Keeping our children safe is our number one priority and we want to change driver behavior in a positive way to protect the lives of the children who ride a school bus to and from school every day."

17 American Traffic Solutions provided Volusia County School District with its CrossingGuard camera technology to help monitor the extent of the problem. Designed to monitor and enforce traffic around a stopped school bus, CrossingGuard is powered by 5876 AngelTrax's IntelliGuard cameras mounted on the driver's side of the school bus. When the school bus extends its stop arm, the system automatically detects if a vehicle passes the stopped school bus within the enforced zone.  High-quality violation images of a vehicle's license plate and a video that captures the entire violation event provide law enforcement the evidence they need to effectively prosecute these violations.

The Volusia School District is one of six statewide participating in this pilot programme.

Enforcement

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Cost saving multi-agency transportation and emergency management
    May 3, 2012
    Although the recession had dramatically reduced traffic volumes in the past few years, the economy was on the brink of a recovery that portended well for jobs but poorly for traffic congestion. Leaders of four government agencies in Houston, Texas, got together to discuss how to collectively cope with the expected increase in vehicles on the road. "They knew they couldn't pour enough concrete to solve the problem, and they also knew the old model of working in a vacuum as standalone entities would fail," sa
    Read More
  • Technology solution needed to counter mobile phone menace
    March 29, 2017
    With the UK set to increase the penalties for using mobile phones while driving, the RAC Foundation’s Steve Gooding considers what else can be done to combat this deadly distraction. The first mobile phone call was made in 1973, by an engineer working for Motorola. Today 4.7 billion people across the globe subscribe to a mobile service.
    Read More
  • Speed limits: is 20 really plenty?
    June 16, 2020
    Speed kills – which means cutting speed should cut collisions. But is it that simple?
    Read More
  • Over-height vehicle detection system implemented on New York City Parkways
    November 9, 2016
    A US$4.8 million over-height vehicle detection system has just been completed on two New York City parkways in a bid to minimise truck collisions, improve road safety and protect highway infrastructure. The infrared system identifies and alerts over-height vehicles illegally using the parkway to prevent the vehicles from striking low-clearance bridges, which are found on most parkways in New York. The system was installed at four locations on the Hutchinson River Parkway in the Bronx and one location on the
    Read More

Highlighted Content