Skip to main content

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.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Vision technology lifts blinkers from tunnel vision
    December 6, 2017
    Sony’s Jerome Avenel looks at how advances in imaging technology are helping improve safety. On the 24th March 1999, a Belgian truck transporting flour and margarine through the 11.6km Mont Blanc tunnel caught alight when a cigarette stub entered the engine induction snorkel, lighting the paper air filter. The fire left over 30 dead and many more injured. At the time, the Mont Blanc tunnel disaster was the world’s worst tunnel fire.
  • Gothenburg to implement congestion charging
    February 2, 2012
    Gothenburg, which is line to become Sweden's second major city to implement congestion charging, will not enjoy the pre-deployment trials and referendum which Stockholm did. But, says the STA's Eva Söderberg, this is less of an issue than might be imagined
  • St Louis red light cameras changing driver behaviour
    November 5, 2012
    According to a new analysis of the City of St. Louis' violator-funded red-light safety camera program carried out by safety camera supplier American Traffic Systems (ATS), drivers are adopting safer driving habits by stopping at red lights. As drivers comply with the law, the risk of dangerous red-light running collisions is reduced, and streets become safer for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. The study reviewed nearly 350,000 red-light running violations issued in the city from the time the program bega
  • Driving forward cooperative intersection safety applications
    July 24, 2012
    Gregory Davis, FHWA, John Harding, NHTSA, and Mike Schagrin, ITS Joint Program Office (RITA) chart the course for cooperative intersection safety applications being pursued as part of the IntelliDrive programme. Crashes at intersections accounted for 8,703 highway fatalities in the US in 2008. Research and development is moving forward on IntelliDriveSM safety applications designed to help drivers avoid intersection accidents. These new safety systems could substantially drive down the highway death and inj