Skip to main content

Seattle Public Schools launches school bus safety initiative

Seattle Public Schools in the US has launched the Student Safety Stop Arm Camera Program initiative, in partnership with King County and American Traffic Solutions to deter drivers from illegally passing school buses that are loading and unloading students.
September 20, 2017 Read time: 1 min
Seattle Public Schools in the US has launched the Student Safety Stop Arm Camera Program initiative, in partnership with King County and 17 American Traffic Solutions to deter drivers from illegally passing school buses that are loading and unloading students.


Exterior cameras have been added to 120 of the 379 First Student buses that transport students each day. The cameras capture video of vehicles that appear to be illegally passing the bus when its stop paddle is fully extended. The King County Sheriff’s Office reviews the footage provided by the American Traffic Solutions cameras to confirm the traffic violation occurred.

The cameras began operating on 18 September. Drivers captured on video between then and 1 October will receive a warning letter to educate them about the new program; beginning on 2 October, the King County Sheriff’s Office will begin issuing US$419 citations to vehicle owners that have violated the state’s stop paddle safety law.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Robotic Research: harnessing AV potential
    June 10, 2021
    Robotic Research is leading in AV R&D, from work with the US Army to enabling the first automated BRT line in North America: Gordon Feller assesses what the company is doing
  • Legalities of in-vehicle systems and cooperative infrastructures
    February 1, 2012
    Paul Laurenza of Dykema Gossett PLLC discusses the paths which lawmakers may go down on the route to making in-vehicle systems and cooperative infrastructures a reality. The question of whether or not to mandate in-vehicle systems for safety and other applications is a vexed one. There is a presumption on some parts that going down the road of forcing systems' fitment is somehow too domineering or restricting. Others would argue that it is the only realistic way of ensuring that systems achieve widespread d
  • Give offending drivers credit for good behaviour
    July 27, 2012
    Andrew Rooke and Dave Marples of Technolution B.V. take a look at what can be done to address a long-standing problem: the all-or-nothing approach of automated enforcement. To start, a brief history of speeding: on 14 November 1896, the first Veteran Car Run was staged in England from London to Brighton. It was organised to celebrate new British legislation to raise the maximum speed of vehicles from four to 14mph while also removing the need for a person waving a red flag to walk in front of the car and wa
  • Volvo tests autonomous electric bus on roads at Singapore campus
    March 7, 2019
    Volvo is trialling its 12m long autonomous electric bus on roads at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore ahead of an anticipated release onto public roads. The Volvo 7900 Electric single-decker bus can carry approximately 80 passengers and is the first of two buses being trialled at the NTU’s Centre of Excellence for Testing and Research of Autonomous vehicles (CETRAN) before being extended beyond the campus. CETRAN is staffed by NTU scientists and features a track which replicates var