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£ Fort Payne City Schools in Alabama is among a growing number of districts using stop-arm cameras to help law enforcement ticket motorists who illegally pass school buses.
PULLING TO A STOP
CAMERA ENFORCEMENT PROGRAMS GO INTO HIGH GEAR AMID NASDPTS PUBLISHING RESULTS OF ITS THIRD ANNUAL STOP-ARM VIOLATION SURVEY WRITTEN BY MICHELLE FISHER
T
iming really is everything. Results of the 2013 NASDPTS Stop-Arm Violation Survey came out Aug. 13, when many
students returned to school buses and classrooms — and when some states were deciding it was high time to crack down on the motorists imperiling their safety. In July, North Carolina hiked the
minimum fine for illegal passing stopped school buses to $500 and added the loss of one’s driver’s license for a year with a second offense. A month later, Texas increased fines for passing a school bus with its stop arm extended to between $200 and $500. And in September, Illinois ratified legislation allowing school districts to use cameras on school buses to catch stop-arm violators, who are fined $150 the first time and $500 if they offend again. Unfortunately, it’s not a matter of if, but
actually when these too-frequent violations occur, say organizers of the annual NAS- DPTS Survey that began in 2011. Tough the number of participating bus drivers, school districts and states varies each year, the results remain pretty consistent. Tis year bus drivers counted a total of 85,279 vehicles that flew by stopped school buses on various one-day counts held last spring.
14 School Transportation News October 2013 “We got into this to have a vehicle we can
use to raise public awareness, and secondly, to have some data that we can share with NHTSA and other federal agencies,” said Derek Graham, co-author of the survey and transportation services chief for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Tis year, 29 states reported results of their
one-day survey of observed illegal passing incidents during loading and unloading, and 108,436 bus drivers took part. In 2011 and 2012, 28 states participated in the NAS- DPTS count. In 2013, Montana, Oklahoma and Tennessee participated for the first time, while Louisiana and Massachusetts fell off. Another difference this year was how the number of illegal passing incidents was recorded. Graham explained that it was too confusing for those compiling data to dis- tinguish between passing incidents and the number of vehicles passing, as there might be more than one motorist at a time. So, for 2013, the survey was changed to only count each vehicle that illegally passes the bus.
TRENDS STATE BY STATE Out of the 29 states reporting this year,
California led with the number of motor- ists and vehicles that illegally pass stopped school buses; there, 9,147 school bus drivers,
or nearly double the number who partici- pated last year, reported observing 30,634 illegal passing incidents on April 17. North Carolina had the most school bus
drivers report at 13,631, which accounted for nearly every route in the state. Georgia had 12,136 bus drivers who counted 6,807 motorists illegally passing buses on April 25, showing a 7-percent decrease. Still, Graham cautioned that the count
is “a very inexact science” because of the fluctuating number of participating school districts and bus drivers. For example, Cal- ifornia had about 4,400 more bus drivers take part this year than last, which explains why observed violations shot up by 8,000. Meanwhile, bus driver participation fell by more than 1,100 in Georgia and by 600 in North Carolina. Numbers were also down in Nevada, Texas, Washington and West Virginia, which all reported declines in the number of observed violations. Overall, half of all incidents nationwide
occurred in the afternoon, more than 45 per- cent in the morning and 4.5 percent during mid-day routes. Nearly all of motorists (98 percent) illegally passed the bus on the left. Graham found in North Carolina, how-
ever, that many bus drivers reported illegal passing incidents on the right side of the
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