News “Tis is all about enforcement,” said NYAPT Executive Director
Peter Mannella. “Motorists need to know that we are able to ticket them for putting our children at risk. Tis is a safety risk...high stakes risk with our kids’ lives hanging in the balance. We adults need to step up and do right. Cameras help our drivers do their jobs but taking that pressure off them to ID violators.” He recognized the importance of educating motorists of state law on school bus stops, adding that since last fall NYAPT has been issuing monthly press releases that share data from the illegal passing count day conducted voluntarily by school districts each month. When applied to all 50,000 school buses statewide, NYAPT estimates that 25,250 passing incidents occur each day, 562 of which could occur on the right, passen- ger-loading side of the bus. “Te media covers the issue very well, and we find that people
know about the issue when we talk with them about it. Tis needs national attention, and we have suggested to our colleagues at NHT- SA that they play a role in that education process both through their own messaging but also through the 50 state highway safety offices in the use of their safety funding,” Mannella said. “We also believe that NHTSA and the U.S. Education Department can send messag- es to the public in ways that we cannot as an industry.” Fannin County Public Schools in Georgia is one of many districts in the state to use stop-arm cameras to enforce traffic laws. Denver Foster, foreman of the transportation fleet, said that
24/7 Zeus Systems consist of eight cameras mounted in the bus interior and three on the exterior capture and store images of violations. Te video is submitted to the district’s school resource officers, who are also sheriff’s deputies to confirm violations take place and issue citations. But Fannin doesn’t stop there. Since 2006, the district has used the same LED lights throughout the bus fleet, both as supplemental lights to the eight-way warning lights and advising motorists not to illegally pass. In 2009, Foster said the district piloted smaller, rectangular LED lights from UltraLED that are mounted on the rear of the bus above the bumper and at the front of the bus on the grille. Foster added the lights have been more effective in grabbing motorists’ attention because the warnings are at their eye level. “(Tese LEDs have) come me with rave reviews from our com-
munity, public safety officers and state Inspectors,” he said. “It is my understanding several states have adopted similar technologies, and these supplemental lighting systems are now being offered as packages from LED manufacturers.” Humble ISD north of Houston has been using the auxiliary bumper lights on all 269 of its buses since last summer and has reduced the number of rear-end crashes to two from a dozen last school year, said Mark Swackhamer, the district’s assistant director. Te light flashes in five different patterns when the bus driver applies the brakes and essentially serves as a third brake light. ●
Kymberly Wolfson 18 School Transportation News • MAY 2016
P: 904-612-1998
Kymberly
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