School Bus Cameras Targeting Motorists Who Violate The Law In PA

BUCKS COUNTY, Pa. — With school bus season just around the corner, motorists would be wise if they brushed up on the rules of the road regarding school buses.

More and more school buses will be hitting the road this year equipped with cameras designed to capture motorists who violate state law. State law in Pennsylvania requires traffic in both directions to stop when a bus has its red lights flashing and safety arm extended.

According to the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS), school buses are unlawfully passed more than 17 million times each school year in the United States.

In 2020, Governor Tom Wolf signed House Bill 364 (now Act 38), allowing school districts to implement violator-funded stop-arm enforcement programs to enforce school bus stopping laws and ensure the safety of Pennsylvania students.

The Pennsbury School District was among the first in this area to take advantage of the new technology. The latest is Bensalem, which is adding the cameras beginning with this school year.

Earlier this year the Pennsbury School Board approved intergovernmental agreements with the Lower Makefield, Falls, Tullytown and Yardley Borough police departments which allows police to enforce violations captured using the automated stop signal arm enforcement system installed on the district’s school buses.

The system is designed to enforce compliance with the law, which prohibits drivers from meeting or overtaking a school bus stopped on a road with its red signal lights flashing.

Using a combination of advanced technology, school bus cameras, cloud-connectivity and software, the system generates evidence packages for local law enforcement to issue citations and create accountability on the road.

Earlier this month, Bensalem Mayor Joseph DiGirolamo, Bensalem School Superintendent Dr. Samuel Lee and Director of Public Safety William McVey, announced the launch of a new school bus safety program in partnership with the Bensalem Township Police Department.

All school buses in the district are now equipped with the same safety technology, including stop-arm enforcement cameras designed to detect vehicles that illegally pass stopped school buses.

The safety initiative, said Bensalem officials, seeks to curb dangerous motorist behavior around school buses and make the journey to and from school safer for all student riders.

The innovative program will go live at the beginning of the upcoming school year. The penalties for passing a school bus with the stop arm deployed and red lights flashing will be a $300 civil penalty. If the violation is determined to be egregious by the police department after review of the video evidence, the owner/driver will be not be cited civilly, they will receive a citation with a $250 fine, 5 points on your driving record and an automatic 60-day suspension of your driving privileges upon conviction.

The majority of Street Road through Bensalem Township is two lanes in each direction with a center turning lane with no physical barrier. This means that all traffic should stop in both directions when a school bus is stopped with its warning signals activated. These violations will be cited utilizing this new technology.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, every day 1.3 million students are transported by more than 21,000 school buses throughout Pennsylvania. And reports show that these buses are illegally passed more than two times per bus per day.

A 47-day study of two school buses in the state was conducted in 2019. Cameras recorded 205 illegal stop-arm passes or 2.18 violations per bus per day. That was far higher than the number of citations issued by state law enforcement throughout the entire 180-day school year in 2018.

Data collected from pilot programs in Allentown in 2021 revealed equally alarming results.

A one-day study revealed that participating school districts and law enforcement agencies reported 252 violations of the law, up from the 120 reported the previous year.