PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The School District of Philadelphia is launching a pilot program designed to deter dangerous driving. Cameras will be mounted on the stop arms of 20 school buses to catch drivers trying to illegally pass them.
During a Tuesday press conference at the district garage on Passyunk Avenue, Chief Operating Officer Teresa Fleming said the goal is to make bus stops safer for kids.
“Pennsylvania’s School Bus Stopping Law requires motorists to stop at least 10 feet away from school buses, either when they are behind or approaching an intersection, or a school bus has its red lights flashing and its stop arm activated,” she explained.
The cameras will automatically activate when the bus stops and the stop arm is extended. Then, the cameras can capture the vehicle and license plate of any motorist illegally passing a bus.
Two vendors, BusPatrol and Gatekeeper Systems, are installing the cameras at no cost to the district. They will mount the cameras on 10 buses from the district’s Passyunk Garage and 10 from its garage in the Northeast.
The vendors will review violations and report them to the district, though citations will not be issued during the pilot program, which runs through the end of the school year.
Nationally, 45 million stop arm violations happen each year, but those numbers aren’t tracked in Philadelphia. District officials are hoping to get some insight into how frequently violations occur in the city.
“There have been a couple of situations this school year where students have been injured by motorists,” Fleming added. “We want to make sure when students are entering and exiting the bus that they are as safe as possible, and this pilot will help us determine our next steps for keeping students safe.”