By Pat Jenkins The Dispatch There will soon be no more Mr. Nice Guy for law-breaking drivers in the Bethel School District.. Authorities are close to ticketing motorists who are documented by bus-mounted video cameras as not stopping when required for school buses that are picking up or dropping off students. The crackdown will begin early next year after the district and the Pierce County Sheriff Department finish testing the system but not punishing violators. The school district, working with the system's manufacturer, installed cameras on some of its buses this fall on a trial basis to determine their reliability in recording violations. When the testing period is over, authorities will issue $500 tickets to the registered owners of vehicles whose license numbers are recorded during a violation. Revenue from the fines will be divided betwen the school district and the county, which uses the money for costs related to enforcement and courts. American Traffic Solutions (ATS), a company that also makes camera systems for catching red-light runners, is the contractor for Bethel's bus cameras. For the five school days from Oct. 27 to Oct. 31, cameras on five buses recorded 23 violations. The single-day high was nine; the low was one. "They may not seem like much, but they are above normal for the majority" of ATS-installed bus stop-arm programs, said Krista Carlson, a school district spokeswoman. According to ATS, 78 percent of the violations in that first week of the Bethel program occurred in the afternoon and early-evening. The rest were in the morning hours of 8, 9 and 10 o'clock. More than half of the total of 23 were recorded between 4 and 5 p.m. ATS officials showed the news media videos of some of the infractions during a formal update of the program Nov. 5 at the district's transportation facility in Frederickson. Representatives of the company, the district and the Sheriff Department attended the event. Cars that don't obey the law requiring them to stop on two-lane roads when school buses' red lights are flashing and stop paddles are extended is a serious national safety issue. In a study in 2011 by the Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services, approximately 76,000 illegal passes of buses in a combined 28 states were reported in one day. That would equate to 13 million infractions in a full school year, according to the association. Washington's Legislature in 2011 passed a state law allowing an electronic eye on drivers around school buses. The Bethel School Board later authorized the district to launch its camera system, which automatically captures images of offending vehicles. Their license numbers, make, model and year are required for authorities to press charges.
Comments
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.
Sign in to comment