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Tag: buspatrol

  • McBride: Road rage risks student safety during school bus pick-ups | Long Island Business News

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    In Brief:
    • Nearly 500,000 U.S. school buses transport 25 million students daily, with most dangers occurring when children board or exit.
    • Illegal school bus passings dropped 13% nationwide in 2024-2025, yet 39.3 million violations still occurred, creating serious safety risks.
    • school districts use in partnership with law enforcement to capture and penalize reckless drivers.
    • Ongoing efforts emphasize awareness, technology, and collaboration to ensure safer roads for students year-round.

    The spike in and dangerous driver behavior is on a collision course with our children.

    Each school day in the U.S., roughly 500,000 school buses carry more than 25 million students to and from school. While school buses are considered the safest mode of transport for students, the greatest safety risk to schoolchildren isn’t during the actual ride itself, but when they get on and off the bus–due to the indifference of reckless drivers who drive by those buses without regard to the children whose lives they place at risk. On Long Island, the student population is approximately half a million lives, considered to be one of the largest concentrations of this demographic in the nation.

    This crisis in road rage comes at a time when a national survey of drivers found that in 2024, 96% of respondents witnessed at least one aggressive driving behavior in the prior six months. In addition, millennials have been identified as the generation most likely to express road rage, with 51% cited in aggressive driving incidents.

    The numbers should give every parent pause for thought. During the 2024-2025 school year, there were an estimated 39.3 million illegal school bus passings nationwide, according to a National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS) survey. The good news is this recognizes a 13% decline compared with the previous year (45.2 million violations)–and signals a meaningful step forward–but the enormous scale of the problem remains a public safety crisis. These are not just statistics. That is because every time a driver fails to stop for a school bus with its red lights flashing and stop-arm extended, they put a child’s life at risk. Even one injury or fatality is one too many.

    As we observe National Week, it is time we understood that this not some marketing gimmick akin to “Ice Cream Day” or “National Bubble Wrap Day.” It is an effort to focus awareness and education regarding the importance of school bus safety, spotlighting the genuine threat to children posed by drivers disregarding stopped school buses, and reminding motorists and children to follow best safety practices. It also presents an opportunity for collaboration among parents, students, school administrators, teachers, school bus operators, drivers, and law enforcement to further prevent accidents and enhance .

    The latest NASDPTS data is evidence that the measures taken by states, municipalities and school districts across the U.S. to tackle the problem of illegal motorist behavior around school buses are working. This includes increasing penalties for violations, authorizing the use of photo evidence for issuing citations, and implementing automated stop-arm enforcement programs.

    On Long Island, many school districts have embraced a school bus stop-arm photo enforcement program in partnership with BusPatrol–a leading provider of school bus safety technology–along with local law enforcement. As part of the initiative, participating buses are equipped with BusPatrol’s cameras designed to capture vehicles that illegally pass stopped school buses. The video evidence is then provided to law enforcement for review before a decision is made by them whether to issue summons.

    The program continues to have a measured success, helping to reduce illegal passings and holding reckless drivers accountable, ensuring safer roads for every student.

    While we are encouraged by the drop in illegal school bus passings here on Long Island and nationwide, the toxic combination of road rage and an indifference to student safety remains at crisis levels. There is so much more work to do. We need widespread adoption of automated school bus safety technology so that drivers understand their behavior will be documented, brought to the attention of law enforcement, and penalties will follow illegal and dangerous behavior that put our children at risk.

    October may officially include , but protecting our children traveling to school doesn’t end when the banners and posters are put away.

     

    Kate McBride is president and CEO of Transportation Safety Planning and Solutions Group in Babylon.


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  • How effective are cameras used to catch drivers passing stopped school buses in Howard County? – WTOP News

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    Traffic cameras on Maryland school buses are keeping children safer as they travel to and from school, according to state safety leaders who gathered in Howard County.

    New technology on Maryland school buses is keeping children safer as they travel to and from school, according to state safety leaders who gathered in Howard County on Wednesday.

    They were touting the use of automated enforcement cameras, which the leaders said are drastically cutting down on the number of instances of drivers passing school buses that are stopping to pick up or drop off children.

    “We’re able to eliminate up to half of those occurrences within the first couple of years,” said Justin Meyers, president and chief innovation officer with BusPatrol.

    BusPatrol is the vendor that runs automated enforcement cameras on buses in Prince George’s, Montgomery and Howard counties.

    “Over the last four years that we’ve been on these buses, we’ve been able to reduce the number of violations here in Howard County by as much as half,” Meyers said. “Then over time, nationwide, 90% of the time that someone receives a violation from a bus patrol evidence package, they never commit that violation again.”

    BusPatrol is the vendor that runs automated enforcement cameras on buses in Prince George’s, Montgomery and Howard counties. (WTOP/John Domen)

    Last year more than 8,000 tickets were doled out to people passing a bus in Howard County. In all, nine school systems in Maryland have bus camera programs.

    “Last school year alone, cameras captured over 20,000 school bus stop arm violations” statewide, said Tim Kerns, director of the Maryland Highway Safety Office. “That’s an average of more than 110 drivers each school day illegally passing a stopped school bus. And those are just the ones we know about.”

    On a ride through the Elkridge area, one driver almost passed coming from the opposite direction, stopping once it was even with the bus. Kerns said that’s where people often have a common misconception about when it’s OK to pass a bus. Even coming from the opposite direction, the only time it’s OK to keep going is when there’s a physical median dividing the road.

    If it’s just a double yellow line or a turn lane, drivers still have to stop.

    “We want to make sure that everybody’s sharing the road and making sure we’re looking out for one another and staying safe out there,” Kerns said.

    Leaders are also encouraging not just the rest of the school systems in Maryland, but nationwide, to adopt similar technology.

    “We’ve been recommending this technology for at least the last five years, if not before then,” said Todd Inman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. “We’ve seen a significant decline whenever automation and technology is put into place.”

    camera built in to side of school bus
    Automated enforcement cameras equipped on school buses are cutting down on the amount of times drivers illegally pass stopped buses, according to Maryland leaders. (WTOP/John Domen)

    He also pushed for more states to require seat belts on school buses.

    “Does that mean it’s unsafe to operate? No,” Inman said. “Does it mean that we can find additional layers of safety protect? Yes, we can.”

    The hang-ups usually focus around costs of retrofitting buses with seat belts as well as the time it takes to check to make sure kids are wearing them, and who would be responsible. But it’s something he encourages states, including Maryland, to figure out.

    “The more states that adopt that, the more states that make it mandatory, the safer the children will be,” Inman said.

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    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    John Domen

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  • BusPatrol hosts school bus safety summit on LI | Long Island Business News

    BusPatrol hosts school bus safety summit on LI | Long Island Business News

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    BusPatrol, a provider of automated school bus camera technology, held the first-ever New York School Bus Safety Summit in Great River last week. 

    The event, organized in partnership with the New York Association for Pupil Transportation, drew about 150 attendees to the Mansion at Timber Point where the discussion centered on school districts can employ camera technology to enhance school bus safety and protect students from illegal motorist passings. 

    Speakers at the summit included Karoon Monfared, CEO and president of BusPatrol; Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon; Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison; and Liz Gilleo, transportation director for the Hendrick Hudson School District in Westchester County. 

    BusPatrol, which has offices in Hauppauge, supplies automated cameras mounted on the stop arms of school buses. The cameras snap images of vehicles that illegally pass school buses and generate fines for those offending drivers. Besides working with municipalities on Long Island, BusPatrol’s growing client list includes Albany, Monroe, Dutchess, Rensselaer and Rockland counties, according to a company statement. 

    “We’ve seen a nearly 30 percent decline in year-over-year school bus stop arm violations since the start of the Suffolk County school bus safety program,” Karoon Monfared, CEO and president of BusPatrol, said in the statement. “That means drivers are stopping for school buses and creating safer conditions for our kids.” 

    The summit’s keynote speaker, State Sen. Tim Kennedy, who serves as chair of the New York State Senate Committee on Transportation, has championed legislation to authorize municipalities and school districts to install safety cameras on school buses. 

    Since that legislation was signed into law in 2019, almost 7,000 New York school buses have been equipped with the camera technology to curb illegal motorist behavior, protecting more than 350,000 students, according to the statement. 

    Suffolk County law enforcement officials spoke at the summit about the growing challenge of distracted driving with the prevalence of social media apps and how there is a need for greater awareness around school bus safety.

    “Students imitate the behavior they see. So, if they have been in vehicles at 7- or 8-years old, watching people use phones while driving, they are going to copy that behavior,” Toulon said in the statement. “We are leveraging technology – social media sites can detect when you are driving and stop you from using those sites – and raising awareness. But we have to make sure that there is accountability for people driving distracted.” 

    Commissioner Harrison said police officers have been granted additional enforcement capabilities with the availability of school bus camera technology.

    “We can’t be at every single school bus stop, but having these cameras on school buses and seeing firsthand how stop-arm violations take place is alarming,” Harrison said. “No one here can say with confidence that their child will get on and off the school bus safety, and if we can’t hold drivers accountable, it’s not taken seriously.” 

    The most recent survey conducted by the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation suggests that school buses are illegally passed an estimated 41.8 million times each year in the United States. In New York, there are 50,000 illegal passings each school day according to the Governor’s Office of Traffic Safety. 

    “In New York state alone, school bus contractors employ nearly 50,000 people and operate roughly 30,000 school bus vehicles,” said Nick Vallone, president of the New York School Bus Contractor’s Association. “This is an exciting time for the industry. Innovations like stop-arm cameras have revolutionized how we think about student transportation.” 

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    David Winzelberg

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  • School Bus Safety Program to Launch in Niagara Falls City to Protect Students at School Bus Stops

    School Bus Safety Program to Launch in Niagara Falls City to Protect Students at School Bus Stops

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    Press Release
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    updated: Jul 12, 2021


    NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y., July 12, 2021 (Newswire.com)
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    BusPatrol today announces a new partnership with the City of Niagara Falls and the Niagara Falls City School District to improve school bus safety.

    The safety program is set to go live on September 1. All 100 buses in the Niagara Falls City School District will benefit from the BusPatrol platform, which provides advanced technology to help reduce stop-arm violations and improve student safety.

    The technology, installation, and maintenance are offered at zero cost to the District. Revenue generated from citations will be used to fund the installation and maintenance of the technology over a five-year term. The hardware and software suite includes stop-arm cameras, 4G LTE connectivity, DVR and storage devices, cloud-managed 360-degree safety cameras (interior, windshield, rear-view, and sideload cameras), and GPS and telemetry solutions.

    The school bus safety program will change driver behavior in Niagara Falls and reduce the number of times drivers illegally pass stopped school buses. According to the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration (NHTSA), children are most vulnerable as they step on and off the school bus. Drivers that ignore school bus stopping laws and blow past stopped school buses put these children at risk.

    In the fall of 2019, Niagara Falls City School District conducted a pilot program with BusPatrol to identify the risk of stop-arm violations. Two school buses were illegally passed an average of 30 to 40 times per day. As well as this, data published by the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee suggests that school buses are illegally passed 50,000 times a day in New York State.

    “The safety of our children is paramount,” Niagara Falls City School District Superintendent Mark Laurrie said. “During a trial period of time, with only two buses having cameras, far too many cars illegally passed stopped buses. This program will send a strong message that the safety of children on and around buses must be taken very seriously.”

    City of Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino emphasized the need for better stop-arm enforcement, saying: “Reviewing the findings of the pilot program, the need for additional safety measures became imperative.”

    He added: “The City is continuing its commitment to working together with the school district in finding the right partners for programs like this that increase safety throughout our community.”

    Jean Souliere, CEO and Founder of BusPatrol, said: “BusPatrol is proud to partner with the City, School District, and Transportation Department to ensure local students are safe as they travel to and from school.” 

    He continued: “Our safety programs are proven to reduce the number of illegal passes by up to 30% YOY. We look forward to inciting a similar change in driver behavior in Niagara Falls, and helping the city to put safety first.” 

    ENDS

    You can find more information about BusPatrol at www.buspatrol.com.

    Press contact: Kate Spree | kate.spree@buspatrol.com 

    Source: BusPatrol

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