The Chattooga County School System announced Tuesday that they are partnering with Gatekeeper Systems Inc. to install cameras on the sides of school buses to prosecute motorists who illegally pass buses with stop equipment activated.
According to Transportation Supervisor Mike Jarrett, bus drivers have seen increased problems with motorists passing school buses that have stopped to let kids out, especially in wide, 4-lane roads and near Berryton Bridge. Jarrett implied that the public may not be aware that they have to stop in every lane of traffic when the stop equipment is activated; a diagram has been supplied below. Jarrett said that in one week on one bus monitored in a demo, 41 citations were issued.
Jarrett said he believed it “is just a matter of time”, at this rate until a child is hit by an arrogant or uninformed motorists passing a school bus illegally. To combat the problem, the school system is phasing in side cameras on all the county school buses which transportation officials will review mulitple times a week to check for violators. They will pass on the video to the sheriff’s office, which will review the footage and prosecute the offender.
The cameras are infrared and will work just as well in night as in daylight. Additionally, Superintendent Jimmy Lenderman noted that the cameras come at no cost to the school system. Gatekeeper, the producer of the cameras, underwrote the cameras’ costs and will split with the Sheriff’s office and the BOE the revenue from the fines from citations given to offenders. Lenderman said “it’s not about the money”, and noted that little will be made from the citations, but that it was an efficient deal to make with Gatekeeper in order to get the cameras installed essentially free.
Sheriff Mark Schrader said that his office will cite the registered owner of the vehicles passing the bus. What this means is that the person breaking the law might not be the person who is cited and fined if they are not the owner of the vehicle the passing occurred in. Schrader encouraged people who lend their cars to let friends or family pick their kids up to encourage each other not to pass buses illegally.
The bus system currently travels 33 regular routes. The cameras will be installed in multiple places on every bus the county BOE owns.
Comments
Finally! But what about the bus drivers that speed with children on the bus? Bus drivers who fail to stop at railroad crossings, such as the one on Lyerly Street in Summerville, happens daily by the same two bus drivers. Failures to come to a complete stop at stop signs, mainly the intersection in Menlo.