More than 61,000 drivers ticketed for illegally passing stopped school buses

TAMPA, Fla. — Florida students' nearly being hit by vehicles that don’t stop when a school bus is dropping off or picking up students inspired a new state law.

The law, which officially went into effect in 2023, allows Florida school districts to equip school buses with automated cameras that catch drivers who blow past a bus when the stop arm is out and the bus is stopped for kids. 

“We are getting information about citations being issued, so the system's working,” said Transportation Director for Hillsborough County Schools, Laura Hill.

In September, the district started equipping buses with stop-arm cameras. The cameras are now on all 1,000 of the district’s school buses.

But Hillsborough is one of just a handful of Florida school districts taking advantage of the law currently that enables them to use AI cameras to nab bus-passing violators.

The Polk County school district, Santa Rosa, and Miami-Dade County school are among the few other districts with implemented programs. At least seven school districts are still evaluating options.

Hill thinks it could be beneficial in every school district. The cameras don’t cost districts a dime.

“I don't know why they wouldn't. Just to be honest with you, if you really want your kids to be safe in and around school buses, it's a very good program to have,” she said.

But we’ve discovered, these cameras are also a big money maker for districts and the vendor behind the cameras.

According to the state’s first quarterly report on the program, between January and October of last year, more than 61,000 drivers were cited for illegally passing a stopped school bus in Hillsborough, Miami Dade or Santa Rosa County.

At about $225 per ticket, that’s nearly $14 million in violations. Most of the money generated from a stop-arm camera violation goes to the third-party vendor that operates the cameras. The school district where the violation occurred gets another chunk, while the smallest chunk goes to the local law enforcement agency that distributes the violations.

In Polk County, between September and January 2nd of this year, a total of 6,300 violations were issued. Those violations totaled $757,032.

According to the district, nearly $590,000 in fines had been paid as of December 31st. About $350,000 of that total went to the camera vendor, $180,000 to the Polk school district, and just over $53,000 to the local sheriff’s office.

In Hillsborough County, in just the first three months of this school year, the county issued nearly 26,000 tickets worth more than $5.8 million.

And in Miami Dade, the state’s largest school district, 11,000 violations were issued in just the first two weeks of this school year, according to local reports. Those fines totaled approximately $2.5 million.

“This is really just a program to generate revenue and to generate tickets and not a program that's really targeted for safety,” said Jay Beeber, Executive Director of the National Motorists Association.

Beeber has analyzed videos from stop arm camera violations around the country and believes the systems are prone to mistakes and human error since bus drivers have to manually turn on the lights when the bus stops before the cameras start recording.

Whether stop-arm cameras really work to reduce illegal school bus passings and, ultimately, make school bus stops safer for students remains largely unknown. Injuries or deaths from illegal passers at school bus stops, though tragic, are extremely rare.

But those behind these stop-arm cameras cite their own stats to show they work. According to BusPatrol, which operates stop arm cameras in 18 states and 400 school districts, including Hillsborough and Miami Dade, more than 90% of school bus arm violators do not repeat offend. 

Here is the full statement from BusPatrol Spokesperson Kate Spree:

 Still, there’s little federal evidence to prove they make a difference in student safety.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, whether stop-arm camera enforcement programs are effective in reducing illegal passings of stopped school buses “has not been widely studied.”

In Hillsborough County, four months after launching its cameras, the district’s transportation director remains all in and has no reason to change her view anytime soon.

A personal note from investigative reporter Katie LaGrone: