NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Vehicles plowing through school bus stop arms as children cross the street. It happens around the country and has parents like Eric Pizarro worried.
“That`s very scary,” he said. “You wanna make sure that they get to school in one piece and come back in one piece.”
In Virginia Beach there were 84 violations last school year. Norfolk had three.
That’s why the school district is looking into installing stop-arm cameras on buses.
“Once the driver makes a stop and the stop-arm is deployed, the camera automatically goes into motion.”
They recently conducted three pilot programs with the final study lasting just three months. The results, they said, were shocking.
“During that time we were on spring break and June was only half a month, so it`s probably less than three months that we had over 700 violations and that was very telling.”
Since most violations are not caught on camera or seen by police, only 10 of those drivers were issued citations.
But the problem isn’t just in this one school district. A recent report found in just 29 states and D.C., there were likely 14 million violations last school year.
In 2017, Arkansas passed a bill that allows public school districts to install automated cameras to their buses.
Mississippi law allows cameras to be placed on any hand-operated stop sign.