Down in Florida, Miami-Dade County is famous for three things—sun, sand, and school bus traffic cameras. The city has implemented an automatic camera system on its school bus fleet known as BusPatrol. The cameras film cars that blow past school buses when they’re loading and unloading passengers—and automatically issue fines to offending drivers.
This might sound like a high-tech solution to a nothing problem, but that’s sadly not the case. As covered by NBC Miami, over 11,500 violations were recorded in the first few weeks of the 2024/2025 school year—or roughly 1,600 violations per school day. The sheer volume of incidents prompted Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office to release a video of some of the worst offenders blowing past school buses with lights flashing and stop signs out.
The city isn’t messing around with penalties, either. Pass a school bus that has its lights on and stop signs out, and you could get a fine for $225.
ALERT ????: We want to remind motorists that if you illegally pass a stopped Miami-Dade County school bus with flashing lights and an extended stop arm, you will receive a citation of $225. Since the start of the 2024/2025 school year, there have been approximately 11,500 school… pic.twitter.com/vZm6uFUoDd
— Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office (@MiamiDade_SO) August 28, 2024
The cameras are supplied by a company called BusPatrol. They’re installed on the side of the bus and rely on wide-angle lenses to gain good vision of the adjacent roadway. The cameras are set up to capture footage whenever the bus has its stop sign deployed. Footage is uploaded via the cellular network, and AI models are used to process the video to determine when a vehicle has performed an illegal pass. Human reviewers then check the footage before it is provided to the city as evidence so citations can be issued.
It’s not just Miami Dade getting on board, either. The same technology has been deployed in New York, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania, amongst other jurisdictions. It’s an attractive proposition to many cities, offering safety for students, peace of mind for parents, and a new income stream from offending drivers.
Multiple research projects have shown this is a real problem in Florida and beyond. The Florida Department of Education released a report that recorded 11,224 illegal passes on school buses across the 2022-2023 school year. The problem isn’t just a local one, either. The National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS) isn’t just an agency with a terrible name. It’s also an organization that has done serious nationwide research on the problem and estimates that 43.5 million illegal passes occurred across the country in the 2022-2023 school year.
The simple fact is this kind of behavior puts children at risk. In particular, kids have a limited view of traffic as they step out of the bus doors. Those stop signs aren’t just a guide—they’re there to keep kids safe.
In case you’re not au fait with the rules around school buses in Florida, fear not. The Miami Dade Sheriff’s Office is more than happy to educate you, as per the graphic below. Long story short, if the bus has a stop sign out, you pretty much need to stop unless you’re on the other side of a divided roadway. Even then, you need to take caution.
ALWAYS stop for school buses!! ????
Keep students, and yourself, safe by following all school bus safety laws! Safety is a shared responsibility. pic.twitter.com/k4ovM7ecjx— Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office (@MiamiDade_SO) August 15, 2024
The law is, by and large, pretty similar wherever you go. If kids are getting on or off the bus, you’re generally supposed to stop to let them alight safely.
It’s a shame that cities around the country have had to go to such lengths to solve this problem. With camera systems putting eyes on far more stops and hefty fines now on the table, drivers will really be thinking of the kids the next time they’re tempted to blow by a school bus.
Image credits: Miami Dade County, BusPatrol
I’m not usually much for surveillance but this is a great use.
Now do a follow up article exposing how many politicians and local government officials they paid off in order to implement this system. It’s easy to get away with money making schemes like this when “it’s for the children.”
There are a scant few cases in which I think spying on people is an excellent thing. This is one of them.
They do that here, and all they’ll get is expired temp paper tags and cars with no tags. Most people actually stop around here still, although people pulling over for emergency vehicles is very hit and miss.
Good. Do this in all 50 states. As one of those laws that’s such a real and direct safety measure, you should get points on your license for this, too.
You would not believe how people behind me lose their shit when I stop when I’m supposed to stop for school buses. People don’t stop. People go around those that are stopped.
Just the other day, the full row of cars actually stopped for once, and several of the cars behind us honked and one even went around the stopped cars and bus in the painted median.
A couple kids got KILLED by a driver passing a school bus with it’s lights on a few years ago in my FL county. I would be fine with surface-to-surface MISSILES in response to this, not just fines.
I find a lot of traffic enforcement cameras to be an utter pain in the ass but I see the value here. It’s a big yellow bus. How hard is it to stop?
Exactly. This is a perfect application. There is no ambiguity here. If a school bus is stopped with it’s lights flashing. You STOP.
11,500 violations at $225 a pop equals almost $2.6M. You can expect to see these everywhere very, very soon.
Good. Win-win.
This is nothing new; I’ve seen these on busses where I live for over a decade.
I am fully on the ZERO TOLERANCE bandwagon. IDC who you are or where you are going, fuck you if you choose to do this. First offense, big fine, second offense within ten years, one year suspension, third offense, permanent revocation.
I despise speed and turn cameras, but think these should be on every single bus until it never happens again.
Agreed, I used to live near a school bus turn around. People would regularly rip around it, or sit there and honk, often both. I’m sure these people also touch the waitstaff at restaurants.
Its good that municipalities are finding ways to make revenue instead of actually employing ACTUAL solutions to the problem. If they really wants people to stop passing schoolbuses (a thing that only the lowest of the low do) they should have big flashes of light or something obvious to let the driver know they fucked up before getting a letter in the mail two weeks later. On the NYS thruway, in a lot of workzones there is a stickered up grand cherokee with a big camera and light on it that will take your picture and let you know that your picture was just taken if you exceed the workzone speed limit.
Big flashes of light? You mean the ones on the front and back of the bus, and the ones that are on the stop sign sticking out the side of the bus? Those big flashes of light?
You got me there
I would think that running over school children is a problem and that citing people for behavior that is likely to lead to the running over of school children is a good thing.
And if you can’t see the big ass yellow bus, the stop sign sticking outside of it, or the flashing lights all over ALL OF IT, then please get off the road.
Right because i said i’m the one that can’t see them.
To clarify i am not on the side of people who pass schoolbuses obviously, just that more active enforcement would be more effective, not just sending people bills. But i guess im a monster.
I’ll bite. What do you mean by ‘active enforcement,’ in this case? I’ll admit that, like the others replying, I have a hard time understanding an argument against these cameras and the resulting fines as part of the deterrent.
Not arguing against the cameras, but maybe instead of just a bill, how about some points on your licence?
Now you’re talking. Hell yes.
While not mentioned here, in FL, passing a school bus is worth 4 points on your license. I assume that will apply to the camera tickets as well.
I would be perfectly fine with an instant license revocation for doing this. Not just suspension, revoke it and make you take the test again, with a mandatory driver’s ed class, because obviously you don’t know what you are doing behind the wheel, are blind, or are just plain stupid. Or all of the above.
Thats better than here in ny, which is just a fine. Which is not fine.
Seriously? I find only 4pts to be getting off pretty lightly when it takes 12 to get a suspension. Should be instant suspension for a good long time. There is just no excuse or rationale for doing this. IMHO, this is a more serious offence than merely having a BAC over .08, as it requires INTENT.
Agreed
Good. Fuck ’em. You pass a school bus loading or unloading and you deserve the ticket.
Agreed.
I got one, on a 4 lane road as the bus pulled over and deployed its sign just as i passed it. I paid it, but it definitely felt a little like they were off with the timing.
You raise a good point. Fair application must be employed or people will revolt.
Some districts in PA have had these cameras for years and the spirit of this is in the right place. But it doesn’t address a key issue.
Teaching your kids to cross the street.
Flame me for victim blaming, blah blah. But I see too many kids just stroll out into the street, nose in their phone with impunity like peds in center city because drivers are supposed to stop.
Stop, look, make sure you’re seen and the driver is at least slowing down. “You were supposed to yield” does little when a kids on the ground bleeding from their ears.
To a large extent I agree. And it extends to a lot of pedestrian behavior in general.
As a member of gen-X I think our generation did a pretty terrible job overall in teaching children some of these basic things, just thinking it was somehow established and passed on genetically. Our parents dragged us out and showed us how once or twice but somehow we never thought we had to with our kids. It’s really weird and now I see so many people incapable of even walking down a hall or through a grocery store without bumping into everyone or just generally being in the way.
Our generation has done some really weird kid raising, and those kids are raising some even weirder kids by our standards. I don’t get modern parenting AT ALL.
The behavior I see in public ALL the time would have resulted in my being told “go get the belt” when we got home, if I wasn’t dragged out of the place by my hair first so we got home SOONER. God forbid the school called to report I did something inappropriate. Though that was very much more my brother’s jam than mine. I was trainable at an early age, he still isn’t.
Perhaps a nice, happy medium of all the extremes is in order.
I am all for the middle of the road approach to most things.
I think that WAS the happy medium.
I never got a thrashing that I didn’t 110% deserve. My parents where not terribly strict, and I had a TON of freedom as a kid. But there were clear rules and expectations, and clear consequences when they were not met.
I was walking with my 8-year-old to the bus stop a couple of weeks ago. We were crossing the street and someone rolled through a stop sign without EVER looking at us. I was actually glad it happend because it was a great opportunity to say “Don’t ever assume a driver is looking at you or is going to follow the law.”
Yep. Some Jabroni just ran the red light when I was crossing the street with my kid. We just *knew* Jabroni was not going to stop so we kept some distance from the car.
I always teach my kids assume ALL drivers are idiots and/or assholes, until they prove themselves otherwise.
The irony to me is that if you flip the offenders the bird.
They never seem to miss that signal. YMMV of course.
It’s an “all of the above” situation. We’ve had a rash of pedestrian deaths reported in the local “newspaper” here, and at least one horrible tragedy involved a kid trusting that the bright flashing yellow lights at the crosswalk would keep the car from running her over as she crossed. No question as to the fault of the driver, and there are good arguments to be made for some engineering improvements along that street, but everyone from God on down wishes that the kid wouldn’t have trusted that car to stop until it did.
In my kid’s school district, the children are instructed to wait for the Bus Driver’s hand signal before they cross the street either coming or going to the bus. The bus driver checks that traffic is stopped both ways, then signals the children to cross.
Is that not standard everywhere? And, if not, why?
Yeah, I remember that being drilled into me as a kid. (Millennial here.) Make eye contact with the bus driver, only go when they point for you to do so. Also cross, like, ten or twenty feet (I forget exactly) in front of the bus, not right off the grille, like I’ve seen some kids doing lately.
I very much agree. You can be “dead right” when you have the right of way. This is not victim blaming, it’s just reality.
This is an excellent idea. No lower form of scum on this earth than somebody blowing past a school bus loading/unloading. Also the fine should be more like $700, not the measely $225.
Also shout out to my bus driver in grade and middle school, James Bond. He couldnt have been a more polar opposite of 007, he farmed for a living, raised beef cattle when he wasnt driving the school bus. He was in his 70s when I was in school during the 90s, one of my buddies said Mr Bond was his GRANDPA’S bus driver he had been doing it so long. Sadly his farm(on Bond road) is now “The Estates at Bond Springs”, a bunch of mansions on huge lots for monied horsey types.
Our middle school bus driver was a big construction worker. Rarely had any trouble on his bus. If he had to stop the bus and get out of his seat, your ass was getting dragged down the aisle and literally thrown off the bus (back when one could do such things).
My middle school bus driver was Jack Daniels. He was a former cop, but he drove like he’d been imbibing his namesake’s product all day.
In those days he may well have been! <eek>
For sure – you did NOT f’ around on the bus when I was a kid. The BEST you could hope for was getting a detention at school or getting tossed off the bus to walk home. The REAL troubles began when the bus driver or the school called your parents. Or in the case of my dipshit brother one time, literally marched his dumb ass off the bus and up to our front door to hand him over to his father (my stepfather), who happened to be home that day. Bus driver saw the old man’s car in the driveway. Would not have been good if just Mom had been home, as “you just wait until your father gets home” was not an idle threat in those days, but DIRECTLY to him was BAD. Kiddo didn’t sit down for a while. And slowed his jets on the bus quite a bit. Pain is actually an effective teaching method.
When I started school, I had the same bus driver my Mom had from elementary through high school – still remember her name, because how can you forget Cora Bumper? But then I went to live elsewhere for 1st grade. I never got in trouble on the bus, I was the geek sitting in the first row talking to the driver and watching them shift gears. I did get tossed out of the car and made to walk home for being an ass to my Mom once. In the dead of winter, in Maine, about 5 miles from home. I deserved it, and it sucked. And then the old man got home, and it sucked MORE. I never did that again.
In North Carolina, passing a stopped school bus unloading or loading students is a $500 fine and five license points (12 in three years nets a suspension). In addition, insurance companies often levy a penalty on drivers for this too – four insurance points, or essentially an 80% increase.
Despite this, the NC Department of Public Instruction claims that hundreds of drivers are reported daily for this behavior (per WXII News in the Piedmont Triad, NC). I’m guessing that many either aren’t insured or well-underinsured to be able to afford to keep a NC license tag on their car.
Might sound draconian, but perhaps the penalties should be upped to first offense, 60 days, second offense, uninsurable and therefore banned. Period.
More and more people are just driving around without plates, or insurance, or inspections. The vehicles need to be confiscated and crushed.
Wonder if the national case of “Blue Flu” will finally lift after 4+ years, or nah?
I think once people have spent five years getting paid to underproduce they’re unlikely to find the motivation to change within themselves.
Cops can’t be everywhere, all the time. My-not-that-big county has over 200 school buses in their fleet county-wide. I am ALL FOR cameras for this. Along with absolutely draconian penalties.
The cars are innocent. Don’t crush the cars. Crush the guilty parties.
A $250 fine is not enough in Ontario its:
Penalties
As well as your insurance is going through the roof.
And to stop people from driving without insurance, every cop car is now equipped with Automated License Plate Readers querying the database on every car they pass.
Good. As it should be on all counts.
Good. This is a good use of automatic cameras.
Younger elementary school age kids have a developing concept of safety. Rebellious teenagers plugged into their devices have a lack of attention. Developmentally disabled kids may or may not be attentive. We know this, it’s not in dispute. The selfish boors who pass stopped buses letting kids on/off should be held accountable for their dangerous actions.
Username checks out.
This has been a thing in Texas for over 10 years. Fine is $300 i believe.
That fine is peanuts.
Here in Ontario, Canada:
-First offence: $400-2000 fine, 6 demerit points on your license.
-Second or more offenses: $1000-4000 fine, 6 MORE demerit points, and up to 6 months in jail.
Once you hit 9 points in our system, you need to go to a meeting with the ministry to plead why they shouldn’t suspend your license. Not many are successful. At 15 points it’s an automatic suspension.
In reality though, unless you’re independently wealthy, you can’t afford insurance over 6 points. We’re talking thousands of dollars a month to stay insured.
With the advent of insurance info being tied to your plates, and plate scanning tech in traffic, it’s a lot harder to get away with it.
I still think it’s not heavy handed enough.
If you feel you’re so goddamned important that you can’t wait for a school bus, you should have your driving privileges revoked and you can ride the Proletariat Chariot yourself.
There are some things Canadians just get very, very right.
Like Maple Syrup, women’s rights to bodily autonomy, chip flavours, legalization of gay marriage, and Spec Racing series like the Micra Cup.
Just a few things.
I would also accept ‘reasonable limitations on corporations’ and ‘healthcare that won’t bankrupt you.’
And Toronto. I like Toronto a lot.
No one likes Toronto. Not even Torontonians.
Now I’m hankering for some All-Dressed
Dill pickle is the GOAT flavour. Unless you can find some Storm Chips by Covered Bridge. It’s 4 flavours mixed in one bag.
For me the Zapp’s Voodoo is GOAT, similar to an all-dressed. That and the Kettle Pepperoncini
The problem isn’t the drivers. They are important and have places to be.
No the problem is school. Get rid of that and you can get rid of the busses and their expensive flashy lights too. Kids can stay home or better yet go to work with mom and dad in the Kia factory and make some rent money.
Kids don’t need no education. Kids don’t need no thought control. Just my dark sarcasm about the classroom.
Hey! Busses! Leave those kids at home!
All in all, it’s just another sick comment, y’all.
Buses, what’d you leave behind for me?! Now I gotta drive this little brat to school myself?
Well, we all know that busses are a socialist plot to take away your FREEDUMBS!
One thing I’ve wondered for a long time, is… Why not add a second traffic bar? Many buses already have a traffic bar that rotates ninety degrees to block cross traffic. If there was a second bar that rotated out from the side of the bus wouldn’t that work as a deterrent? It would also be cheaper than creating an entire data hosting system and hiring reviewers.
It rotates 90 degrees to keep you a minimum space from the front of the bus, so the driver can keep sight of you over the hood.
The side should just deploy spike strips.
can you imagine all the female drivers that would break it off?
Why would female drivers break off a traffic bar?
The 1950’s called, it wants it’s joke back.
i guess you dont watch dash cam videos or body cam videos.
Statistically, men are more likely to be in an accident than females, but you go on with your tired gender stereotypes.
When I was in elementary my bus driver would swing into the left lane then back over to the right before stopping which left the bus placed diagonally across both lanes, blocking traffic. Once we were across the street and in our yards she’d pull away and traffic could proceed again. I don’t know why more bus drivers don’t do that.
This is what I am used to as well. Drivers who just choose to block the entire road at each stop. And I 100000% support this idea.
I dig the aggression, but not the idea of my kids being used as traffic shields.
I’m sure she was just a part of the statistic that got that bar added, but a friend of mine got run over by the bus in 3rd grade because she turned around because she had forgotten something and the driver couldn’t see her over the hood. She was injured badly, but made a full recovery ultimately. She had a broken pelvis where the front tire ran over her and was out of school for months.
Anyway, I fully support these cameras and was shocked by how often this occurs.
No issues with the spirit of this effort. Agree that kids need an extra measure of safety, especially since I see so many of them getting off the bus glued to their phones and clueless about their surroundings.
But I’m curious whether these tickets are enforceable. I don’t know about FL, but in my state, automated red light and school zone camera tickets are are managed by a private company and the fine print calls it a “collection notice” or something like that. If you attest it was not you driving, it gets dismissed. Even if there is a picture of you behind the wheel, it’s not admissible due to privacy laws.
I guess as long as it’s a deterrent, it’s effective.
they arent enforceable but they scare people. my ex gf got one and they kept sending threatening mail to our house. but her lawyer said to ignore it, we did, they went away. the tickets were sent by a company instead of the police department.
If they aren’t, then the law simply needs to be changed to make them so. If people continue to do this, I expect that will happen in places where that is not the case. Unlike red light cameras where too often the light timing is screwed with as revenue enhancement, this truly is a safety issue, full stop, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Should be GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL.
I don’t get why this is such a problem in FL, and evidently from these comments a lot of other southern states. Passing school buses in Maine, and presumably the rest of New England is a really, really rare thing. But it literally happens constantly down here – I have seen people do it!
My town implemented these a couple of years ago, right after a kid was struck and killed by a moron that thought it was a a good idea to go around the bus on a two lane road while he had the sign out and lights on. The guy was caught and got 20 years.
“estimates that 43.5 million illegal passes occurred across the country in the 2022-2023 school year.”
Which resulted in how many injuries / deaths? If something ‘dangerous’ happens 40+ million times a year but results in very few injuries, is it actually dangerous?
I’m sure there are more than a few deaths and injuries in 40,000,000 instances of people putting on their shoes.
This.
But the whole thing may be a revenue play, not really safety.
Here:
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/road-users/school-bus/
Not a lot of deaths but a good number of injuries per year.
This is the same logic that sees so many people injured on job sites. It’s also a needless risk to the youngest and most vulnerable portion of the population.
found the guy that likes to pass school buses when their lights are one
https://youtu.be/k2tOye9DKdQ?si=CJRuPcHFUXrdZ4-e
Please watch this and then rethink your post.
FYI, not spam….just the most effective traffic safety ad I’ve ever seen.
The Aussie’s have amazing Road Safety Videos.
I’ve used it at safety meetings for years (transportation business) and get choked up. Every. Time.
Balanced against the zero value of passing a stopped school bus, how many deaths and injuries of children are you prepared to accept?
A number approaching infinity.
Classy thing to troll about buddy
I remember a similar argument changing my mind about mandatory backup cameras. I guess it was brought in after a few kids were backed over, and if it helps prevent that, that’s a good enough reason for me.
Excellent point. Since only a percentage of people driving drunk injure someone, why bother with the law! I watch YouTube, eat breakfast, and check my work email on the drive into work but haven’t hit anything. All these stupid laws are pointless!
I’m so sick of people bitching about all sorts of new laws and overstepping (I agree some do) but they’re needed because these same people think they’re so fucking special they, because they’re good drivers, don’t need them. It’s frustrating to get stuck behind the bus some times but if following these rules/laws saves even 1 kids life I’m doing it.
ONE is too many. Would you like it to be your kid who is one of the unfortunate ones who does get killed by a school but passing asshole? There is simply zero reason for this behavior.