Alamance-Burlington school board members are considering launching a new program that aims to cut down on stop-arm violations – i.e., drivers who pass yellow school buses that are stopped or are preparing to stop – in an effort to save lives.
ABSS superintendent Dr. Aaron Fleming piloted the “Bus Patrol” program in Harnett County schools in September 2021, according to that school system.
It would cost ABSS about $225 per bus, per month, plus “a small variable” of approximately $50 each for processing tickets issued for stop-arm violations, a representative from the company, Bus Patrol, told school board members last week. The program is funded entirely by civil fines collected from drivers who are charged with passing a stopped school bus, the company’s representative insisted.
ABSS currently operates approximately 120 yellow school buses, school officials subsequently confirmed for The Alamance News.
“It goes along with school safety, keeping our students safe from the time they get [on] the bus in the morning,” Fleming told the board. “I dare say it would be a break-even proposition. My previous experience, it was more break-even, because it was cameras we didn’t have to buy, technology we didn’t have to buy.”
The latest available statistics from the state Department of Transportation show there were 1,079 school bus crashes statewide in 2023.
Alamance County had 24 school bus crashes with 16 injuries and no fatalities in 2023, according to DOT’s figures, which don’t distinguish between bus crashes and stop-arm violations. (Harnett County had 13 school bus crashes with 13 injuries and no fatalities in 2023, according to DOT.)
State law classifies a charge of passing a stopped school bus as a misdemeanor, subject to a minimum fine of $500. It is a Class I felony, subject to a minimum fine of $1,250, to hit someone while passing a stopped school bus.
A driver who hits and kills someone while passing a stopped school bus will be guilty of a Class H felony, which carries a $2,500 fine and potential three-year drivers’ license revocation. State law requires drivers traveling in either direction on the same road or street as a stopped yellow school bus to come to a full stop and remain stopped until bus driver has withdrawn the mechanical stop signal, turned off the flashing red lights, and has started to move forward.
Steve Randazzo, chief growth officer at Bus Patrol, gave board members a rundown on the history of the company, how the program works, and how its AI-driven technology “makes the ride to and from school safer for students” and drivers. “The most dangerous time of a students’ day is actually getting on and off the school bus,” Randazzo said, emphasizing that one fatality is too many.
Bus Patrol would cover the all of the costs to equip ABSS buses with “really, really high-end cameras” on all sides in order to capture the front, side, and rear angles, Randazzo said. Bus Patrol’s automated, AI-driven system is “30 percent more accurate than the human eye” at detecting stop-arm violations, he said.
The company’s AI system works hand-in-hand with law enforcement, with Bus Patrol managing all of the administrative work, to include scheduling court hearings and collecting fines on behalf of the local court system, based on Randazzo’s description to the school board.
However, someone from the law enforcement agency in which the violation occurred would make the final call, based on the camera footage, about whether to charge a driver, he said.
“I think the intention is, we’d have a deputy from the sheriff’s office who would view all of the video footage,” Randazzo said.
“We had a preliminary meeting with the sheriff before this, and he said, direct quote – ‘This is the greatest thing since sliced bread,’” Randazzo said.
The company would also develop “heat maps” to identify and concentrate on areas where the most stop-arm violations tend to occur, he added.
Bus Patrol would implement and manage an online payment portal, the chief growth officer explained. Citations include multiple pictures of the vehicle in front of the bus and then breaking the law.
If ABSS decides to move forward with the program, Randazzo said that Alamance County’s commissioners would have to pass a local ordinance outlining: how citations would be issued; penalties for stop-arm violations; enforcement procedures; and the process for appealing a citation and fine, similar to an ordinance that Harnett County’s commissioners adopted in 2021.
“You have to do public meetings, warnings, [send out letters that] announce clearly the program will go live on this date,” Randazzo told the board. The company would furnish robocall scripts to notify Alamance County residents about the new program and would provide other educational materials, as well as information to be posted on the ABSS website, he said.
Founded in 2017, Bus Patrol claims that 90 percent of first-time violators are never charged with a subsequent stop-arm violation.
Drivers who are charged but don’t pay the fine can have a registration hold placed on their license plates, meaning they wouldn’t be able to renew their tags until they pay any outstanding fines, Randazzo said.
A formal request to launch the Bus Patrol program in ABSS was not presented to the board for a vote.
“We plan on having more conversations and seeing where this goes,” Fleming said during the work session. “Comparing to my previous experience and what that could look like here, is most of those were rural roads, and we were getting something like 20 violations per day…It certainly is a buzz in town when it happens.”
