MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Va. (WFXR) – Kids who get on and off the bus often have to cross the street, and that puts them in the danger zone.
According to Bus Patrol, a company that makes technology designed to catch drivers illegally going around stopped buses, school buses are passed illegally in North America more than 17 million times each year, and Montgomery County is no exception.
“Some days in the past, I’ve had three or four violators in one day, and it needs to be stopped,” Ryan Rose, a bus driver with Montgomery County for the last eight years, said. “I’ve had children when I’ve drove in Blacksburg especially, almost get hit.”
As a response, the school system has partnered with Bus Patrol to get the technology on its buses.
The hope is it will make things safer for students and drivers, especially bus drivers.
“This is just one more opportunity to enforce the law that’s already in place,” Montgomery County Public Schools superintendent Bernard Bragen said. “It takes the burden off of our drivers to reporting things and trying to follow up while they’re also managing a bus with potentially 70 students in it.”
The buses are equipped with multiple cameras across the front, sides and back. Once the amber lights come on, video starts rolling.
Artificial intelligence (AI) powered software logs the information on any car that breaks the stop-arm law. Bus Patrol reviews all the data before deciding whether to send it off to law enforcement.
“If they determine based off their review that it’s a ticket into the issue, we then get that information back from law enforcement,” Ryan Monell, the senior vice president for government operations with Bus Patrol, said. “Then on behalf of the county and the school district, we’ll mail that out to the registered owner of the vehicle.”
That sounds great to sheriff Hank Partin, whose deputies don’t have to worry, just because they can’t be everywhere all at once.
“As much as we would like to be with every school bus at every stop, obviously we cannot make that happen,” he said. “The technology has enabled us to keep an eye on every school bus at every stop in our county.”
All buses will have this technology in place by February.