School buses are poised to become the latest front in the widening use of traffic enforcement cameras in Montgomery County, as officials look to crack down on motorists who fail to yield to students being picked up or dropped off.
County Council President Valerie Ervin (D-Silver Spring) introduced legislation Tuesday that would allow police to use external cameras on many of the 1,264 county school buses to ticket offending drivers.
Catching violators . . .
School days 2011-12
A majority of council members indicated Tuesday that they support the legislation; a public hearing is scheduled for January. County officials say the bill — like laws allowing speed cameras and red-light cameras in the county — will help police at a time when budgets are tight.
School buses are equipped with flashing lights and a stop arm to warn that children are boarding or exiting the bus. By law, other vehicles must stop when the lights are on and the stop arm is extended. But some drivers flout the rule, and police and school officials are trying to crack down.
Since the 1970s, cars passing a stopped school bus have killed more than 400 children nationwide, according to the Institute for Transportation Research and Education at North Carolina State University.
Sometimes, the violator can be identified by police or the school bus driver. The maximum penalty is a $1,000 fine and three points on the driver’s record. According to Maryland State Police data, 25 to 30 such tickets are issued in Montgomery each month.
But often, the offending driver can’t be identified, and in such cases, authorities can only issue a warning letter to the vehicle’s owner. If Ervin’s bill becomes law, the cameras would record the license plates of vehicles passing the stop arm, and their owners would receive a ticket in the mail. The maximum fine would be $250 for the owner, and no points would be added to the owner’s record.
The cameras record whenever the ignition is on, and school officials say the footage can be used for training purposes. But they do not intend to use the cameras to monitor other traffic violations and would need additional legislation to use the video to ticket people for other traffic violations.
“Next to drunk driving and reckless driving, it is one of the top five most-serious violations in our roadways,” said Capt. Thomas C. Didone, who runs the Montgomery police traffic division. “We don’t have enough law enforcement resources to effectively conduct enforcement, so I think it’s very wise and prudent that they are giving us the opportunity to use technology to improve safety.”
The cost of the program remains unclear.
Montgomery is not the only county in the area that is pursuing such legislation. So is Frederick, whose officials led efforts to push state legislators to pass a law in April that allows local jurisdictions to install the cameras.
Montgomery County has more than 1,100 police officers, but it does not have any officers assigned full time to school bus safety enforcement, Didone said. State grants funded such Montgomery initiatives in the past, but the money has dried up, he said.
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