“I've heard about it from our bus drivers but to actually watch the footage, it makes it even more…just concerning.”
Orchard View Schools Superintendent Thomas Hamilton says the district recently used grant money to upgrade the camera system on its buses.
The enhanced footage reveals an alarming number of dangerous situations when cars speed by buses picking up or dropping off students, bus lights flashing, stop signs out.
“With our new cameras, we are able to see not only that car has passed, but record the car, sometimes get the license plate and sometimes get a pretty good image of the driver.”
Those videos are now going to the Muskegon Township Police Department.
“We'll get multiple situations per day and when we send them over, they are able to determine if it was an actual violation or not, and then they issue citations.”
In Michigan, passing a stopped school bus with flashing red lights is a civil infraction carrying a fine up to $500 plus three points on the driver’s record.
Hamilton hopes the message reaches drivers before someone gets hurt.
“You can't walk back a tragedy like that and so many people would be impacted. We're really trying to just get awareness out and hopefully we can slow some of this down.”
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