Millions of Illegal School Bus Passes Spur Calls for Automated Enforcement
- 7 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
By Edith Mwangi and Zoe Ligairi
May 1, 2026
Youthcast Media Group®
Heather Devers was 10 when a trip to school on a rural Fauquier County road turned into a scene of shattered glass and screaming.
She was sitting with her best friend in the last seat on the left side of the bus when a car smashed into it. She looked outside to see the driver, bloodied and shouting for help. Soon she and her friend were carried off the bus on wooden backboards and taken away in separate ambulances.
It wasn’t until after the shock had passed that she felt the pain of her broken arm, which healed faster than her emotional state. Devers was initially fearful of getting back on a school bus, but processing the trauma with her mother’s support and therapy eventually eased that fear.
"It’s not something you forget the next day or even the next year,’’ Devers said. “You never want to be remembered by a child for decades because you just wanted to pass a bus."
Devers, now senior director of experience, service and support at the child safety technology firm BusPatrol, is sharing her story publicly for the first time as safety officials call for stronger enforcement of illegal school bus passing with the recent release of a National Action Plan for School Bus Safety, which outlines a 50-state roadmap to curb what officials call a "stop-arm crisis."
Drivers across the country illegally pass stopped school buses approximately 39 million times per year—a figure derived from one-day surveys of bus drivers and extrapolated nationally, according to a report by the Governor’s Highway Safety Association (GHSA).
GHSA CEO Jonathan Adkins says the recommendations would help prevent tragedies.
“This is still an area where we're seeing too many risks, we're seeing too many near misses, and we don't want to wait for that awful, awful headline that we never want to read in order to take action,” Adkins said.
The report recommends:
States prioritize applying for grants that will improve school bus safety and invest in technologies like automated enforcement;
The State Highway Safety Offices (SHSO) should lead outreach and policy efforts to strengthen safety initiatives across school communities;
Data, technologies, and education — such as virtual reality driving simulations and student safety protocols like the "three big steps" rule — should be used to reduce risk and improve behavior around buses.
The report also calls for wider adoption of automated camera systems, currently authorized in Virginia, 24 other states and the District of Columbia. These systems, provided by firms including BusPatrol, Verra Mobility and Conduent, allow local governments to issue civil citations based on video evidence of stop-arm passings.
The technology relies on AI-powered sensors that trigger high-definition cameras the moment a bus's stop-arm is extended. The system bundles GPS coordinates, license plate data and video footage into an "evidence package." This digital file is first sent to local police, who must review the footage before a citation is mailed.
Data from BusPatrol and GHSA show that 90% to 98% of drivers who receive a camera-enforced ticket never receive a second ticket, suggesting a deterrent effect.
"When people see a police car on the side of the road, usually they'll slow down," Devers said. "We want people, when they see a school bus, to drive just like that—to drive properly, to stop and obey the law. We want them to see the bus as the enforcer of that."
The GHSA report says bus stop-arm camera technology can help school districts identify high-violation "hotspots" and deploy cameras to provide oversight that traditional policing cannot achieve.
Sadiqa Kendi, a pediatric emergency physician and chief medical officer of Safe Kids Worldwide, said the new National Action Plan “matters because it moves us from isolated efforts to coordinated action.”
“The journey to and from school, something so ordinary, should not be the most dangerous part of a child's day,” she said. “When a child is struck near a bus stop, it is not just a transportation failure, it is a systems failure and systems can be redesigned.”
She called for safe speeds in school zones, protected crossings, modern bus technology, better lighting and signage, traffic calming, driver accountability and “clear, consistent education,” which she said are “proven, evidence-based interventions. The problem has never been a lack of solutions. It has been fragmentation, inconsistent implementation, uneven investment and competing priorities.”
The GHSA report identifies significant obstacles that impede progress. Among them are outdated legal codes, inconsistent enforcement, and the challenges facing school bus drivers as they navigate traffic and monitor student behavior.
In some jurisdictions, traffic laws were written before automated systems existed, creating legal gray areas. Even when citations are issued, the report identifies a judicial barrier: prosecutors and judges frequently "plea down" stop-arm violations to minor traffic offenses. In its report, GHSA urges the judiciary to treat near-misses with the same gravity as crashes, arguing that reduced penalties can weaken deterrence.
The companies and jurisdictions face legal challenges, too. Motorists have filed lawsuits in Polk County and Miami-Dade County, Florida and Hempstead, New York, among other locations.
“These complaints are entirely baseless, and BusPatrol is vigorously defending them in court,” said spokesperson Kate Spree. “Our child safety programs fully comply with applicable state law, and we will not allow these claims to distract from our mission to protect children traveling to and from school each day.”
Verra Mobility Corporation, the bus stop arm company that is being sued in Polk County, Florida, declined to comment because the litigation is ongoing.
Critics of bus stop arm technology often suggest it has more to do with money than safety. The Cornwall Central School District in Orange County, New York voted 7-2 against the cameras for this school year, even though the county has a contract with Bus Patrol. Christian Brunelli, vice president of the district’s board of education, said the stop-arm program “is effectively a huge tax levy on residents.”
BusPatrol points out that 16 of 19 school districts in Orange County have opted into the countywide school bus safety program, with nearly 1,300 buses equipped with BusPatrol camera technology.
The company also says its programs cost nothing for taxpayers or school districts.
“We fund the full upfront investment—often millions of dollars—to equip buses with advanced safety technology, with costs recovered through violations issued to drivers who break the law,” said Spree. “Every contract includes hold-harmless provisions, ensuring taxpayers bear no financial risk while BusPatrol assumes full responsibility for deployment and funding.”
School districts are using the data gathered from violations to make their students safer, according to BusPatrol, which pointed to examples in Albany County, New York, Buffalo and Pittsburgh, where the data has been used to relocate bus stops on safer streets.
At the same time, bus drivers remain on the front lines. Many report daily stress from monitoring traffic while ensuring children board safely. For the nation’s 500,000 school bus drivers, the GHSA report warns that the repeated exposure to near-misses contributes to a burnout that threatens to worsen a critical national driver shortage.
Dr. Molly McGee-Hewitt, CEO of the National Association for Pupil Transportation, emphasizes how improved accessibility to bus safety measures can lighten the load for bus drivers.
“Right now, in too many places, because of finances and the cost to add things to existing buses, we're not taking advantage of the technology as we should,” McGee-Hewitt said. “I would say we're still relying on our bus drivers to do an awful lot, but it's getting better.”
However, adding automated enforcement won’t solve the issue on its own. All stakeholders, including law enforcement and safety advocates should provide their expertise to make a thorough, more lasting impact, the GHSA report states.
“Federal safety experts, State Highway Safety offices, local municipalities, law enforcement, boards of education and communities all over the country have all been saying the same thing, this dangerous behavior has to stop, and we need solutions that actually deliver results, not just measure the problem,” said Justin Meyers, President and Chief Innovation Officer at BusPatrol. “If we want different outcomes, we need different tools and systems, not just reminders or after-the-fact investigations.”
Devers’ work is part of ensuring that this collaboration happens: she has seen first-hand that “not everything's guaranteed, and you just really [must] rely on the people on the road, motorists, the bus drivers and technology that's available to keep your kids safe,” she said.
Her experience has shown her that risk looks different depending on the community. “You don't think about a back road in the country being this hot spot for illegal passings, but because they are stuck behind the bus for so long, they take every opportunity to get around the bus,” Devers explained.
“In the urban areas, we see multiple vehicles passing the stop arms while kids are trying to get to their house or trying to get on the bus, where it becomes super dangerous. So, I think it's understanding your community and where the risk lies and approaching [safety initiatives] in that way.”
“The push for technology and education is about confronting a calculation she says should not even be contemplated: a driver's convenience or a child’s life.
"It blows my mind that we would put children at risk for two minutes—getting to work or wherever you’re going two minutes earlier," Devers said. "Don't be that person that they carry in their mind. Be the person who advocates and stops and keeps them safe."
Edith Mwangi, a Kenyan multimedia journalist based in D.C. with a background in international reporting and politics, is a mentor-editor with Youthcast Media Group (YMG). She worked with YMG student Zoe Ligairi, a senior at Annandale High School in Annandale, Va. on this story. YMG Intern Sarah Gandluri contributed to this story.
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