By Brian Trompeter
Starting next spring, area motorists who pass stopped school buses that are loading or unloading children run the risk of having their actions captured on video – and being fined.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on June 27 unanimously approved an agreement with the county’s School Board to install and operate video-monitoring systems on school buses. The program, which initially will feature camera systems on the stop arms of 50 buses, likely will go live in spring 2024, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) officials said.
County police will participate in the program’s enforcement and will work with the school system to evaluate the initiative’s administrative process and effectiveness.
Authorities will issue violators summonses requiring payment of a $250 civil fine. As with instances involving red-light and speed cameras, authorities will mail the summonses to vehicles’ owners, who may appeal the charges.
Supervisors in January 2017 adopted an ordinance to allow FCPS to install and operate such video-monitoring systems. On Feb. 7 this year, Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay (D) and Supervisor John Foust (D-Dranesville) put forth a board matter requesting that the school system update supervisors on the status of the camera system’s implementation plan.
FCPS officials used a competitive-bidding process to select American Traffic Solutions Inc. (doing business as Verra Mobility) as the program’s vendor. The CrossingGuard camera systems will cost $10,900 each and there will be a $1,750 fee to relocate an operable camera system to another bus.
Supervisor Rodney Lusk (D-Franconia) said he was pleased about the camera initiative.
“Personally, over the years, I’ve actually witnessed individuals failing to stop when a school bus has its stop-bar deployed,” Lusk said. “It’s inconceivable . . . insane.”
The program’s implementation took an “embarrassingly long period of time” and required multiple changed to state law, said Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay (D), who attributed some of the delay to interpretations made by the school system’s legal team.
“This is a momentous moment here,” he said, adding, “I get that it may not be a No. 1 or No. 2 necessary priority of the School Board or the school system, but candidly, it is to us because passing a school bus with flashing red lights, under no circumstances that I can conceive of, is appropriate behavior.”
School-bus drivers, who are “distracted in a million other ways to protect kids’ safety,” favor the camera initiative, McKay said. The objective here is to change driver behavior, not collect revenue, he said.
Foust called the lengthy lead-up time – which actually began a couple of years before the supervisors’ ordinance passage in 2017 – one of the most frustrating experiences he’d had on the Board of Supervisors “in terms of failure on the part of the School Board to cooperate with us a very important issue.”
County officials in the last three months have seen an average 33-percent speed reduction in locations where speed and work-zone cameras been implemented, said Deputy County Executive Thomas Arnold.
The county’s Office of Public Affairs and Fairfax County Public Schools will conduct awareness campaigns alerting the public about the stop-arm camera program’s implementation, he said.
“It is disappointing that this can’t be rolled out in advance of next school year, when you have parents in the community focused and we have a lot of opportunities for education,” McKay said, adding that the delayed implementation at least would allow plenty of time to inform the public about the initiative.
