[UPDATE December 4, 3:38pm] By an 8-0 vote, the New Jersey Assembly Appropriations Committee on Monday approved the bill authorizing school bus monitoring systems to record images of drivers who pass a bus illegally.
Original story below:
The New Jersey Assembly Transportation Committee is scheduled to vote on a bill this week which would allow school districts to mount cameras on school buses and provide those recordings to police cite drivers who pass illegally while students are getting on or off the bus.
The bill authorizes a municipality or school district operating or providing Type I or Type II school buses that transport students to record if a motor vehicle passes a school bus while the bus is exhibiting its flashing light.
According to the bill, any suspected violation would be made provided to the local law enforcement agency, which will then issue a summons within 90 days of determining that a suspected violation occurred.
Under the bill, a $250 penalty would be imposed on a driver who passes a school bus if the violation is caught on the school bus monitoring system.
If passed and signed by the governor, the program would operate in a similar manner to the state red light camera program, which came to an end in December of 2014.
Under that pilot program, videos would be reviewed by police, who would decide whether to issue a summons.
A violation that is evidenced by the recorded images captured by a school bus monitoring system would not result in penalty points or automobile insurance eligibility points being assessed on the violator.
Similar laws have failed to pass the full Legislature in recent years.
It’s about time!
Alot of busses in Monsey have them
How can you issue a ticket to the driver if you can not view their face? The violator may not be the owner of the vehicle. That was one of the faults of the “speed camera” ticketing – no facial recognition.
Does that mean that the offending vehicle should not be ticketed?
The offending vehicle did nothing wrong. The DRIVER of the offending vehicle did something wrong. After all, the vehicle is just a dump chunk of metal and has no brain. It just does what the DRIVER wants it to do.
Most people know very well that when they are loaning their car to someone, they know more or less if that guy is going to show off and pretend that he is in a big rush to Honolulu and drive recklessly all over town as if he owns the road.
I think they should use the cameras to ticket the speeding bus drivers as well.
i think people in lakewood should stop acting like this is a joke. i saw many times kids almost being hit. stop texting while driving, gets headlights, stop speadiing.
its a great mitzvah to learn torah all day, also a big avaira to kill someone, braking someones bones is also bad.