If you pass a Cobb County school bus picking up or dropping off kids this fall, it's more likely to cost you.
Cobb's school board is expected to vote Thursday night on whether to become one of the first and largest Georgia districts to allow an Arizona-based company to issue $300 citations to motorists they film driving around stopped school buses. The company, American Traffic Solutions, will use images from more than 100 cameras the school system will install on school buses to catch the impatient or distracted drivers.
After years of relying on flashing lights, a bus arm with a stop sign attached to it and bus driver testimony to issue warnings, several local districts, including Fulton and Fayette counties, also are turning to cameras and hefty fines to deter drivers.
If passed, the Cobb contract will allow American Traffic Solutions to keep up to 75 percent of generated revenue from the citations issued; the company will absorb the cost of the cameras. Cobb police and the school system will split the rest of the generated revenue for administrative costs.
"I watched too many cars pass the school bus while my children got on the bus," said Sheri Lewis, a Cobb County parent who helped start Operation Stop Arm, a Cobb County advocacy group. "When you watch that happen, it's very alarming and scary to think your children are in the street while cars are passing the bus."
Operation Stop Arm began in 2009 when an elderly woman swerved around a school bus onto a curb and struck and killed a kindergartner who had just exited the bus.
"Children are dying all over the nation," Lewis said.
If a police officer catches a driver passing a stopped bus, the officer can issue up to a $1,000 moving violation misdemeanor and dock 6 points off the person's license — 15 points within 24 months can get a driver's license suspended.
The company-issued citations won't carry points or be reported to the driver's insurer.
A law was passed in 2011 that allowed school systems to install cameras on the outside of their buses to catch motorists, but it stopped short in allowing the district or outside vendors to issue citations. At that point, only police could issue them.
A Cobb pilot program last year, using cameras installed on 102 of the 1,188 buses, caught 871 violators of the law. But because of limits in the law, only warnings were issued that carried no weight.
An amendment to the law last year allowed outside vendors to issue citations.
The new program in Cobb will install better cameras on those buses this school year and operate similar to red light cameras. The buses that travel in the highest traffic areas and get the most complaints from bus drivers will get the cameras.
Tiny white cameras installed on the driver's side of a school bus will turn on when a bus stops to let off or pick up students and snap a shot of passing cars' license plates.
American Traffic Solutions will send the video and an image to the Cobb County Police Department, which will confirm whether it's a violation. Then, the company will send the vehicle owner a citation along with the picture in the mail. The Cobb County Police Department can force violators to pay up.
The company already has similar contracts with Georgia districts such as Newton County, Carroll County and the city of Carrollton, as well as in several other states.
Critics have argued that red light cameras only generate money for municipalities and private vendors and do little to make intersections safer.
Gerry Weber, a local civil rights lawyer, questioned the constitutionality of the Legislature giving private companies police responsibilities.
"It sounds like the Legislature is giving a private company a quasi-judicial role," he said.
Why motorists won't wait the extra few minutes for a bus to drop off or pick up students confounds Cobb police spokesman Sgt. Dana Pierce, who has stopped several motorists over the years and heard a plethora of excuses.
"Drivers are so involved in talking on the phone or distracted with their stereo or not paying attention to what's happening in front of them," Pierce said.
With the school year starting for several metro Atlanta-area school systems in a few weeks, police and school administrators are hoping such a policy will make drivers more vigilant when kids are around.
"I know all of us are in a rush to get to work and get home from work," said Carla Duffy, a mother who lives in Powder Springs, "but the safety of the kids is the most important thing."
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