A new report from Pittsburgh Public Schools found drivers are running school bus stop arms nearly 50 times each weekday.
Toi Kenney is among the school police officers tasked with reviewing footage of each detected violation to determine whether it warrants a ticket.
“It's unimaginable how many people run the bus arm, and the bus has been sitting there for minutes, and these kids have to wait on the sidewalk [or] dart into traffic,” she told reporters Thursday.
Stop-arm camera footage released by the district shows drivers ignoring school bus stop arms. One video depicts a driver hitting a child shortly after she exited the bus at the corner of Marshall Avenue and Brighton Road.
“We need help from families. We need help from all the drivers in the city to help keep our kids safe,” said PPS chief operations officer Mike McNamara. “That's the bottom line here.”
The district has contracted with the automated enforcement company BusPatrol since 2022 to ticket drivers violating Pennsylvania’s school bus stopping law.
Drivers must stop at least 10 feet away from school buses that have their red lights flashing and stop arm extended until the stop arm is withdrawn and all children have reached safety.
Drivers who violate the law are issued $300 penalties — an amount set by the state’s school bus automated enforcement program, which was established in 2018.
According to McNamara, $50 from each penalty collected is sent to the state’s school bus safety grant program, and $25 is sent to the Pittsburgh Public Schools police department as the approving agency for the tickets.
The remaining $225 is split evenly between BusPatrol and the district, which pays the company $125 a month to maintain the enforcement equipment. To date, the district has received $194,236 from the program, McNamara said.
Jason Elan with BusPatrol added that close to 5,000 tickets were issued between July and December.
“Kids are kids. You could teach them 50 million times and you got to reteach them again. They're going to dart out, they're not going to pay attention,” said LeAna Creighton, community schools coordinator for the district. “But us as drivers, as motorists, it is our job. It's our responsibility. It's the law.”
