Newsflash • Mayor Byron W. Brown and Buffalo Public Schools

BUFFALO, NY – City of Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown and the Buffalo Public School District today announced the installation of soldered cameras at school bus stops as part of an ongoing effort to to ensure the safety of students traveling to and from school, and to discourage motorists. illegal passage of school buses. Every bus in the District’s fleet will be equipped with stop arm cameras. The cameras will use artificial intelligence to detect cars illegally passing school buses. It captures photos of motorists’ license plates. Tickets will subsequently be mailed once the enforcement period begins.

“Passing in front of a stopped school bus is extremely dangerous. Our children travel daily on these school buses. We must take every precaution to ensure students get to and from school safely,” said Mayor Brown. “This is a new initiative that will help keep students safe when getting on and off school buses in the City of Buffalo.

“Ensuring the safety of all of our students who rely on yellow buses to get to and from school each day is a top priority for Buffalo Public Schools,” said Buffalo Public School Superintendent Dr. Dr. Tonja M. Williams. “I commend Mayor Byron Brown for actively working with the Buffalo Common Council to make stop-arm cameras on school buses a reality. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has determined that children face the greatest safety risk when getting on or off a school bus. Implementing stop arm cameras will increase enforcement of existing traffic laws that require motorists to stop in front of school buses that have stopped to allow students to board or disembark safely.

The city partnered with a company called BusPatrol to launch the Stop Gun Control Program. BusPatrol will collect the information collected by the cameras and provide it to the City of Buffalo Police Department. Each incident will be reviewed by BPD before a notice of violation is issued.

• An awareness period will take place from July 1 to September 30. During this period, warnings will be issued.

“We are proud to partner with the City of Buffalo to combat reckless motorist behavior near school buses,” said Karoon Monfared, CEO of BusPatrol. “This partnership is a win-win for student safety and has been proven to significantly reduce the rate of violations, with our longest running program, Suffolk County, reporting a 40% reduction in violations since the start of the program.

Technology, installation and maintenance are provided at no cost to the school district or taxpayers. Additionally, districts will benefit from additional safety features, such as internal cameras to monitor dangerous activities on the bus.