Drivers caught on camera passing school buses

Quebec drivers are breaking the law 30,000 times a day by driving past school buses as they flash stop signs, according to a report issued by the company BusPatrol.

Quebec’s Transport ministry announced in February that BusPatrol would conduct the study as part of a pilot project.

BusPatrol installed cameras on 13 school buses that then went about their regular business in eight Quebec cities for 45 days starting early in March.

The study looked at how many times a vehicle completely passed a school bus as it was stopped to let children board or get off, with its stop sign and flashing red lights in use. They found that each bus was passed by drivers an average of 3.8 times per day. That adds up to 30,000 daily infractions for the province’s 8,000 school buses, the group estimates.

Roberto Rego of BusPatrol said they were surprised by how many infractions they found.

“The one reason I think we underestimated is the way that people are distracted when they drive, and also the amount of people who don’t know the law,” Rego said.

Rego said researchers interviewed about 10 drivers after they watched them drive past a stopped bus. He was surprised that distraction could be a factor in passing buses even on one-lane streets, where they found 1.8 to two infractions per bus per day, according to Rego.

“The bus is right in front of them, the red lights are open, the arm is open. It’s like a Christmas tree, but they pass through, anyway,” Rego said. While licence plate numbers are visible in the more than 10,000 videos the company captured, Rego said there will not be consequences for the drivers they saw break the law.

Eleven organizations make up the committee that’s mandated to analyze the research results and make recommendations. It includes the ministries of transport and justice, police chiefs and local police departments, school boards and administrators, and a bus drivers’ federation.

BusPatrol delivered their findings to that committee at the end of May, Rego said.

Transport ministry spokesperson Marie-Pier Richard said the committee expects to release its own analysis of the results within the coming weeks.

As for BusPatrol, the company’s main recommendation is to install their camera technology on 400 buses in Quebec. For the first half of the first school year in which the program was implemented, drivers who went past stopped school buses would be sent a warning. After that, the law should be enforced, Rego said.

“If we don’t fine them, they won’t change their behaviour,” Rego said.

“The only way to do things right now is to find new ways, and I think the technology that is available now can enforce the law,” Rego said. He added that the complete surveillance technology his company offers would cost $10,000 per school bus.