Police Issued More Than 54,000 School Bus Citations to Motorists in 2018-19

[Anonymous]

See link here, I’m posting here because it’s MCPS school related.

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/schools/police-issued-more-than-54000-school-bus-citations-to-motorists-in-2018-19/

[Anonymous]

FANTASTIC!

People drive around buses All.The.Time in my Silver Spring neighborhood. Even the parents who drive their kids to the bus stop. I don't understand it! You are dropping your OWN kid off at the bus stop, and then you zoom around the bus??

Glad they are cracking down.

[Anonymous]

I think a lot of people don't know this law. They should slap it on buses and do a public education campaign. As a foreigner who was allowed to drive without passing a DC or MD driver's license, I did not know this at first, because my home country does not have this law.

[Anonymous]

We have gotten a few that are bull shit - we were stopping but triggers the camera anyway, or had evidently stopped a millimeter ahead of where we were supposed to. They just print the tickets bc they know people won’t fight them.

I also didn’t know that you are supposed to stop even on the other side of a six lane road with a meridian (even when the kids aren’t going to be crossing). That seems excessive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have gotten a few that are bull shit - we were stopping but triggers the camera anyway, or had evidently stopped a millimeter ahead of where we were supposed to. They just print the tickets bc they know people won’t fight them.

I also didn’t know that you are supposed to stop even on the other side of a six lane road with a meridian (even when the kids aren’t going to be crossing). That seems excessive.

You don’t have to stop if their is a median. Divided road don’t apply

[Anonymous]

My retired mother's house is directly in front of an elementary school bus stop. She has seen more near-misses than she cares to count -- despite the installation of seriously high speed bumps before and after the bus stop.

She is close to the 7-year-old twins across the street, and nearly saw one of them killed.

If you see a school bus, freaking STOP. It's not worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have gotten a few that are bull shit - we were stopping but triggers the camera anyway, or had evidently stopped a millimeter ahead of where we were supposed to. They just print the tickets bc they know people won’t fight them.

I also didn’t know that you are supposed to stop even on the other side of a six lane road with a meridian (even when the kids aren’t going to be crossing). That seems excessive.

You have received multiple tickets for passing a stopped school bus?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have gotten a few that are bull shit - we were stopping but triggers the camera anyway, or had evidently stopped a millimeter ahead of where we were supposed to. They just print the tickets bc they know people won’t fight them.

I also didn’t know that you are supposed to stop even on the other side of a six lane road with a meridian (even when the kids aren’t going to be crossing). That seems excessive.

You have received multiple tickets for passing a stopped school bus?

I side eyed that as well. Interesting that the PP thinks they’re BS. Looks like they need to research the law and then actually abide by it.

[Anonymous]

We got one in our neighborhood. Video shows we were 1.5 parking spaces away when the stop sign came out (lined spaces on the side of the road). At 25 MPH, that's 37 feet per second. We were roughly 25 feet from the bus which means we would have had less than a second to stop. I would have fought it if I had more time but they state that if you fight it (a $250 fine) and lose, it jumps up to $500. That's crap. The same bus runs the stop sign almost every day.

It's a lot BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We got one in our neighborhood. Video shows we were 1.5 parking spaces away when the stop sign came out (lined spaces on the side of the road). At 25 MPH, that's 37 feet per second. We were roughly 25 feet from the bus which means we would have had less than a second to stop. I would have fought it if I had more time but they state that if you fight it (a $250 fine) and lose, it jumps up to $500. That's crap. The same bus runs the stop sign almost every day.

It's a lot BS.

The yellow lights come on before the red lights come on. And you know the stop is there.

[Anonymous]

Rockville PD likes to do bus stings once in awhile. I saw one in action on Shady Grove. They caught 3-5 cars at once. It was perfection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We got one in our neighborhood. Video shows we were 1.5 parking spaces away when the stop sign came out (lined spaces on the side of the road). At 25 MPH, that's 37 feet per second. We were roughly 25 feet from the bus which means we would have had less than a second to stop. I would have fought it if I had more time but they state that if you fight it (a $250 fine) and lose, it jumps up to $500. That's crap. The same bus runs the stop sign almost every day.

It's a lot BS.

Rubbish. If it's in your neighborhood, you know it's there and shouldn't have been surprised. The yellow lights go on first and the red lights don't start flashing until the driver actually opens the door. You gambled and lost, deal with it. I routinely have to wait for a particular bus because of the timing of my commute and I never try to get past it at the last second for precisely this reason. I know exactly where and when it stops and if I didn't want to get stuck waiting, I could have left a minute earlier.

Even if you don't know where the stop is, if you're in a residential area at certain hours of the day, it should not come as a shock to you if a school bus stops to pick up or drop off kids. You should be aware and watching for it. They are big and yellow and kind of hard to miss.

[Anonymous]

My only concern is where does the money go? If the county sent out 54,000 tickets at a cost of $200 per ticket (as per the article), then the county made $10,800,000. It even half of those tickets were issued by officers, then it could be as high as $12 million dollars (as per the article, officer citations are higher).

Where is all the money going? Is it flowing back to MCPS? Who is holding the school board accountable for how these funds are spent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My only concern is where does the money go? If the county sent out 54,000 tickets at a cost of $200 per ticket (as per the article), then the county made $10,800,000. It even half of those tickets were issued by officers, then it could be as high as $12 million dollars (as per the article, officer citations are higher).

Where is all the money going? Is it flowing back to MCPS? Who is holding the school board accountable for how these funds are spent?

Why would it do that? Montgomery County Police installed the cameras and issues the tickets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My only concern is where does the money go? If the county sent out 54,000 tickets at a cost of $200 per ticket (as per the article), then the county made $10,800,000. It even half of those tickets were issued by officers, then it could be as high as $12 million dollars (as per the article, officer citations are higher).

Where is all the money going? Is it flowing back to MCPS? Who is holding the school board accountable for how these funds are spent?

Why would it do that? Montgomery County Police installed the cameras and issues the tickets.

If the cameras are installed on MCPS buses it would only make sense that the police department that uses the school district's school buses would get a kick back from it. Without the school buses the county would not be raking in the dough. DUH!