Bridgeport police have looked at tens of thousands of video clips since September. The videos were captured by cameras on the school district’s 248 buses, which are also outfitted with license plate readers.
Bridgeport police have looked at tens of thousands of video clips since September. The videos were captured by cameras on the school district’s 248 buses, which are also outfitted with license plate readers.
The city took action after a pilot program showed drivers failing to stop for school buses at a rate of about 75 violations per weekday.
Sen. Herron Gaston (D-Bridgeport) pushed for legislation that allows municipalities to adopt their own local ordinances against passing a bus when it’s stopped to let children on and off.
Violators can be fined up to $250, and the law took effect July 1, 2024.
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After seeing the results of its six-month pilot program, Bridgeport outfitted the district’s entire bus fleet with cameras and license plate readers. The data is sent to police within 48 hours.
From Sept. 1 through Feb. 7 of this year, Bridgeport police said they reviewed 13,111 possible violations. Of those, 10,738 citations were approved.
With an 89.1% approval rate, Bridgeport said the statistics are on par with what they saw last school year.
Investigations
Almost all of the tickets (92.5%) were mailed to addresses in Connecticut.
There is an appeals process. Bridgeport said 1,098 hearings were requested.
To see more from our Reckless on our Roads series, click here.
