Cobb School Board Approves Plan for Bus Cameras

The Cobb County school board has approved a plan to install cameras on all of the district’s school buses.  The idea is to catch vehicles that illegally pass a bus while it’s stopped. In 2009, a 5-year-old girl was struck and killed in Cobb County by a driver who ran past a school bus. That motivated a group of parents to lobby to change state law to allow cameras on buses. Sheri Lewis is a Cobb County parent. She co-founded the group “OperationStopArm.info,” which advocated for the law change and the new cameras.

“We’re going to get people to stop passing buses, they’re going to see ‘big yellow bus,’ and they’re going to think, ‘Woah, there’s children,’ or maybe they’re going to think that, ‘I’m going to get caught if I pass this bus,” Lewis says, “Either way, it’s protecting my children.”

Lewis says the fines attached to the violations will help change that behavior. A first offense will cost $300; it’s $750  for a second violation, and $1000  for a third. Revenue from the citations will pay for the program. The school board plans to have the cameras installed by the time school starts on August 13th.