In 2019, the state of New York enacted legislation that allowed school districts to install safety cameras on school buses to capture drivers who illegally passed stop buses. However, the law was subject to a number of legal challenges, mainly from drivers who argued that the tickets issued in response to the camera footage were lacking sufficient evidence.
With some additional rewriting, the law appears to have a more solid legal footing for now. But that doesn’t mean drivers who receive tickets for passing a school bus should just plead guilty. Find out how The New York Traffic Ticket Lawyers can assist you.
What to Know About School Bus Traffic Tickets
New York’s school bus traffic ticket program was designed to catch drivers who continue past a stopped school bus. Cities review the footage and mail drivers tickets of $250 for a first offense or $300 for a second or subsequent offense within an 18-month period. The driver then either pays the ticket or goes to court to contest it.
The tickets come with no points and no insurance premium increase. That’s because unlike a ticket that a law enforcement officer issues during a traffic stop, the cameras cannot authoritatively state who is driving the vehicle. All they can capture is a vehicle driving past the school bus.
These tickets are similar to red-light cameras that catch drivers running red lights and then mail them a ticket. However, they came under fire from drivers and lawyers, which cast the viability of the program in considerable doubt.
Legal Challenges to the New York School Bus Cameras
Drivers who contested the school bus camera tickets argued that the stills and videos failed to prove the following:
- That the bus was a properly marked school bus
- That the bus was either loading or unloading students at the time the vehicle passed
The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court dismissed a ticket in which an attorney represented himself and argued the above points. Following this, other courts began throwing out cases involving school bus camera tickets. Prosecutors simply could not prove the above points, and they have the burden of doing so.
Revisions to the Law
In response, the New York legislature revised the law to state that if a bus camera shows a driver traversing past a stopped bus, there will be a rebuttable presumption that the bus was stopped to let students on or off the bus, or that it was stopped behind another bus doing so. This shifts the burden of proof to the driver, who must then prove that students were not getting on or off a bus.
For now, the ticket program as revised remains legal, although further challenges are possible. While the tickets do not result in points or insurance hikes, they can hit the wallet hard. Evidence has suggested that this instills better vigilance about not passing school buses and that it causes a decline in such incidents.
Can You Challenge a School Bus Traffic Camera Ticket?
As the legal revisions suggest, there are ways to contest a traffic ticket that a school bus camera issues. The ticket shifts the burden of proof to the driver, who has the opportunity to prove that children were not being let on or off a bus at the time they passed. The driver can potentially offer such evidence as:
- Dash cam footage from their or another vehicle
- Eyewitness statements from a passenger, another motorist, or someone else
- Surveillance camera footage in the vicinity of the school bus
It may also be possible to challenge the reliability of the camera footage itself. If the cameras were not properly maintained or were malfunctioning at the time they captured the driver, your attorney can potentially have the ticket thrown out of court.
You owe it to yourself to explore your legal options, and you have the right to present a defense against school bus traffic camera tickets. Our law firm can help. Connect with The New York Traffic Ticket Lawyers today to learn more.