After video caught a driver blasting by a stopped school bus in Plymouth, Massachusetts, nearly hitting a child, a Boston city councilor is pushing for the installation of cameras to prevent more such dangerous incidents.
Boston City Councilor Enrique Pepén contacted NBC10 Boston after seeing a startling video out of Plymouth showing an SUV drive around a stopped school bus, narrowly missing a child in a driveway.
The video highlights a traffic danger that Pepén has spent months fighting, joining calls for school bus-mounted cameras that would help catch drivers who ignore bus stop signs and deter others in Massachusetts.
It's illegal to pass a school bus that's stopped to pick up a child — when the bus extends a stop sign and flashes its red lights.
Bus cameras cannot be used to catch law breakers without legislative approval, he said. As the law stands now, police have to witness the violation in-person to write a ticket.
“The goal is, you start this program, you put cameras in stop signs, people are going to hopefully not continue to break the law. But if they do, they have to pay their ticket and then hopefully, once everyone gets the gist of, 'Alright, no more running past the stop sign of the school bus,' we won't have to worry about it anymore," Pepén said.
The cities of Peabody and Salem have conducted pilot programs, each leading to hundreds of drivers being cited for illegally passing school buses.
The Massachusetts House already passed a bill that would allow bus cameras, and the Senate is now considering the proposal in committee.
