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Tories to beef up school bus safety with cameras

Thestar.com
April 29, 2019
Robert Benzie

Smile, you’ll soon be on candid camera if you illegally pass a school bus in Ontario.

Under new measures announced Thursday by Transportation Minister Jeff Yurek, evidence of reckless driving captured by cameras mounted on school buses will be admissible in court without the need for a live witness.

Side-mounted cameras will be used to help prosecute motorists who drive past school buses that are stopped with their signals flashing under changes to Ontario law announced Thursday by Transportation Minister Jeff Yurek.

That will make it easier to prosecute school bus scofflaws.

“The safety of our most precious resource, our children, is our government’s number one priority,” Yurek told reporters at a school bus yard in London.

“We intend to create a regulatory framework that would allow for more efficient enforcement and prosecution to keep our children safer.”

Yurek said the Progressive Conservatives also plan legislation to allow municipalities to target drivers who threaten the safety of children on school buses with stiffer cash fines beyond provincial offences.

Rob Murphy, president of the Independent School Bus Operator Association, praised the government for acting.

“We fully support ... the use of school bus stop-arm cameras as evidence of passing a stopped school bus,” said Murphy, noting drivers and operators have been “looking forward to this announcement for some years.”

About 837,000 Ontario students take a school bus each day.

In 2017, a pilot project tested the camera technology in Mississauga, Kitchener-Waterloo, Brantford and Sudbury.

It found drivers blew by the buses illegally with disturbing frequency, even though lights were flashing and the stop-arms were activated.

In Mississauga, there was an average of two and half incidents per bus every day.

At the time, Mayor Bonnie Crombie said the province had to act.

“We must take action to reduce these incidences and increase safety for our children. We cannot wait for serious injury or a fatality before we act,” she said in 2017.

In opposition, both former Tory MPP Michael Harris and current MPP Rick Nicholls (Chatham-Kent-Lambton) championed the move.

“It’s long overdue,” Nicholls said Thursday, predicting it would help school bus drivers do their jobs more safely.

Currently, drivers can be charged if they pass a stopped school bus with its upper red lights flashing and face fines of up to $2,000 and six demerit points for a first offence.

For repeat offenders, the fines can be up to $4,000, six demerit points, and up to six months in jail.