There are driving habits that are merely annoying, and then there are driving habits that put children in danger. Blowing past a stopped school bus with its red lights flashing and stop-arm extended falls firmly in the second category, and yet Monroe County, New York, has had to write that lesson out on a citation 18,000 times and counting. That figure came front and center at County Executive Adam Bello’s State of the County address, where he shared footage of drivers doing exactly that — one of whom took it so far as to veer onto the sidewalk to get around the stopped bus. The crowd’s reaction was about what you’d expect.
The School Bus Safety Program launched in October 2023 as a partnership between Monroe County and BusPatrol, a company that installs stop-arm cameras directly on school buses. The cameras capture anyone who rolls through while the lights are flashing, the footage gets reviewed, and a citation lands in the mail. No officer present required. What began with a handful of districts has since expanded to include Greece Central, Hilton, East Irondequoit, Webster, Monroe One BOCES, and Spencerport, with West Irondequoit coming online by 2026 and the City of Rochester working on its own version of the program.
What makes 18,000 citations remarkable is not just the raw number — it’s the pace. The 2024-25 school year alone generated over 8,500 of those citations across the participating districts, which works out to roughly 28 violations per day. Bello called the figure alarming, and it is hard to argue with that characterization. Residents interviewed by local news outlet WROC shared the same visceral disbelief. One resident put it plainly: seeing drivers blow past stopped buses while kids are getting off is something people witness regularly, which is perhaps the most uncomfortable part of this story.
Still, there is a thread of genuine progress here worth noting. Officials say the violation rate is actually declining compared to the program’s first year, with bus drivers reporting that more motorists are stopping. The cameras appear to be doing what enforcement cameras tend to do: change behavior once drivers understand the consequence is real and automatic. Whether 18,000 tickets over two-plus years represents a crisis or a correction probably depends on your patience for how long it should take people to stop driving past children.
How the Stop-Arm Camera System Works
The mechanics behind the program are straightforward. BusPatrol installs cameras on the stop-arm of each participating school bus — the arm that swings out perpendicular to the vehicle when the bus is stopped for a pickup or drop-off. When a driver passes the bus illegally, the cameras capture the vehicle and its plate. BusPatrol reviews the footage and forwards confirmed violations to the county, which then issues the citation directly to the registered vehicle owner.
Under New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law, drivers are required to stop for school buses with flashing red lights and an extended stop-arm, whether approaching from the front or the rear and regardless of what type of road they are on. That means a divided highway with a median is the only situation in New York where oncoming drivers are legally exempt from stopping. Any other road configuration, and both directions of traffic must stop. Fines for a first offense currently sit at $250, with escalating penalties for subsequent violations within 18 months. Earlier reporting indicated the fine ceiling could reach $300.
One detail worth appreciating: the fines collected from citations fund the program and the equipment itself, meaning the county is not drawing on separate tax dollars to sustain it. The cameras pay for themselves through enforcement, which neatly aligns the financial incentives with the public safety goal.
The Scale of the Problem in Context
Greece Central School District alone generated more than 5,000 tickets during the 2024-25 school year, which works out to more than 27 violations per day in a single district. For context, Greece Central transports around 9,000 students daily. That is a lot of children in the path of drivers who apparently found the flashing red lights and extended stop-arm insufficient reason to slow down.
The program started with a 30-day warning period when each new district comes on board, during which violators receive letters without fines. West Irondequoit, the most recent district to join, will follow the same model when its program officially starts, with a warning period before the $250 fines kick in. That grace period is a reasonable approach to education before enforcement, though it also means the citation numbers we are seeing represent behavior that persists well after warnings have been issued.
The footage shared publicly at the State of the County address included at least one clip of a driver mounting the sidewalk to clear the stopped bus — a maneuver that is not only a traffic violation but veers into territory that would be more at home in a pursuit report. It underscores that some of these are not inattentive mistakes but fully deliberate choices made by people who decided a few seconds of waiting simply did not apply to them.
What Residents Are Saying
Public reaction to the program, at least among the Monroe County residents interviewed on camera, skews firmly supportive. The sentiment voiced repeatedly was that school buses represent a category of road interaction that warrants more caution, not less — and that the cameras provide accountability that was previously absent. One resident noted she worried about her children’s bus safety for years and sees the cameras as an overdue layer of protection.
David Richardson, the Monroe County Traffic Safety Board Chair, noted that while 28 citations a day is a concerning figure, the trend is moving in the right direction, with bus drivers reporting that more motorists are stopping than in the program’s first year. That is the metric that actually matters here. The goal was never to generate revenue through citations. The county has been explicit that the program’s success is measured by the reduction of violations, not the number of citations issued.
What Comes Next for the Program
The expansion trajectory suggests Monroe County is not slowing down. West Irondequoit Central School District is set to begin the bus patrol program by 2026, and the City of Rochester and the Rochester City School District are in the process of launching their own stop-arm camera program. That would bring the city’s urban bus routes under the same enforcement umbrella as the suburban districts currently covered.
The broadcast segment that sparked this story also referenced additional safety proposals being considered at the county level, though the specifics were not fully disclosed. Given the program’s documented momentum and the public support it has generated, broader expansion seems likely. For drivers who have not yet encountered one of these cameras on their commute, it may be worth assuming that is a temporary situation.
For anyone who receives a citation and wishes to contest it, Monroe County does provide a formal process for disputing violations, accessible through the county’s contact center, which operates Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.