Sheriff suspends enforcement of some Miami school bus camera tickets after complaints
Miami-Dade County Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz announced Friday she is offering some reprieve to drivers who have been hit with school bus camera tickets.
The action follows an investigation by the Miami Herald and the nonprofit Tributary newsroom, which revealed that the tickets were being issued in error.
The Herald/Tributary investigation found that many Miami-Dade drivers were ticketed by the school district’s bus safety program though they’d done nothing wrong. They were were driving on the opposite side of a raised median from a stopped school bus. That’s legal, but they got the $225 ticket anyway.
The investigation also found that when those same drivers tried to fight the violations, they were stuck in limbo waiting for a court date that never came. Often drivers would just pay the fine.
Cordero-Stutz on Friday posted on the social media platform X that she was suspending these violations.
“Urgent Update on Bus Camera. I have immediately suspended enforcement of all citations that relate to median violations. Stay tuned for further updates.”
The school bus safety program is a collaboration between the school district, the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office and BusPatrol, a private company that administers the program.
After a contract hastily signed by the school district kickstarted the program last year, BusPatrol installed cameras on all Miami-Dade school buses to catch motorists in the act of illegally passing a school bus with its “stop-arm” extended. Since then, the program has issued tens of thousands of $225 violation notices. Revenue numbers provided by the school district indicate the program is flagging more than 407 paid violations per day, seven days a week, generating a staggering $19.5 million in the first six months of the program.
Superintendent Jose Dotres issued a memo last Friday instructing Ivan Silva, the chief of Miami-Dade Schools Police to work with the county sheriff’s office to fix the citation review process.
The Miami Herald reached out to the sheriff’s office and the school district for clarification on whether the suspension applied to violations going forward, or if it would be applied retroactively to drivers who had already received a notice of violation. They have not yet replied.
Steve Randazzo, the chief growth officer of BusPatrol, also would not elaborate. “You’re going to have to ask [the sheriff’s office],” he replied. “As always, we support the enforcement decisions around citation issuance made by the law enforcement agency since they have the sole discretion in this area.”
Also this week, a class action was filed against BusPatrol on behalf of Miami-Dade drivers who say they were not given due process when fighting their tickets.
As of Dec. 19, 120,000 drivers had received violation notices in Miami-Dade County for illegally passing extended school bus “stop arms.” The courts have received more than 1,000 notices from people who tried to contest their citations, but so far no drivers have been given a chance to make their case in front of a judge.
Clara-Sophia Daly is the education reporter at the Miami Herald. Previously, she was a fellow on the investigations team. She has a master’s degree from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism but credits Mission Local and KPFA Radio, both small nonprofit newsrooms in the San Francisco Bay Area, for her boots-on-the-ground journalistic training. She graduated with honors from Skidmore College, where she studied International Affairs and Media / Film.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article301673639.html#storylink=cpy
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article301673639.html#storylink=cpy