cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/DeFlock@sh.itjust.works/p/2499168/man-creates-diy-flock-style-cameras-that-only-scan-police-plates-and-for-some-reason-th
cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/DeFlock@sh.itjust.works/p/2499168/man-creates-diy-flock-style-cameras-that-only-scan-police-plates-and-for-some-reason-th
I’m a school bus driver and a few years ago I had a cop pass me while my red flashers were on and the stop sign was out and kids were about to get off the bus and cross the street. He was driving with one hand and looking at his phone in the other hand. He could have easily run a kid over. And then they probably would have found some way to blame me for it.
We have cameras now that automatically detect this and send out tickets, but we didn’t at the time. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway since the cops have to review the footage before any ticket goes out.
I’m curious how tickets are sent out. I wouldn’t think a school system would have law enforcement authority to issue citations. This is coming from someone who had 4 family members drive school busses for most of their life so just wondering how this works legally. Back in the day they’d take the plate down and an officer would go to their house and give them a stern warning since that’s basically all they can do since they didn’t personally witness the infraction occur.
The cameras are from a company named Bus Patrol. They haven’t really told us much about how the program works, but as I understand it the district pays nothing in upfront costs. Supposedly Bus Patrol pays for the installation and then they get all the revenue up to the point where the cameras and their profit margin are covered; after that the ticket revenues are split evenly between the local police department and the school district. A figure of a million dollars as the cost for installing cameras on our 40 buses was thrown up by somebody, but that seems a bit unlikely as that means the cameras cost $25,000 per bus. Maybe that’s correct, I dunno.
I have nearly no info about the legality of this, but they’re pretty common at this point. I know one difference is that if you’re caught by an actual cop speeding past a bus’ red lights you get a fine and points on your license, but if you get a mailed ticket from one of these cameras it’s just a fine. Presumably it’s because they can’t always tell who was actually driving the vehicle. It might be a case where they can’t really take any action if a person just refuses to pay the fine, and they just send out tickets because some or most people will just pay it.
"Al-Powered Detection
Each bus is equipped with an Al-driven school bus camera system that identifies stop-arm violations in real time." Interesting…
$25,000 per bus seems somewhat reasonable, $10,000 in overpriced highly certified hardware $10,000 in overpriced software and $5,000 profit.
The camera is supposed to take a photo of the cars plates and then send it to the local police. Police are supposed to validate then mail a ticket, at least for Colorado.