This technology can keep students safe, but state law stands in the way

For five weeks last year, about 860 drivers circled Peabody school buses as they deployed red stop signs, signaling that students could cross the street.

How did the city authorities know about this? They placed cameras in 10 buses that recorded how fast drivers illegally passed stopped vehicles.

This was in a community of approximately 54,000 people. Imagine the numbers in a city over 12 times its size with a reputation for some of the worst drivers in the country.

Some Boston city officials hope such a program would provide additional protection for the city’s more than 54,000 students by curbing drivers who often ignore bus passing laws when children may be crossing.

But the state’s ban on automated traffic enforcement — such as cameras that capture drivers running red lights or going 85 mph on a 65 mph highway — stands in the way.

“When my daughter and son start riding a school bus, I don’t want to have to worry that reckless drivers could put them in danger,” Boston City Councilman Enrique Pepén wrote last month in a letter to state lawmakers calling for action on a bill allowing automatic issuing tickets to drivers who violate school bus regulations.

The bill is one of several measures stalled in the Legislature that would allow various forms of camera-based traffic enforcement or programs to study the technology.

The program at Peabody was a pilot program designed to capture driver behavior around stopped school buses. A similar trial is underway in Salem. Worcester could follow suit, according to a representative from BusPatrol, the company behind much of the bus camera technology.

The devices, called stop cameras, are simple.

On delivery or dropping off the kids, the school bus driver pulls out the classic flashing red stop sign. On a two-lane road, drivers traveling in both directions should stop. Many don’t do this.

If a driver passes a bus, the camera recognizes its license plate. The information is shared with local authorities who, if their state allows it, can issue a ticket to the car owner.

Pepén points to two incidents this year that have been widely covered in the news, involving the consequences of reckless, intoxicated or distracted drivers who passed school buses.

In January, a driver hit a 9-year-old boy in Haverhill as he was crossing the street after getting off a school bus. The child with serious injuries was transported by helicopter to a Boston hospital. The driver is awaiting trial for driving under the influence of alcohol and other charges.

A Brockton student escaped serious injury in March after he was hit by a sedan after getting off his school bus.

“We have a lot of vehicles that may not respect a stop sign,” Boston City Councilman Henry Santana said in an interview. “When we talk about protecting the most vulnerable, this also includes our young people.”

BusPatrol supplies cameras to 30,000 school buses in 16 states. It recently equipped Providence, Rhode Island’s fleet of 140 school buses.

The execution began in Providence on Tuesday after a one-month waiting period. Drivers now face fines of $250 for a first offense and $500 for subsequent offenses.

Steve Randazzo, the company’s chief development officer, said nine out of 10 drivers who receive a ticket for using a BusPatrol-equipped bus will never do so again.

“It’s really driver conditioning,” he told Boston city councilors on August 12. “It’s just like when you see an officer 300 meters from the highway, you tend to slow down. You’re usually on your best behavior.

More than half of states allow the use of cameras to enforce some traffic laws.

Thirty states allow speed cameras, 26 states allow speed cameras, and Washington, D.C., allows both, according to the nonprofit Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. But the organization says the number of communities using red light cameras has declined over the past decade, often due to financial reasons or community opposition.

A growing number of states – 25 as of this spring – allow cameras to enforce illegal passage of buses. Connecticut, Rhode Island and four other states According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, arresting cameras have been in operation for more than a decade.

Automated law enforcement bills have been floating around the Massachusetts State House for years.

The opposition often focuses on concerns about privacy and surveillance.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, a leading watchdog on surveillance technology, said automated enforcement devices can improve safety, quality of life and equity in traffic enforcement – provided they have strong management policies.

“We do not oppose automatic enforcement, just as we did not oppose the state moving away from toll plazas and moving to fully electronic toll collection,” said Kade Crockford, director of the ACLU’s Technology for Freedom program. “It’s not whether we should use technology, but how.”

Crockford said necessary gatekeepers include strict rules about what cameras record, how long data is retained and who can access it. There must also be a process for challenging any automatically issued tickets and security features to “ensure that information collected for one purpose is not used for another.”

“If cities want to install cameras on buses to prevent people from endangering children, that’s what the data should be used for,” Crockford said. “It should not be used for any other purpose” – such as immigration enforcement.

Lawmakers had their most detailed discussions about changing automated enforcement laws before the pandemic changed their focus, state Sen. Brendan Crighton, D-3rd Essex, co-chair of the Joint Transportation Committee, told MassLive.

He and other lawmakers are considering several automated law enforcement bills, including ones that would allow cameras on school buses. Some sweeping proposals could also crack down on drivers parking at bus stops or bus lanes, running red lights, speeding or blocking intersections.

“We desperately need more traffic enforcement,” said state Sen. William Brownsberger, a Suffolk-Middlesex Democrat behind the 10-community automated enforcement pilot study bill.

Some fear that cities will abuse the powers granted under automated enforcement, leading to tickets for driving 26 mph in a 25 mph zone or the use of surveillance cameras for surveillance, Brownsberger said.

His proposal would not allow cameras to identify drivers or photograph the interior of their cars. Tickets would be issued to the vehicle, rather than the driver, and would be more comparable to a parking violation.

Earlier this year, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration supported the automated law enforcement bill.

The city “is committed to ensuring the safety of all pedestrians, especially our children, as they travel to and from school,” a mayoral spokesman said in a statement. “We are open to working with our state partners to explore ways to improve driver and pedestrian safety and traffic enforcement.”

Traffic cameras are not a way to raise new revenue, Boston streets chief Jascha Franklin-Hodge wrote in a letter to state legislators in January. Instead, he said research showed the technology led to lower revenue from traffic tickets because it reduced the number of overall violations.

“It’s not about excessive punishment, it’s about changing behavior,” Crighton said.

Randazzo said the widespread use of stop cameras could help drivers know they can expect a ticket if they illegally pass a bus.

“It’s big, yellow, designed to be seen from a very long distance, has red flashing lights,” he said. “If someone says, ‘I didn’t see the bus,’ I might suggest that maybe you weren’t paying attention or weren’t conditioned to see the bus as often as you should have.”