KNOX COUNTY, Tenn. — Knox County Schools plans to add more cameras on school buses. The goal is to catch cars illegally passing when students are getting on and off.
It's illegal. Still, drivers ignore the signs and flashing lights every day. Over the course of a few mornings 10News caught several drivers on camera driving past the stop arm sign while kids were getting on the bus.
According to Knox County Schools Director of Transportation Ryan Dillingham, it happens all the time.
At least 22 states passed laws allowing stop arm bus cameras. Tennessee joined the list in 2019.
For the last two years, Knox County Schools collected their own data to see just how bad the problem is here.
“For the last two years, we've participated in a nationwide study. Last April we logged 78 different instances of someone passing a school bus in one day,” said Dillingham. “We have 177 instructional days in Knox County Schools, so if you multiply 177 by 78 you get just under 14,000 instances. Each one of those times you are putting the life of a child at risk.”
Now Knox County Schools is testing out a new system, they believe, could help.
“Cars running a stop sign is one of those things that makes our kids less safe,” said Dillingham. “This is something that I want to implement as soon as we possible can.”
For more than three weeks, the school district is testing it out the new system on a bus in West Knox County.
“I don’t want to get into specifics,” said Dillingham. “I will say this, we picked a bus where have had lots of problems with people running it.”
Those cameras will capture the make and model of the car and the license plate. The footage will be sent to Knoxville Police or the Knox County Sheriff's Office for their review.
“It's going to be a three-camera set up,” said Dillingham. “One facing forward at the stop arm. One facing backward at the stop arm. Another one mounted on the rear of the bus facing the front of the bus so you can see the car coming and going.”
Right now, the school district doesn't have a set date on when all Knox County School buses will have the new cameras.