Thunder Bay City Administration is recommending that City Council not move forward with stop arm cameras on school buses at tonight’s Committee of the Whole meeting.

At the time of publication, there have been 485 reported incidents of vehicles passing stopped school buses that have their red lights and stop-arm activated.

There have been approximately 58 school days this year, which means there have been 8.4 vehicles (on average) reported for passing a stopped school bus; those are just the reported numbers.

Luckily, there haven’t been any injuries or fatalities reported because of a vehicle illegally passing a stopped school bus.

The report from City Administration indicates there are a few things lacking to get this project off the ground; including funding, a processing centre and other measures…

Vendors that are supplying cameras now require the municipality to look after the secure data transfer and storage which would require significant resources during the school year and lengthy processing time to determine license and vehicle owner information.

The absence of an evidence processing center presents a crucial gap in the required framework to establish a SBSAC program.

While there are third parties out there that can process and issue the tickets, they currently don’t have access to the Ministry of Transportation Ontario’s license/vehicle ownership data.

Craig Murphy is the Consortium Manager for Student Transportation Services Thunder Bay and said in an interview with Acadia News that even though no one has been injured or worse, it could still happen

He’s had ongoing conversations with the city for a few years about the stop-arm camera project, this conversation could be resumed again at another time.

Current fines for not stopping for a school bus with its flashing red lights and stop-arm deployed is $400 to $2,000 and six demerit points for a first offence. If you are convicted a second time within five years, the penalty is a fine of $1,000 to $4,000 and six demerit points. You could also go to jail for up to six months.

The MTO’s website also states “as the vehicle’s registered owner, you may receive the fines if the driver is not charged. If you do not pay the fine, you will not be able to renew your vehicle permit.”

Acadia News has reached out to the City for a comment and has yet to receive one.