"School bus"

Published on: August 30, 2024

Miami-Dade Drivers Don’t Know School Traffic Laws, School Bus Cameras Footage Shows. What You Should Know.

Do you have to stop for a school bus in Florida?

In the first two weeks of school, approximately 11,500 Miami-Dade County drivers were cited after footage captured from 950 school district buses caught them disobeying traffic laws.

The cameras were authorized last year to add extra protections for students getting on and off buses during the school year. While laws already exist to ensure drivers who violate these laws are held accountable, the cameras were installed to reinforce the matter. The initiative is a collaboration between the local school district, the Miami-Dade Police Department and BusPatrol, a private company with programs in 17 states that manages the buses and the technology that captures the license plates of cars that illegally pass buses with deployed stop signals.

Published on: August 5, 2024

Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles issues statewide alert as part of awareness campaign for child safety

By Leesfield & Partners

Florida public safety partners have banded together to create a “Safe Start to the New School Year with Awareness” campaign ahead of the scheduled return to classes across the state in mid-August, according to a Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles press release.

As parents, educators and students alike prepare for the return to school for the 2024-25 school year, FLHSMV and other agencies have begun a campaign to raise awareness around school bus, school zone and crosswalk safety as well as other initiatives to ensure that children can get to and from school safely. With the help of surveys, citation data and safety tips, these groups aim to shed light on the public safety issue.

In the data released by the FLHSMV, there were 11,224 illegal passes of school buses. The data was gathered in a survey of school bus operators by the Florida Department of Education. This was the same year that the Florida legislature passed House Bill 0657 and Senate Bill 0766 which authorized local jurisdictions to implement and operate school zone speed detection systems and school bus passing infraction detection systems. As of 2021, the penalties for passing a stopped bus on the side where children enter and exit doubled as well as the penalties for failing to stop for a school bus.

Published on: May 29, 2024

Bus driver allegedly impaired during high schoolers’ Memorial Day weekend trip to Daytona Beach faces charges. Safety on the road is crucial

By Leesfield & Partners

A driver taking 36 people, including high schoolers and their parents, on a road trip Saturday has been accused of being impaired while operating the vehicle, according to reporting from the Miami Herald.

The driver, who was identified Tuesday evening as Keith Edward Shifflett, 55, was taking the passengers from Bradenton to Daytona Beach as part of Project Graduation, an alcohol-and-drug-free event organized for students who are graduating. The students, some of whom were still under 18 years old at the time of the incident, came from Sebring High School in Highland County, Florida.

According to local reporting, the driver is accused of driving “recklessly” while running three red lights and ignoring pleas from passengers begging him to stop. Shifflett only stopped when a parent on the trip driving in a separate car got in front of the bus to block it. Shifflett was charged with 30 counts of culpable negligence and four counts of child abuse without great bodily harm.