FLORIDA — Back in the fall, Cleo Davis was driving past the railroad tracks near Hillcrest Road and Recker Parkway in Polk County when he noticed the school bus headed toward them.
“Yea, I saw the school bus, but it appeared to me that it was stopping at the railroad crossing,” he said.
Davis didn’t think anything of it and kept driving since buses are legally required to stop before crossing tracks.
A few weeks later, he received a $225 notice of violation for failing to stop for a school bus with its stop signal out.
“I’m like why am I getting a ticket at a railroad crossing,” he asked.
Pictures of his violation show his car, the tracks, and the school bus as its stop arm begins to deploy.
Video footage of the incident shows him driving past the stopped bus with its stop arm extended.
Still, Davis was dumbfounded.
“I was trying to understand why I got the ticket in the first place at a railroad crossing because I didn't notice any kids being picked up or dropped off,” he told us recently.
Davis is fighting his citation. But the process hasn’t been easy.
“I had to go to a website and get a form and this form didn't really give me anywhere to actually contest it,” he said.
That’s because despiteFlorida law that clearly states these bus camera fines must include instruction on how to contest a violation, we discovered, in Polk County, drivers who get fined for passing a stopped school bus can’t challenge their violation until after 30 days, when the $225 violation is upgraded to a $329 uniform traffic citation.
Drivers who choose to fight back are not only facing higher costs, but they may also potentially incur stiffer penalties, including license suspension.
“I felt like it was really strong-arm robbery,” he said. “Somebody was robbing me because first, I didn't think that I should have received a violation in the first place. And now it's like they're making me pay something that I don't think I really owe,” he told us.
Just days after Davis got the violation, he got another one for the same thing in the same spot at nearly the same time!
“It’s crazy,” he said.
Polk is one of three Florida counties that have equipped its school buses with new cameras to catch drivers blowing past buses that are stopped for kids.
The program is part of a new state law that aims to enhance student safety at bus stops.
But the problem is that since these cameras started rolling in the fall, so too has the controversy surrounding them.
Back in February, we spoke to drivers in Hillsborough County who believe they were unfairly fined.
Then we discovered drivers couldn’t challenge their citations because courts haven’t been set up to hear appeals. Months later, these drivers are still waiting for a court date.
The same problem was occurring in Miami-Dade, where the sloppily rolled out program has been found to be so fraught with issues that, last week, Miami-Dade’s Sheriff suspended the cameras altogether. Bus Patrol is the vendor responsible for operating bus cameras in Hillsborough and Miami-Dade Counties. They get upwards of 70% of every paid fine.
Since the beginning of the school year, these new school bus cameras have resulted in well over 200,000 citations issued to drivers in Polk, Hillsborough, and Miami Dade Counties, with paid fines generating a total of nearly $30 million, just in the first half of the school year.
In Polk County, more than 11,400 violations have been issued since the fall, with paid fines generating more than $1.3 million, according to the Polk County school district.
Most Polk County violations are paid without driver challenges.
David Uria is one of just a few dozen who have opted to contest his Polk County citation in court. We were there as he made his case.
But before he got his chance to have his day in court, Uria had to wait until his $225 violation turned into a $329 uniform traffic ticket.
He, like all the others in the county so far, lost his appeal.
Uria told us he had no idea he should have had the right to contest his violation before it was upgraded and cost his more. Violations in Polk County don’t even give drivers the option to contest so drivers would have no idea they could.
“In an ideal world the way you like to see things work, that would be perfect,” Uria said about having the option to contest before he had to pay to challenge it. “But I don't make the rules,” he said.
Who makes the rules on these new bus camera fines in Polk County, and why drivers can’t contest them sooner, depends on who you ask.
The school district points to the sheriff’s office, which reviews the video and distributes the violations. The sheriff’s office points to the school district who operates the buses and the camera vendor, Verra Mobility, which operates the cameras and gets the largest chunk of the profits.
When we contacted Verra Mobility, a spokesperson pointed blame at lawmakers, whom they claim they’re working with to align the program with “how automated enforcement programs should and can be executed,” according to an emailed statement.
Despite repeated requests, neither the school district, the sheriff’s office, nor Verra Mobility would discuss the issues we uncovered on camera.
But in a statement, a Verra Mobility spokesperson said its program on Polk County buses is “set up to comply with current Florida law.” But the spokesperson did acknowledge, “the current school bus stop arm legislation should be modified.”
The Polk County Safe Stop program is set up to comply with current Florida law.
For two decades, Verra Mobility has successfully assisted customers in implementing automated enforcement programs across the state of Florida; now we are working with lawmakers to amend and clarify the school bus stop arm legislation and bring programs in alignment with how automated enforcement programs should and can be executed. We recognize the current school bus stop arm legislation should be modified and we hope to work quickly so we can focus on what is important - the safety of our children.
Despite our findings, Hillsborough and Polk Counties continue to issue fines to drivers, knowing drivers are not adequately able to fight back.
Cleo Davis will have his day in a Polk County courtroom next week for passing a school bus on two different occasions that he thought was topped for tracks,
The school district has since confirmed that the area near the railroad tracks where Davis got his violation is a student bus stop.
“If they're dropping off kids here, that's a bad idea,” he said.
A bad idea, he said, that could now leave him $660 in the red for passing a stopped school bus, then exercising his right to defend himself.
“I think it's a money grab,” he said.
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