School Bus Passing Enforcement Now Underway In Lower Merion, Narberth

LOWER MERION-NARBERTH, PA — Illegally passing a school bus in Lower Merion and Narberth will now net vehicle owners fines under a new enforcement program.

Lower Merion Township, Narberth Borough, and the Lower Merion School District Friday launches the BusPatrol school bus safety enforcement program. News of the program broke in January this year.

As part of this safety initiative, the district's entire fleet of 135 buses is now outfitted with photo enforcement technology to detect the license plates of vehicles that fail to stop for school buses, putting children at risk.

Video captured of violating vehicles will be sent to the department, then officers will confirm whether a violation occurred, and, if so, the vehicle's owner will be issued the citation.

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Those issued citations can file appeals and appear at a hearing hosted by PennDOT, Block said. If the cited person so chooses, the appeal can be pushed to the magistrate's office. On average, one or two citations a year are appealed at the magistrate level.
The penalty for a first-time violation is $300.

Revenue generated from the fines will be divided between the School Bus Safety Grant Program Account, Lower Merion Police, the program's administrator, and the district.

BusPatrol will administer the camera program and charge the district a monthly technology Fee, which is deducted directly from the revenue payments to the district. The district will not receive any revenue unless at least 169 violations are paid each month.

An education and public awareness campaign will precede the Aug. 1 start date, district officials said.

As stated by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, motorists must stop at least 10 feet away from school buses with red lights flashing and stop-arm extended.

According to the district, school buses are illegally passed an estimated 43.5 million times nationwide, which puts students at risk, each school year. In Pennsylvania alone, state authorities reported nearly 200 violations in a single school day during Operation Safe Stop 2023, which could translate to approximately 31,500 violations over a typical 180-day school year, officials said.

According to township documents on the program, previous laws permitting the use of stop-arm cameras did not shield state and local law enforcement agencies from certain types of civil liability as the issuing authority.

In late 2023, state legislators passed a bill that reinforced the state's school bus stop-arm camera safety program. This legislation provided greater protections for state and local law enforcement agencies responsible for reviewing violations captured by school bus stop-arm cameras.

Once this bill became law, Lower Merion Police resumed discussions with the district on implementing a program.

More information about the district's bus safety program is available online here.