Westchester County’s share of revenue received from ticket fines under its School Bus Safety Program came to more than $1.34 million during a 10-month period, September 2025 to June 2026, Westfair’s Westchester County Business Journal has learned. The program is built around an arrangement begun in 2024 with the commercial firm BusPatrol America LLC based in Lorton, Virginia, under which the company has installed and operates cameras on school buses in 22 participating school districts in Westchester.
Images captured by the cameras are used as evidence to justify issuing a ticket for passing a stopped school bus that had its stop sign arm deployed. Law enforcement reviews the evidence before a ticket is issued. The civil fine for a first offense detected by a school bus camera is $250. A second offense within an 18-month window is $275 and subsequent offenses are $300. No points are recorded on licenses for camera-based violations.
Under the program, BusPatrol takes care of the cost of installation of the cameras on school buses and operating and maintenance expenses. The company receives a portion of the fines collected from motorists.
The 2025-2026 School Bus Safety Program Annual Report released by the county in July showed a 23.8% reduction in school bus passing violations from the 2024-2025 school year to the 2025-2026 school year.
The county’s report found that citations requiring enforcement declined from 17,867 during the 2024-2025 school year to 13,621 through June of the 2025-2026 school year, while average monthly violations dropped from 1,786 to 1,513. The county said that the findings suggest motorists are changing their behavior when they encounter stopped school buses, reducing dangerous passing incidents that put children at risk.
Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said, “Nothing is more important than the safety of our children. This report shows that our School Bus Safety Program is changing driver behavior and making our roads safer for students traveling to and from school. While we are encouraged by this progress, every illegal passing violation is one too many, and we will continue working with our school districts and law enforcement partners to protect our children.”
The report also found that 4.92% of citations involved repeat offenders, indicating that enforcement is helping deter drivers from passing stopped school buses. The report noted that approximately 31% of the enforcement activity in the participating school districts took place at 20 locations.
School districts currently participating in the county’s program include: Lakeland; Mamaroneck; Ossining; Eastchester; Tarrytown; Blind Brook-Rye; Rye Neck; Katonah-Lewisboro; Greenburgh; Hendrick Hudson; Croton-Harmon; Tuckahoe; Irvington; Bedford Central; Bronxville; Pelham; Ardsley; Yorktown Central; Briarcliff Manor; Port Chester-Rye; Mount Pleasant Central; and Harrison.
BusPatrol, which launched in 2017, bills itself as the largest school bus safety technology provider in North America, with high-definition cameras installed on more than 40,000 buses across two dozen states. The company in late July opened a regional headquarters in Bridgeport, Connecticut. At a ribbon-cutting event for the Bridgeport location, Justin Meyers, president and chief innovation officer for BusPatrol, noted that studies have shown that between 39 and 45 million times a year cars in the U.S. illegally pass stopped school buses. About 1,200 children have been struck and killed while boarding or exiting a school bus, Meyers said.
