The reasons for cameras on school buses are varied and can be to address and document any of the below reasons:
Children not behaving properly
Drivers not performing their duties properly
To confirm and document the bad behavior of either
To dispute or prove false claims made about the bad behavior that is not true.
To document the time and locations of child pickup and drop off.
Why are there Stop Arm Cameras on school buses?
The cameras are used to document drivers who fail to stop for buses loading or unloading children.
To enforce the laws regarding child safety when entering or exiting a school bus by actively documenting for prosecution those who endanger the lives of children on these buses.
Low-Cost School Bus Stop Arm Cameras have been available for more than a decade, for a low price means to document and help enforce violations.
Some school districts have realized an income source from these Stop Arm Cameras, but that is likely a secondary reason to have them as child safety is their first priority when transporting “the world’s most precious cargo.”
High Priced Stop Arm Cameras are offered by some, where the school district gets access to the systems at no cost but must agree to share revenue stream from the equipment provider, which can be an obstacle in the process if the district or DA in the district views the provider as predatory draining the district available revenue for the low-cost equipment.
How long have school bus cameras been used in school buses?
Unknown, but in the early 1990s, we first noticed them in school buses we were installing Fleet Driver Risk Management Systems into here in GA.
The first ones we found were disguised as lunch boxes on the upper bulkhead of the bus with a mirror to refract the video 90 degrees and a small video camera in the lunchbox.
What are the school Bus Camera video files used for?
The answer to that depends on what the transportation director of the school system was trying to achieve or document when they installed them.
Some were to document bad child behaviors, and some to document driver activities; in the case of Special Needs Wheelchair School Bus Camera applications, they can verify the proper procedure being performed by the wheelchair lift operator.
In the law enforcement applications of Prisoner In Custody, Transport Camera systems are incorporated on Department of Corrections Prisoner Transports to document the safe and orderly transport and handling of those in the state’s custody.
Do the school bus cameras monitor the drivers or just the children?
They can monitor either or both, depending on the customer’s desired application and concerns.
Special Needs Wheelchair School Bus Safety Camera systems often dedicate a separate camera to the wheelchair lift as that is a particular area of liability and safety concerns.
The same is true of the Medicaid or Elderly Paratransit Camera Surveillance systems as their special needs might be driven by the fact some passengers on those Elderly Day Care Transit Camera equipped vans or shuttles may take prescription medication that impairs their cognitive function, so their perceptions may be altered in some cases and it is helpful to document what happens in a professional unbiased manner when concerns are expressed regarding their treatment or who said what to whom. Medicaid Medical Transport In-Vehicle Surveillance equipped vehicles may use the systems to help document transit times and locations for stops and pickups of passengers for Government funded treatments of medical transports to their physicians. In some cases, there is additional time required to assist patients on and off the vehicles, and in those cases, the systems can document the added time needed if this is called into question.
Why do you need school bus cameras on school buses?
The hope every responsible, conscientious parent has is that their precious prodigy is a wonderfully well-behaved student, despite the reality that this is far from true and in some cases, their children can be an annoyance to the bus driver and potentially poorly behaved while in transport to the school or home. Low-Cost School Bus Cameras can document the activities of drivers and passengers on a school bus should management oversight be required in case of an incident of accusations.
All one has to do is search for school bus violence, and one will be witness to the dark side of school bus behaviors. The reality is that some of these children will be monitored by similar camera systems when they are passengers being monitored in Alternative School & Juvenile Detention Bus Security Camera equipped vehicles, or worse yet, when they are passengers in a Department of Corrections Prisoner & Inmate in-Custody Transport Camera equipped bus moving from court to detention center.
Few parents ever consider their child will be a target of violence and end up with life-threatening injuries or lose their life in a violent criminal assault while on a school bus but terrible things can and do happen to good people in the absence of justice and law enforcement, when violent sociopaths in our society are coddled and viewed as victims and not held responsible for the violence they do to others, often the innocent suffer the consequences of societies unwillingness to punish those behaving badly, or at least separate them from those behaving well.
Are the school bus cameras on school buses real or decoys?
In the past, many companies installed low-cost Decoy systems on school buses as the cost of the systems was very high in the thousands of dollars per system.
At the present time, a Low-Cost School Bus Camera System is available for around $500.
In the past, when we were selling decoy systems in the late 1990s, the cost was slightly less for nothing but a flashing light on a fake camera shell.
Because of the high number of Cameras For School Buses now being produced, the production costs and technological advancements have created the availability of Affordable School Bus Camera systems. One of the problems with using “decoy” systems is they provide a false sense of security I seem to remember several cases where this false sense of security was called into question, and this was not helpful in court cases, so if you are investing in something to help discourage bad behavior, it is wise to have the real thing and not a dummy system.
How can you tell if they are recording?
Most low-cost school bus cameras have DVR status indicators to let the driver know they are working. Some low-cost cameras for school buses have LEDs on the face of the DVR itself. At the same time, other more robust and durable systems, such as Industrial Grade School Bus Camera Systems, will offer remote DVR status modules that can be mounted away from the DVR in case it is hidden in a compartment. This affords the DVR a level of discretion as the DVR is not sitting in front of the driver; it also makes for better management of the limited space in some vehicles when it can be remotely mounted.
In Paratransit Driver Safety Video Camera Surveillance Systems as well as the Elderly Day Care Shuttle & Assisted Living Transportation Vehicle Video Camera system applications, can help provide a means to demonstrate that the transport vehicle is equipped with a vehicle passenger safety camera system and the flashing LEDs on the DVR can confirm that the system is recording to add additional peace of mind.
Are school bus cameras constantly recording Day & Night?
School bus cameras are always on when the bus is running, as that is when the passenger risk requires video documentation in case of incidents or events.
There are user menu selections in a school bus camera system DVR that enable the customer to have a post-recording time that permits the system to record for a selected period of time after the bus ignition is turned off. In this way, the digital school bus surveillance system camera system can record the driver checking the back of the bus for sleeping children. In the case of Police Patrol Wagon Suspect, Prisoner & Inmate in-Custody Transport Camera applications will permit them to record the officers unlocking prisoners from their harnesses and safely escorting them off the prison bus or prisoner transport vehicle before the DVR shuts down. The same post-ignition delay time use is true of Medicaid Medical Transport In-Vehicle Surveillance Camera applications as the Elderly Day Care Shuttle for a medical office visit or treatments facility transport providers make use of these systems to help ensure when questions of passenger treatment arise, they can verify or dispute what really happened in he-said, she-said cases.
Can the school bus cameras record in total darkness?
The Low Cost School, bus camera system technology is a derivative of CCTV camera systems and as such, they have had IR LEDs for night vision recording for more than 30 years.
The new generation of school bus cameras we are using on our systems are starlight capable in their recording but they are still equipped with IR LEDs so they can still record in total darkness.
These starlight school bus video cameras are the same ones used in Private Service Contractor Charter Transport Compliance Bus Camera Systems when the county or municipality they charter requires Low Cost School Bus Child Safety Camera systems.
Can the school bus cameras record audio?
The short answer is “YES” all camera systems for school buses from the Affordable School Bus Child Safety Camera systems to the much higher grade Professional Industrial Grade School Bus Video Surveillance Camera Solutions that employ hardened security for the DVR and complete environmental protection from moisture, dust and water up to IP65 rating, all recorded audio on each camera for a total of 4 separate microphones in each Private Service Contractor Charter Transport Compliance Bus Camera System or Public School Bus Child Safety Surveillance Camera system.
There are also 2 ways to disable the audio recording features, as some applications such as Forklift HD Industrial Operator Safety Camera Recording Systems may not permit the recording of audio under some union agreements, or Medicaid Medical Transport In-Vehicle Camera, where the passengers using cell phones may require the privacy of no audio as they often give their private info over the phones,
What provisions are made for student awareness of the surveillance recording of the school bus cameras?
In almost all instances, Students With Disabilities & Special Needs Bus Video Camera systems operate in an environment generally considered under the lawful operation of a government municipality or public school district. When in these environments, the vehicles may be considered public/government property, and as such, there may be no expectation of privacy when you have a vehicle with a plethora of windows and you are seated within arms reach of multiple other people.
Having stated the above, ABV and other reputable companies that supply Low Cost School Bus Child Safety Camera systems also supply public notification labels informing all who read them that that vehicle has an audio-video surveillance camera in operation. At ABV, we go the added step for notification in the dark when you cannot read the Notification decals; we spec our Low Cost School Bus Child Safety Camera systems with high-intensity IR LED cameras illumination because when they activate the IR LEDs glow amber calling attention to the cameras so even in the dark they are made aware they are being recorded.
Do the drivers have access to the school bus cameras’ video files?
In a perfect world, the answer would be “NO.” The reason is that drivers who have access to the video files with a key to unlock the DVR security door violate the chain of custody that is required in court approval for evidence in many cases. For example: In the application involving Police Patrol Wagon Suspect, Prisoner & Inmate in-Custody Transport Cameras, when an officer is accused of some impropriety, abuse or worse, and the suspect accuses said officer of a crime then the evidence of the police car video camera would be required to dispute that charge. However, if the video files are missing, the storage device is not in the DVR, the first person under scrutiny would be the officer, as he has the most to lose if the criminal accusation is valid. This “chain of custody” issue for the evidence video files is required in almost every mobile video camera application:
For example, Medicaid Medical Transport In-Vehicle Camera Surveillance drivers are not supposed to have keys to the DVR lock. They cannot be protected from the suspicion of missing memory storage and loss of video evidence files should they not be in the DVR when the supervisor checks.
For example, Elderly Day Care Shuttle & Assisted Living Transportation Vehicle Video Camera equipped vehicle drivers operate under the same need for supervisors to maintain control over video file memory storage access is they wish to use this evidence in court as admissible as some courts have higher standards of a chain of custody concerns than others.
