Schoolbuses: stop requirements.

Existing law requires the driver of any vehicle, upon meeting or overtaking any schoolbus equipped with required signs that is stopped for the purpose of loading or unloading any schoolchildren and displaying a flashing red light signal and stop signal arm, if equipped with a stop signal arm, to bring the vehicle to a stop immediately before passing the schoolbus and to not proceed past the schoolbus until the flashing red light signal and stop signal arm cease operation. A violation of these provisions is a crime. This bill would authorize a school district to install and operate an automated schoolbus video enforcement system, as defined, for the purpose of enforcing the prohibition described above. The bill would require additional signage on schoolbuses relative to the video enforcement system. The bill would prohibit a school district from using automated schoolbus video enforcement systems or information gathered from those systems for any purpose other than those authorized by these provisions and would specifically prohibit the use of video or images captured by a system for employee surveillance or discipline. The bill would require the video enforcement system images to capture only the vehicle make and model, color, and license plate displayed, and not any person in the vehicle or any other vehicles or persons in the vicinity of the vehicle. The bill would make any information, image, or other data captured or generated by the automated video enforcement system confidential, and unless demanded by court order, available only to the law enforcement agency or offender for limited purposes. The bill would create a procedure for the issuance of citations based upon evidence captured by an automated schoolbus video enforcement system, and would provide that a law enforcement agency is not required to, but may, participate in the enforcement of the previously described prohibition for a school district that adopts an automated schoolbus video enforcement system. Existing law requires every schoolbus, when operated for the transportation of schoolchildren, to be equipped with a stop signal arm, among other things. This bill would authorize a school district to equip its schoolbuses with an extended secondary stop signal arm that extends between 3 to 6 feet from the side of the schoolbus, and would provide that a schoolbus equipped with an extended secondary stop signal arm shall only be driven on 2-lane highways and highways in rural areas of the state. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.