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Indiana lawmakers eye crackdown on school bus stop-arm violations - nwitimes.com

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State Sen. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell, has a message for Hoosier motorists used to escaping punishment for driving around a school bus with its stop-arm extended and red lights flashing while the bus is stopped to pick up or drop off children.

Time's up.

Niemeyer last week won Indiana Senate approval for legislation that would allow police to ticket the registered owner of a vehicle that unlawfully passes a stopped school bus, regardless of who was driving the vehicle when the violation occurred.

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The penalty, if Senate Bill 121 also is endorsed by the House and enacted into law, would be a class B infraction, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 per violation.

"We need to look at doing something here," Niemeyer said. "We can't just sit here and wait for another tragedy to happen and then act on that tragedy once it happens — this is a solution."

Niemeyer explained motorists going around stopped schools buses typically are getting away with it now because school bus drivers and stop-arm enforcement cameras usually only record the license plate of the vehicle breaking the law, not the identity of the driver.

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"A school bus driver has other concerns on his time when he's picking up kids to be looking for that driver," Niemeyer said.

But he said that also makes it difficult, if not impossible, to prosecute stop-arm violations as a misdemeanor because without knowing who was driving, there's no person to hold responsible for the crime.

In fact, Niemeyer said in a recent year, zero of the 256 school bus stop-arm violations recorded in Lowell's Tri-Creek School Corp. led to drivers getting prosecuted for passing a stopped school bus.

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His plan, which is supported by the Indiana State Teachers Association and the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council, eliminates the need to identify the driver for stop-arm violations by permitting police to simply issue a ticket to the registered owner of the vehicle, similar to a parking ticket.

The measure provides the vehicle owner can get out of the ticket if the owner can show the vehicle was stolen, rented, in use by an employee, or out of state at the time of the infraction — provided the owner helps police identify who actually was driving when the stop-arm violation occurred.

"If you loaned your car, or it's a commercial vehicle, I think you have a responsibility to know that this happened," Niemeyer said. "What this is all about is finding the driver of that vehicle."

Critics of the measure, including state Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, said they would like to see more due process protections for vehicle owners to ensure Hoosiers aren't improperly getting ticketed and fined and have an opportunity to clear their names.

In response, Niemeyer said as the proposal goes through the House, he's "open to any language that will make this bill work."

"This isn't going to stop the tragedies that might happen. Those things are still going to go on. I'm not trying to say this is a bill that's going to fix everything. But we have to do something so that people understand that we're going to go after these violators," he said.

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