A new initiative in Bennington County signals a major shift in how Vermont enforces school bus passing laws, but the full legal framework won’t be in place until August 2026.

by Compass Vermont

Bennington County officials have approved a school bus safety campaign that relies heavily on camera technology to catch drivers who illegally pass stopped school buses. But while local authorities have given the program their blessing, the legal infrastructure that would allow those cameras to generate enforceable fines won’t exist until state legislation takes effect this summer.

The disconnect highlights a broader transformation underway in Vermont’s approach to student transportation safety—one driven by mounting evidence that traditional enforcement methods capture only a tiny fraction of violations, and by new legislative proposals that would fundamentally change how the state holds drivers accountable.

The Scope of the Problem

The magnitude of illegal school bus passing in Vermont becomes clear when comparing national estimates to actual enforcement data. According to the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services, drivers illegally passed stopped school buses approximately 39 million times during the 2024-2025 school year nationwide. The survey, which collected data from over 114,000 bus drivers across 36 states and Washington D.C. during a single day, found an average of 0.59 violations per bus per day.

Applied to Vermont’s school bus fleet, that rate suggests hundreds of illegal passes occur daily across the state, potentially totaling tens of thousands of violations over a school year.

Yet Vermont’s actual citation numbers tell a starkly different story. The Vermont Judicial Bureau processes between 41,000 and 42,000 civil violation complaints annually, with the vast majority being traffic tickets. But violations for passing school buses represent only a minuscule fraction of that total—likely less than one percent of the estimated violations actually occurring.

This enforcement gap exists across the country. In Florida, a state with more aggressive enforcement than Vermont, authorities issued only 2,700 citations annually against millions of estimated violations.

The reason for this dramatic undercounting is straightforward: under current Vermont law, Title 23, Section 1075, officers must identify the actual driver of the vehicle to issue a citation. A school bus camera that captures only a license plate provides insufficient evidence to meet that legal threshold, since the registered owner of the vehicle isn’t automatically responsible for moving violations committed by someone else driving their car.

The Legislative Solution

Vermont legislators have introduced two companion bills—Senate Bill 82 and House Bill 304—that would restructure school bus violation enforcement during the 2025-2026 legislative session.

The core innovation in these bills is the establishment of “owner liability.” Rather than requiring law enforcement to identify and charge the driver, the legislation would allow the state to issue civil violation complaints directly to the vehicle’s registered owner based on license plate evidence captured by automated cameras.

This shift from criminal to civil enforcement carries significant practical implications. Current law treats illegal school bus passing as a moving violation that carries five points on a driver’s license and fines ranging from $249 to $1,197. The proposed legislation would eliminate the point assessment entirely and impose a civil fine, similar to a parking ticket.

The removal of points is legally crucial. Courts have generally held that assessing license points—which can lead to license suspension—without positively identifying the actual driver violates due process protections. By making the penalty purely financial and attaching liability to the vehicle rather than the driver’s record, the legislation creates a legally sustainable framework for automated enforcement.

The bills also establish strict procedural requirements. School bus operators or automated systems would document violations with dated and timestamped images, which a law enforcement officer must then review and verify. Citations must be issued within 10 days of the violation, giving vehicle owners time to recall who was driving and allowing them to transfer liability if the vehicle was stolen or, in some versions of the legislation, if they identify the actual driver through an affidavit.

The proposed effective date for these changes is August 1, 2026, with provisions applying to school buses operated during the 2026-2027 school year.

Privacy Protections Built Into the Framework

Recognizing public concerns about surveillance, the legislation includes specific privacy safeguards that sharply limit what can be recorded and how long data can be kept.

The bills explicitly prohibit video monitoring systems from recording vehicle occupants. The cameras must focus exclusively on license plates and the vehicle’s interaction with the stopped bus, not on who’s inside the car.

Additionally, the legislation mandates that all images and data must be destroyed within 90 days unless they’re part of an active investigation or pending citation. This requirement prevents the creation of long-term databases tracking vehicle movements and limits the surveillance capability to its stated traffic enforcement purpose.

The Bennington Initiative in Context

Against this legislative backdrop, Bennington County’s approval of a school bus camera program represents an investment in hardware and systems that won’t have full legal authority until the state legislation takes effect, according to reporting from the Bennington Banner.

The Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union and local law enforcement agencies—including the Bennington Police Department and Bennington County Sheriff’s Office—have championed the initiative. Bennington has been active in broader community safety efforts, including downtown security camera installations, which may have reduced political resistance to bus-mounted surveillance technology.

During the interim period before August 2026, the Bennington program can collect data and potentially issue warning notices to drivers. However, any enforcement action that carries financial penalties would likely need to proceed under the existing statute, requiring officers to identify drivers—the same cumbersome process that has led to the current enforcement gap.

Technology, Vendors, and Business Models

The camera systems being deployed in Vermont are sophisticated pieces of technology that use artificial intelligence to distinguish actual violations from routine traffic around school buses. Companies like Verra Mobility and BusPatrol dominate this market, offering systems that continuously monitor roads and trigger only when they detect a vehicle passing an extended stop arm while red lights are flashing.

These vendors typically operate under a “violator-funded” business model. The company installs cameras at no upfront cost to the school district, then retains a percentage of revenue from each paid citation—often between 40 and 60 percent based on industry standards. This arrangement allows cash-strapped districts to modernize their safety systems without capital expenditure, but it also creates a profit motive for the vendor that depends on violation volume.

The systems include license plate recognition capabilities designed to function in challenging conditions—rain, snow, darkness, and the difficult lighting common on Vermont roads. Data is uploaded to cloud servers where it’s processed and prepared for law enforcement review, enabling the 10-day citation window that proposed legislation requires.

Statewide Variations and Challenges

Vermont’s school districts face significantly different contexts that will shape how automated enforcement unfolds.

In Chittenden County, the state’s population center, severe bus driver shortages have forced route consolidations that put more students on each bus and create longer, more complex routes. The county also has Vermont’s highest traffic density, with multi-lane roads in Burlington, South Burlington, and Williston creating scenarios where drivers may be confused about stopping requirements. Vermont law requires drivers to stop for school buses even on multi-lane roads unless there’s a physical barrier separating the roadways.

Rutland County’s Sheriff’s Department issued more traffic tickets and warnings—1,225 tickets and 1,521 warnings—than any other Vermont agency in 2024, suggesting an enforcement culture that may embrace camera technology rapidly once legal authority exists.

Washington County, home to the state capital, sees heavy involvement from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, which conducted 10,433 traffic stops in 2024. However, the absence of specific line items for school bus violations in their annual reports illustrates the current reality: without automated systems, these violations are rare opportunities for patrol officers rather than systematic enforcement targets.

What Happens Next

Law enforcement agencies statewide will need to prepare for the administrative workload of reviewing potentially thousands of video clips annually. Developing consistent standards for what constitutes a violation—ensuring fairness across counties—will be essential to the program’s legitimacy.

The disconnect between millions of estimated violations and the handful of citations currently issued in Vermont confirms that traditional enforcement has failed to address the problem. Whether automated camera systems, backed by new legislative authority, can close that gap while respecting due process and privacy rights will become clear as these programs expand across Vermont in the coming years.

For now, Bennington County’s initiative serves as a test case for what statewide implementation might look like—and a reminder that local action, however well-intentioned, still requires state-level legal framework to achieve its enforcement goals.