School busses could soon have cameras installed to catch cars that pass when the stop arm is deployed.

This is a measure that has come close to passing in previous legislative sessions, but hasn't crossed the finish line yet.

This year, however, the proposal is House Bill seven making it priority legislation.

Mackenzie Spink tells us how it fared in tonight's legislative update.

This bill has passed.

Sponsor of House Bill seven.

Representative David Hale says stop arm violations are getting out of hand.

Citing a study in Kentucky where around 2500 school bus drivers were asked to keep track of how many violations they saw in a day.

A lot of our drivers in the state were asked to keep a running log in, and some of them had people from the district actually on the busses with them to keep a running log of approximately how many violations that they could just take a quick notation of and in one day span on their morning and evening route, they logged a little over 1300 violations.

House Bill seven would allow for the use of camera monitoring systems on school busses, and the enforcement of a 3 to $500 penalty for cars that are recorded passing a school bus with a deployed stop arm.

Representative Bobby McCool has personal experience with the dangers of stop arm violations.

I am a blessed person because this happened to me when I was a young boy of nine years old, and I actually went, front of the school bus and, not the hands of myself saying, you can't go in front of school bus.

Behind school bus and got hit by a truck and actually ended up fracturing my skull.

My whole left side of the school, not my across the lot of things, but, I'm blessed to be here today.

I would hope any other child wouldn't have to go through that if there's provisions that we can do to prohibit that.

So thank you for bringing this forth.

Certainly supportive of this bill.

One committee member voted against the bill, concerned that a real law enforcement officer wasn't involved enough with the citation process.

Once we cross this line and we start allowing technology in the computer to replace the police, it's a very slippery slope and it goes downhill towards red light cameras and speed cameras and stoplight cameras and behavior cameras.

And and that's why I have to vote.

No.

I absolutely understand and, sympathize with the need for this and the egregious violations we see.

But there's got to be a better way to get this done as we as we found that solution a year ago with our upset Blanton's bill on work zone safety, the.

Work zone safety law Representative Hodgson referenced, allows an officer to issue a citation at the time of the offense.

When someone is caught on camera speeding through a work zone under the school bus safety bill, a law enforcement officer will review the camera footage after the fact and sign a sworn statement confirming the violation before the penalty is enforced.

There is a, Correct me if I'm wrong here, but there is a second sworn statement by an officer that they have reviewed the tape and reviewed it.

Yes, sir.

So it's not a, doing this or computers.

It is a physical person actually reviewing the tapes and signing off in a sworn statement that this violation did take place.

The bill passed the House Transportation Committee with one no vote and will next head to the House floor for consideration for Kentucky edition on Mackenzie Spink.

Last year, Senate Bill 38 was essentially the same proposal, but with an amendment prohibiting autonomous vehicles from transporting students.

That bill died in the House.

This year's House Bill seven does not have that same language.