SOUTH HADLEY — South Hadley could become the first Hampshire County municipality to adopt a state law allowing video monitoring on school buses for traffic violation enforcement, as the town looks to clamp down on an estimated 1,000-plus violations that occur every school year.
The law, signed by Gov. Maura Healey in January 2025, allows cameras mounted on school bus stop arms to capture the license plates of vehicles that illegally pass a stopped bus. The cameras record when the bus is stopped with its red lights flashing. Buses equipped with the systems must display signs indicating their use.
Chicopee, Pittsfield, Peabody and Salem are the only communities to have installed the stop-arm cameras since the law took effect. South Hadley police hope to adopt the technology to bolster safety and department efficiency.
“We just want to improve safety,” South Hadley Police Chief Jennifer Gundersen said in a phone interview. “It’s offenses we know are happening that are difficult for us to enforce. So this gives us a tool to educate first, and then enforce.”
If voters at a special Town Meeting in November accept the law, the AI-powered cameras would be installed on the South Hadley Public Schools’ fleet of eight buses, police Lt. Mike Baran told the Select Board on Tuesday. Baran called the cameras a “force multiplier” that would extend enforcement despite the department’s limited staff and resources.
“We can’t follow every school bus around town,” Baran said. “By equipping our buses with this camera system, it would basically kind of be our eyes and ears out there.”
The Select Board supported the acceptance of the new law in a 3-1 vote (member Carol Constant was absent). Member Renee Sweeney said she “really wanted to support” the program, but she opposed the cameras recording continuously in “passive mode” as the buses drive around town. Citations can be issued only when the stop arm is extended, Baran said.
“It’s not anything that we’re going to use for enforcement action, but there is a passive mode on that, so the camera is running,” Baran said.
Gundersen said that unlike other surveillance systems, such as Flock Safety, stop-arm camera companies limit data sharing to the customer and the vendor. State law also requires the data to be deleted after 30 days.
The Police Department has been learning about the technology from BusPatrol, an AI public safety company that supplies stop-arm cameras to Chicopee and Peabody. If Town Meeting adopts the law, the town would go through a procurement process to choose a vendor.
Police said the program would cost the town nothing should it contract with BusPatrol. That company, for example, charges $250 per month for each bus, an amount covered by the first citation each month. Fines for violating the law are $250. Board members asked what would happen if the town recorded fewer than eight violations in a month, but Baran assured them South Hadley has more than enough.
“Throughout our meeting with the South Hadley bus vendor FiveStar, they report that every bus every day has a violation,” Gundersen said.
With six or seven buses carrying children each day, one violation per bus per day over a 180-day school year would total 1,080 to 1,260 violations.
Bus stop traffic violations are caused by a combination of drivers not paying attention, and motorists trying “to beat the arm,” Gundersen said.
South Hadley police do education and outreach at the start of each school year, but enforcement poses a particular challenge. For the first month of school, an officer follows a bus to catch drivers passing it while it is stopped. When a violation occurs, the officer must wait for children to cross, make a three-point turn and catch up to the vehicle, Gundersen said.
The cameras would eliminate that process, she said.
“There is no interaction,” Gundersen said. “We are not putting officers at risk on busy roads during commuting hours while everyone is in a rush.”
There will be a probationary period of the program where violations will be limited to warnings or educational notices to allow the community to adjust to the new traffic enforcement. Anyone who receives a citation can appeal through the town.
Concerns about student safety at bus stops have been building in the region. In 2023, Leverett residents Wes and Audra Goscenski sent videos of vehicles speeding past stopped buses to then-state Rep. Natalie Blais, D-Deerfield, and state Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, who both voiced support for stronger bus safety measures. In September 2025, video surfaced of a Hadley Elementary School student nearly being hit by a car while boarding a bus.
According to the BusPatrol website, the cameras on 10 Peabody buses recorded 3,412 vehicles failing to stop for school buses during the 2023-2024 academic year, when the city ran a pilot program using the technology. Chicopee reported the same frequency of violations as South Hadley in the 2025-2026 school year, Gundersen said.
In 2025, 30 states had authorized the use of bus-stop arm cameras, according to National Conference of State Legislators.
Special Town Meeting will take place on Nov. 9.
