Reports of drivers passing stopped school buses in Sudbury, Ont., are down this year

Greater Sudbury police have received 12 complaints so far this year about drivers passing school buses when they are picking up or dropping off children in the northern Ontario city.

Police say they've charged one person for passing a school bus.

In addition to those complaints, the Sudbury Student Services Consortium, which manages school buses for the region's four school boards, has received 24 reports of drivers illegally passing school buses.

Renée Boucher, the consortium's executive director, said the numbers are an improvement over last year, when they counted 433 such incidents over the entire school year.

"Even one would be too much, but it's still better," she said.

Sgt. Blair Ramsay, with the Greater Sudbury Police Service's traffic management unit, said police see the most issues on busier four-laned roads, where people in the lane furthest from a school bus don't always stop.

"All lanes of traffic have to stop, even if the school buses are in a lane that's, you know, far away from everybody," he said.

Ramsay said drivers need to pay better attention on the road and be on the lookout for school buses, which now have bright LED lights, and strobe lights in some cases, when they are stopped.

"It's very common that they [drivers] didn't see the bus because they were in the lane that was the furthest away from the bus," he said.

In the 2022-2023 school year, Sudbury police sent out 238 warning letters and charged 55 drivers for passing stopped school buses.

The fine for illegally passing a school bus is $400 and also results in six demerit points.

To help report more infractions, the Sudbury Student Services Consortium has started to install camera systems on some of its school buses, which can capture a vehicle's licence plate number if it illegally passes a bus.

Boucher said seven of the consortium's 380 school buses currently have the camera systems installed, with six more on the way.

She added she would like all buses to have the cameras, but they are expensive, and they currently need a staff member to manually review the footage they capture, and send any infractions to police. 

"It's something that I would like to see in the future, but we need to develop the technology at the same time," Boucher said.

Pierre Ranger, chair of the Let's Remember Adam campaign, said stop arm camera systems should be on all school buses in Ontario.

Ranger's brother Adam was killed in 2000 when he was hit by a truck while getting off a school bus in North Bay. He was five years old. 

"Our goal is to make sure that no family or community has to go through what our family and our community has gone through with the loss of Adam." 

Thanks to the campaign, all school buses in their hometown of Mattawa now have stop arm safety camera systems installed.

Ranger said that every year in Ontario, there are about 30,000 cases where vehicles drive by stopped school buses illegally.

In Sault Ste. Marie, police say they've received nine complaints this school year about drivers illegally passing school buses.

One driver in particular takes it upon himself to extend a hand gesture, an impolite one, to the [bus] driver.​​​​​​- Marc Depatie, Timmins Police Service

In Timmins, police have laid six charges for illegally passing school buses so far this year, but officers they are investigating 10 other complaints. 

Timmins Police Service spokesperson Marc Depatie said those numbers are on par with other years.

But he finds the behaviour behind those infractions troubling.

"You are placing the safety of a child at risk when you breeze through or past a school bus with its emergency lights on," Depatie said.

Depatie said school bus drivers have reported some repeat offenders they see on their routes often.

"One driver in particular takes it upon himself to extend a hand gesture, an impolite one, to the [bus] driver," he said.

"So it's not just a matter of, 'Oops, I'm going past the school bus when I shouldn't.' This driver in particular is opting to thumb his nose completely at the rules of the road and forsaking the safety of children in order to reach his destination as quickly as he can. And that's simply not tolerable."