I-Team: School bus cameras

There are cameras everywhere designed to catch you in the act.

They're in public buildings. They're at stop lights.

And now, they have been installed on the sides of school buses all around Rhode Island.

Some of the cameras have caught drivers breaking the law, and others have caught others by complete surprise.

Buses in six school districts, Providence, Johnston, East Providence, Portsmouth, Burrillville and Westerly, are now equipped with the covert cameras. They all use a video monitoring service provided by a Rhode Island-based company called SmartBus Live. The company monitors the live video as it's transmitted to its Providence headquarters. It then provides local police with video evidence of apparent violations. Police then determine whether or not to issue a ticket.

It's a system that many drivers say is flawed.

In one day at the Traffic Tribunal in Cranston, the NBC 10 I-Team found dozens of drivers allegedly caught on camera illegally passing school buses.

However, some drivers said the cameras don't see everything.

For example, when a bus driver deploys the stop arm when the school bus is empty and its driver is on a break.

"In an instant like this, they're having their coffee break. There are no kids on the bus. I've seen these buses there every day for six years and for the guy to go out and have his coffee break, it cost me $300," said Marc Brassard.

In addition, Brassard said the ticket came from the Providence Police Department. Brassard said he wasn't in Providence at the time.

"The funny thing with this ticket is they recorded me in Pawtucket, but on my affidavit they said I was on Reservoir in Providence at the time," he said.

Barbara and Sandy Gourlay got their ticket in the mail last November.

A SmartBus Live camera captured Barbara Gourlay passing Providence School Bus No. 110.

But what the camera doesn't show is context.

Barbara Gouraly said she was several lanes away from the bus at the time and the camera captured her license plate through the back windows of a large SUV.

"It was sort of hard for us to figure out how they actually got our license place. It was the rear license plate and was taken through the window of another car," she said.

She claims the vehicle was blocking her view of the school bus stop sign.

"There was no way I could have seen the arm deploy or the lights flashing," Barbara Gourlay said.

The I-Team took the drivers' complaints to SmartBus Live co-founder and CEO Thomas O'Connor.

O'Connor said the system is designed to enhance safety, and it's up to police to determine if a ticket is warranted.

"So that's why it's a proper violation. If law enforcement decides the video evidence demonstrates that they passed a bus that was stopped, there could be a child that could walk around the edge of that bus and what motorist should decide for themselves," he said.

The I-Team also spoke to the head of the traffic bureau at the Providence Police Department who said not every tagged video gets a ticket, and the department does take context into consideration.

"If I was on the street and I wouldn't write (the ticket), why would I write it here? So, we have the discretion to reject them, and we do so," Sgt. Paul Zienowitz said.

However, that wasn't the same sentiment from drivers who spoke to the I-Team. They said they feel like their violations were all one big misunderstanding.

"The amount of emotional fatigue and the financial distress of a $285 ticket is a little surprising," Barbara Gourlay said.