Nearly 250,000 school bus camera tickets written on Long Island in 2023; most were in Town of Hempstead

Drivers in the Town of Hempstead last year were hit with nearly 40,000 more school bus camera tickets than drivers in Suffolk County, despite having half the population.

BusPatrol America, a Virginia-based company that runs the school bus camera programs, recorded 140,456 violations in Hempstead in 2023, compared with 103,532 in Suffolk. The town’s population is 793,409, while Suffolk is home to more than 1.5 million people.

A number of factors likely contributed to Hempstead's higher ticketing rate, but Brian Devine, the town communications director, said the two biggest reasons were simple: Hempstead is denser and its camera program is newer. BusPatrol also said denser areas tend to see more tickets. Devine added the number of tickets issued this year is down compared with last year, which is consistent with other BusPatrol programs as they mature. 

"Beyond the disparity in density between Hempstead and Suffolk County being a mitigating factor ... it's important to note that 2023 was the first year the program was run in the Town of Hempstead, and thus it most likely resulted in more violations being issued to drivers than in Suffolk County due to a general lack of awareness of the public of the enforcement of state law," Devine said.

Newsday analyzed the nearly quarter of a million tickets issued last year, providing the most comprehensive picture yet  of the bus camera programs in Suffolk and Hempstead — programs officials say are necessary to protect children but critics have called a "cash grab."

"The passing of school buses is such a problem in our state and nationally," said David Christopher, executive director of the advocacy group New York Association for Pupil Transportation. "This is just one tool of many that we can employ to keep kids safe. People are driving aggressively and they’re driving distracted, and kids are in danger when that happens."

Where school bus camera tickets were issued on LI

Nearly 250,000 school bus camera tickets were issued in Suffolk County and the Town of Hempstead in 2023, according to a Newsday analysis of data provided by the county and town. Use the map below to explore where tickets were issued, how many were issued and how much revenue they were expected to generate. Click a point for more information or use the search bar to look up tickets issued by ZIP code.

Note: Expected ticket revenue is based on the minimum fine of $250 per ticket. Repeat offenders are fined more.

Hot spots for bus camera tickets

A 2019 law passed by the State Legislature allows municipalities to adopt programs that use cameras affixed to school buses to catch drivers who fail to stop when buses are picking up or dropping off children. New York law long has required drivers to stop for school buses.

The data analysis reveals some of the hot spots for bus camera tickets on Long Island. For example, Suffolk issued nearly 5,000 tickets to drivers on Route 25 last year, more than on any other road in the county. Route 25 runs the length of Suffolk and at different points is called Jericho Turnpike, Middle Country Road and Main Road.

A single block of that road, a half-mile stretch at the border of Commack and Smithtown, drew 1,612 citations, according to Suffolk’s 2023 annual report on the bus camera program, released in May.

But Jericho Turnpike was hardly the only road on Long Island blanketed with bus camera tickets last year.

Data from Hempstead, obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request, shows the scale of the bus camera program there. Four roads in the town saw more tickets written last year than were issued to drivers on Jericho Turnpike in Suffolk.

Hempstead town wrote 7,411 citations to drivers on Merrick Road, followed by 6,482 on Grand Avenue, primarily in Baldwin, 5,776 on Fulton Avenue, mainly in Hempstead Village, and 4,960 on Jerusalem Avenue, according to the town’s data. Merrick Road and Jerusalem Avenue span multiple communities. Three other streets each saw more than 3,000 tickets issued.

More tickets than residents

In Lido Beach, Hempstead issued more tickets last year than there are residents, with 3,864 tickets written in the seaside hamlet with a population of 2,615.

The locations of the tickets issued are based on where the violation occurred, not where the driver lives, meaning it's not just residents of any one community being ticketed there. Lido Beach connects Long Beach with the Meadowbrook State Parkway, which means it likely sees more traffic than its population would suggest.

Devine, citing data provided to him by BusPatrol, said 66% of tickets written by Hempstead last year went to drivers who live in the town, while 34% of cited drivers were not Hempstead residents. In Suffolk, 85% of tickets last year went to people who live in the county and 15% went to nonresidents, according to Devine.

In total, Newsday analyzed 137,099 tickets written in Hempstead and 103,374 issued in Suffolk. The data provided to Newsday and used in this analysis excluded a few thousand tickets issued in those communities which were not included in records provided as a result of a public records request.

Hempstead launched its bus camera program in the fall of 2022. BusPatrol sent drivers more than 12,000 tickets in the town in the first week of December that year, one of the first weeks the program was up and running. Five Hempstead school districts have opted out of the town's bus camera program, according to Devine: Baldwin, Hempstead Village, Lawrence, Roosevelt and Valley Stream 13.

Opting out means the districts have not entered into an agreement to participate in the town's bus camera program.

Suffolk debuted its bus cameras in 2021.

Disgruntled drivers have raised questions about whether the programs are more about making money than child safety. Each ticket carries a $250 fine, with penalties increasing for repeat offenders.

Joyce Reibel, a Nassau resident ticketed on Route 112 in Port Jefferson Station earlier this year, called the tickets "a scam." Reibel said she was cited after failing to stop for a school bus that had stopped on the opposite side of the street, four lanes of traffic away. She said the bus was sitting at the curb and that she saw no one getting on or off. Reibel doesn't recall seeing flashing lights.

State law says drivers must stop for school buses when their red lights are flashing and their stop-arms are extended, regardless of how many lanes separate their vehicle from the bus.

"I wrote ‘Suffolk County money grab’ on my check, because that’s what it is," Reibel said, referring to when she paid her ticket.

Officials have pushed back on that characterization of the bus camera programs. 

"We don’t want this to be seen as a money grab," Christopher said. "That’s not what this is about. This is about keeping kids safe."

Unpaid tickets remain a problem

Regardless of the impetus behind the programs, they have been a revenue generator on Long Island. Under the terms of their contracts, both Suffolk and Hempstead keep 55% of ticket revenue, while the remaining 45% goes to BusPatrol.

Since the beginning of 2022, Suffolk’s program has generated around $45 million in fines, according to the county’s 2022 and 2023 annual reports on the program. More than $20 million of that revenue has gone to BusPatrol.

Hempstead's program generated $13 million in 2023 and has brought in a total of more than $17 million since cameras were installed on buses, officials previously told Newsday.

Despite the revenue generated, unpaid tickets remain a problem. An audit published by the Suffolk County comptroller’s office earlier this year found between May 2021 and December 2022, more than one-quarter of tickets had not been paid, leaving nearly $13 million in fines uncollected.

In its 2023 annual report, Suffolk found 23% of tickets issued last year hadn’t been paid, which is nearly $6 million more in uncollected fines.

Newsday reported last month that BusPatrol has considered hiring a debt collection agency to go after drivers who haven’t paid their tickets, but the company has not gotten the required approval to do so from Suffolk. The county has not said how it plans to recoup the fines.

Drivers ticketed on Long Island also have filed lawsuits against the bus camera programs in state Supreme Court in both Nassau and Suffolk counties, and in federal court. All three lawsuits are seeking class-action status and claim the evidence provided by BusPatrol is insufficient to prove a violation occurred.

Both state Supreme Court cases are ongoing, while the suit against BusPatrol in federal court was dismissed in early August. The attorney representing the plaintiff in that case, who is also representing the plaintiffs in the Nassau and Suffolk lawsuits, told Newsday he plans to appeal the dismissal.

BusPatrol has declined to comment on the pending litigation.

While Nassau doesn’t have a countywide bus camera program like Suffolk, other Nassau municipalities have joined Hempstead in launching their own, including Glen Cove, Long Beach, North Hempstead and Oyster Bay. Those programs were not included in Newsday’s analysis because they were not active for all of 2023, but data obtained by Newsday shows that Long Beach issued 1,169 tickets last year.

Despite the large number of tickets issued last year, Hempstead's bus camera program appears to be discouraging drivers from passing stopped school buses. Devine said data provided to Hempstead by BusPatrol shows a 25% year-over-year decline in tickets this year.

"This means that not only are more drivers stopping for school buses, but our roads are safer for students," Devine said. "It's the town's sincere hope that we one day reach the point where everyone will be complying with state law and no further fines will have to be imposed."