Safety in Sight

July 13, 2026

This spring, I spoke with a newspaper reporter in Southern California regarding a case of students left on school buses. Those kinds of headlines always grab my attention as such incidents happen all too often nationwide. The most recent number is around 500 a year based on federal estimates, but no true count is recorded from state to state.

But all states have a regulation on not leaving students on school buses. California law requires school bus drivers to deactivate some kind of alarm system that acts as a reminder to perform a full post-trip sweep of the school bus, including looking on and below each seating position to check for sleeping students or those who otherwise did not exit at their respective stops.

The law resulted from a tragic 2015 death of a 16-year-old nonverbal boy with autism, who was left on his Southern California school bus for upwards of eight hours during a heat wave, while his driver hurried off to meet a co-worker for a tryst.

Referred to as The Paul Lee law, it has required various alarms or reminder systems in school buses since 2019. That did not stop two incidents from occurring earlier this year in the Oxnard, California area. Aside from the obvious safety concerns, it came as no surprise that the reporter asked me why the local school bus driver’s union was coming to the defense of the driver and opposing technology that could prevent such incidents. Granted, the recent Oxnard case has its complexities.

I often talk to directors of transportation about their frustration with some collective bargaining negotiations, and the media junkets that unions will embark on to try to influence those talks. The breakdown often comes when technology enters the picture. Video cameras, GPS, data tracking and tablets are well ingrained in society, where we can watch our pizza being made to being delivered, and all steps in between. But when it comes to the nation’s schoolchildren, technology detractors will raise privacy concerns and allege the solutions are being used to spy on school bus drivers. That is part of the story in Oxnard.

While technology stacks do corroborate what school bus drivers are doing—or not—behind the wheel, they also drive efficiencies, safety and accountability. The newspaper reporter I spoke with expressed shock that student tracking exists. I had to explain that many school districts have migrated to what is more accurately described as student ridership verification, to alleviate the call volume from parents asking where their children’s school buses are, and when and where their students board and exit. Student ridership verification is about safety and communication, not checking up on school bus drivers. These systems also work with child reminder systems to ensure students are accounted for at the conclusion of routes.

Camera systems provide another fail-safe, if footage is reviewed and flagged properly. They verify student activity during the route and can detect if children remain on the bus afterward. They also record traffic issues on the road and provide training insights for driver-trainers regarding school bus driver action or inaction. For example, cameras using AI-enhanced software increasingly are detecting drowsy or stressed school bus drivers, as we talk about more in this issue.

More so, I told the reporter, cameras and other technology are serving as proof of service, often exonerating school bus drivers from “he said, she said” accusations. Too often, students, other motorists or parents levy allegations against school bus drivers that are unfounded. While there are bad apples in every bunch, as seen by the focus on driving while under the influence, most school bus drivers are in this position for all the right reasons.

Editor’s Note: As reprinted from the July 2026 issue of School Transportation News.