Philadelphia Live Interview w/ Ken Fulginiti | School Bus Safety | Fulginiti Law

Judayah Murray: Welcome back into Philadelphia Live Primetime. I’m Judayah Murray. And before this commercial break, I talked to you guys about how we were going to have an interview coming up talking about school safety, our school buses, making sure your kids are safe, and where it’s all coming from. It stems from today being the first day of National School Bus Safety Week. It goes until the 23rd. And there’s a lot to be discussed. One thing in particular is Philadelphia School District. They’ve decided that they want to test out this pilot program and put some cameras on the little stop arm that comes out from the bus. And I think you’ll be interested in why they think it’s necessary and what could potentially happen if the program goes well, the pilot program goes well. You know, they could end up on some other buses, maybe even all of the fleet. I want to bring in Ken Fulginiti. He’s an attorney who’s talked a lot, a lot about these catastrophic injuries, motor vehicle cases, and I think would be the perfect person to discuss what we could potentially see coming to more of our school buses. So, Ken, thanks for making some time for us here on Philadelphia Live.

Ken Fulginiti: Thank you, Judayah. I appreciate you having me on.

Judayah Murray: No problem. So this pilot program is really, really interesting to me. I just want to understand, can you tell our audience why a camera on that stop arm would be so significant? What would it catch?

Ken Fulginiti: Well, what it does is when the stop arm is activated, so when the bus stops and the stop arm is activated, then the camera activates itself. And what happens is if somebody blows through the stop arm, somebody tries to pass—you’re supposed to stay 10 feet away from the bus when it’s operating the stop arm, when the signals are flashing. So what it does is it captures the license plate of the vehicle that is going past it. So if somebody does violate the stop arm, then their license plate is going to be captured, just like if you run through a toll or something like that. It captures your license plate. The one issue with that is that it’s going to be a violation that will be reviewed, but it’s going to be a violation for the vehicle owner more so than the person who’s driving the vehicle.

Judayah Murray: Okay, well, I have some questions that’ll come with that, so we’ll turn back around to that a little later on. But to capture the license plate, potentially holding someone accountable for what happens, I find this interesting because when I was in elementary school, a very good friend of mine, her brother—she and her brother were getting off of the bus. The bus driver takes a look, sees no one coming, gives the kids a signal to start crossing the street. Well, someone, a teenager who also went to my school, blew through that bus stop sign and ended up hitting my friend’s brother. He is, we’ll just say, down and out still to this day. And I think it’s really important not only that people know that they have to stop when you see that stop sign come out, but for a camera like this to be able to capture something like that happening. So, you know, no chance of a hit-and-run kind of incident. I think that’s pretty significant. What helped everyone make the decision, like, now is the time, let’s try with the pilot program, maybe even getting some of those people interested in donating money to make it happen? Like, where did this all stem from?

Ken Fulginiti: Well, we’re certainly not the first state to do it. So there’s about 30 states right now that have these programs in place where it’s been authorized to use these cameras on the stop arms. And I think that a review of the statistics are that—and this is kind of a shocking number—but there’s about an estimated 45 million times a year that stop arm violations occur. So it’s an extraordinary number. And just like the story that you have and the friend that you know, I’ve represented people who have, who have been injured because, you know, somebody gets off a bus and they are crossing the street. Some people don’t appreciate that they’re supposed to stop in going the opposite direction. Some people just pass out from behind as well. And it’s so hard to see somebody, a child or an adult, but it’s so hard to see a child who’s walking out from in front of a bus.

Judayah Murray: Yeah, well that’s true. And I just, I’m curious, are the cameras enough to stop it? Because I also hear you say, when you told me it’ll capture the person who owns the vehicle, not necessarily the driver him or herself. So are the cameras enough?

Ken Fulginiti: You know, the cameras will capture the license plate. And then what happens is the technology company is supposed to review, because they may see things and maybe it’s not a violation, but they will get a lot of information to review. They’re supposed to pass that along to the police department. The police department is supposed to evaluate whether a citation is warranted, which is then supposed to be issued by the school district. But the citation itself is only $300, which to me seems a bit light for the potential for harm that can happen from something like this.

Judayah Murray: Yeah. I mean, $300 versus taking someone’s quality of life away or literally taking their life away. You know, how do you add that up? So just out of curiosity, even in the situation that I had posed, the bus driver did look and let the children cross over. Are there any other things that our drivers or parents who are waiting for their children or putting their kids on the bus, anything that they can also do to kind of help that safety aspect?

Ken Fulginiti: I think it really should—there should be like three prongs to look at this. I think that there has to be awareness from people driving vehicles that they cannot pass a stop arm. They cannot pass a bus that has a stop arm out and activated, no matter what direction they’re going in. I think on top of that, there has to be an evaluation, and I’m sure there is already, but there has to be an evaluation by the school districts to make sure that the school bus stops that they are selecting are safe for the children to get on and off the buses. It would be very helpful—I’m a parent myself, and having seen all these horrible things that happen with school buses as well—it’d be very, very helpful for people to talk to their children and remind them that there’s safety issues, because children have a lot of distractions. It’d be helpful and very important for them to be educated and re-educated, just as they would and what to do in the event of a fire or what to do in, you know, some other situations, that what they should do when they’re getting onto and off of a bus, and to be mindful of their surroundings.

Judayah Murray: Yeah, we could all stand to help out just a little bit more. Even just like that slight difference of something that you do during the day or some slight difference in what you teach could help prevent this in the future, then that slight difference is enough. Well, I understand this is not going to be all of the buses since it’s just a pilot program. How many buses are getting these cameras?

Ken Fulginiti: Well, the pilot program is only 20 buses. There are about, I think, 400 buses that are owned by the school district. So, you know, it’s the 20 buses are being—it’s being donated by Gatekeeper Systems and a company called BusPatrol. It would be great if all the buses can be outfitted once they evaluate the information that they get off this. I think that even if it captures a number of people, and if they’re able to make awareness and bring awareness to what happened and share some statistics, would be great. I think that it would be expanded to the rest of the fleet.

Judayah Murray: Yeah. Have they said how long they anticipate the pilot program to run?

Ken Fulginiti: I thought it was to run to the end of the year.

Judayah Murray: Okay. All right.

Ken Fulginiti: To the end of the school year.

Judayah Murray: Well, for those of you parents who live in and have children who go through this school system, definitely look out for that. Your child’s bus may be one of these pilot buses. Who knows? And we’ll wait and see what ends up happening with it. I would love to maybe catch up with you a little later on when we are having a better understanding of what could happen next in the future for this program. So I thank you so much, Ken, for making some time for us here on Philadelphia Live.

Ken Fulginiti: Thank you. I appreciate you having me on, and anything that we can do to save one life or help one child or prevent one accident is always worth our time.