In a 5-0 vote at their meeting Thursday evening, the Cobb County Board of Commissioners approved a one-year extension of the contract between Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions and the Cobb County School District, which had lapsed.  The company manages a network of cameras on school buses which monitors for traffic violations and allows the automatic issuance of citations.

County attornies are working with state legislators to tighten the rules governing the program, to answer concerns about whether the civil citations issued through the program were legal.

Commission Chairman Mike Boyce, who presented the motion, said,  “All of us on the Board support the program and we are glad to renew it.  We are already working with our legislative delegation to fix the issues that were raised.” Commissioners Cupid and Birrell also spoke in favor of the extension. Birrell said her input from the community about the enforcement program had been positive.

During the public comment section, Cobb County school bus driver Jimmy Richards said “I was angry and shocked my first week of school, how many people run my stop sign, and even more frustrated because I couldn’t do anything about it. We’re out there taking care of our kids on the bus, getting them loaded safely.” He said that after the camera was installed on his bus, in 34 school days 99 drivers were caught running the stop arm on his bus. He called for the extension of the contract, and said, “A thousand school bus drivers appreciate your support.”