AB 852: Vehicles: child safety.

Existing law requires the driver of any vehicle, upon meeting or overtaking any schoolbus equipped with required signs that is stopped for the purpose of loading or unloading any schoolchildren and displaying a flashing red light signal and stop signal arm, if equipped with a stop signal arm, to bring the vehicle to a stop immediately before passing the schoolbus and to not proceed past the schoolbus until the flashing red light signal and stop signal arm cease operation. A violation of these provisions is a crime.

This bill would authorize a school district to install and operate an automated schoolbus video enforcement system, as defined, for the purpose of enforcing the prohibition described above. The bill would require additional signage on schoolbuses relative to the video enforcement system. The bill would prohibit a school district from using automated schoolbus video enforcement systems or information gathered from those systems for any purpose other than those authorized by these provisions. The bill would additionally require a school district using an automated schoolbus video enforcement system to, among other things, have a communication plan about the deployment of the system and destroy images captured within 120 days if no violation occurred.

Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest.

This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.