HALL COUNTY, Ga. — The Hall County School District announced that with school reopening Friday, the days where drivers can run past stopped buses are numbered.
For the 2026 to 2027 school year, district officials announced the return of fines for drivers who illegally pass stopped school buses..
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“Our students deserve a safe journey to and from school,” Billy Wells, Director of Transportation for the Hall County School District, said in a statement. “We are asking motorists to take personal responsibility as they commute during the mornings and afternoons while our school buses are on the roads, picking up and dropping off students. At the same time, we want them to remember many of our school buses are equipped with stop-arm cameras for added safety.”
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To get used to the stops, the district said drivers will have a few weeks to get with the program, or face the fines.
While it is Georgia law to stop for a school bus with its stop-arm extended, district officials said this was too often ignored.
Now, with some changes to how the program worked last year, district officials are working to address hiccups, such as needing more manpower in court to handle the volume of citations.
“Last year, the school district launched a camera program, but we quickly realized during the warning phase that we didn’t have adequate manpower in our courts to handle the volume of citations that would be generated,” Capt. Michael Mount, Hall County Sheriff’s Office Uniform Patrol Division, said. “Our deputies continued to watch for violators and ticketed motorists who failed to comply with the stop-arm law, but we certainly missed some violations. Now that we have worked out the logistics, we are confident we can catch more drivers who neglect to stop for school buses that are loading and unloading students.”
Going forward, law enforcement officials are giving drivers eight weeks to get used to the regulations.
After that, driving past a stopped school bus could lead to $1,000 fines.
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