Las Cruces School Buses Now Have Video Cameras

New school year, new buses, and new safety precautions.

Las Cruces Public School District partnered with a different bus company this summer – a company which offers a top-of-the-line surveillance system.

Bus driver Mary Caro said she’s waited 25 years to see this level of protection – not only for herself but also for her kids.

“I love the bus, I love the air conditioning, I just love it!” Caro said.

Walking up the small stairs, Caro said her love for her job combined with a new surveillance system is why she now feels safer behind the wheel.

“The camera says it all,” Caro said. “The cameras will protect the driver, it’ll also protect the children from from anybody saying something that’s not right.”

Riding along with Caro on one of her typical routes, her eyes are focused on the road – but round cameras overhead monitor her every move.

“I anybody accuses us (the drivers) of anything, they can go to the camera and it can be proven otherwise,” Caro said.

Ralph Williams, director of Texas-based bus company STS, said working cameras eliminate the dispute of one word against another.

“There’s no heresay,” Williams said. “It’s all recorded right there, you can hear anything.”

Williams said 150 buses are each equipped with three cameras – one facing students, another watching everything the driver to the students who step onboard, and one monitoring the road.

“Parents can know that we’re gonna take the best care of their kids because everything is being filmed at all times,” Williams said.

Each hard-drive security system is valued at about $2,500. But the company’s director and drivers said the cameras are an investment for the protection of everybody on board.

“There’s not going to be a bus that leaves our bus yard that the camera system’s not working on,” Williams said.

And drivers couldn’t be happier.

“I think the cameras will help me feel better about myself, and my children.”

All buses will also have signs making it clear to students they are being recorded.

“We don?t use this to throw kids off the bus,? Williams said. ?We use it as a deterrent to keep from having to throw kids off the bus because they know if you can see what they’re doing, they’re not as apt to do it.”

Williams said parents are not permitted to see any video, unless it is used in court and becomes public record.

Videos can be retrieved up to six weeks after a film date, and Williams said, at that time the hard-drive overrides and starts with a blank slate.