Touted as a new way to keep our students safe, the newest lineup of public school buses have been retrofitted with cameras.
Guam – For most public school students, the new school year starts tomorrow.
In an announcement welcoming back our students, the Office of the Governor in conjunction with the Department of Public Works unveiled a new fleet of buses retrofitted with cameras to keep an eye on everyone’s safety.
“[The cameras] only turns on when the bus is on,” explains DPW Director Glenn Leon Guerrero. He added, “And it’s setup from the front shooting back so you only look back at the kids.”
Touted as a new way to keep our students safe, the newest lineup of public school buses have been retrofitted with cameras.
“The way this thing is designed, it’s got 34 or 64MB so once it fills up, it goes to record retention and we keep [the footage] for record purposes,” says Leon Guerrero.
According to DPW, the new feature protects the drivers just as much as the students as it will keep a record of any incident and will immediately upload the footage if such an incident were to occur.
“We have [the cameras] for about 30 buses. We have 50 brand new buses, but we have them for 30 of them. Since it’s a nominal cost, we’re going to try to do it for the entire fleet. But even then our standard SOP from here on out is whenever we purchase the new bus is to get the camera with it,” he said.
And according to Leon Guerrero, more buses are slated to include the latest technology called “Track Me”. It allows a GPS feature that monitors exactly where the buses are on Guam at any given point.
“The ‘Track Me’ has functions that say for example, Bus 99 is going 45mph in a 35mph –we’ll have that and so we pull that down and we have a sit down with the driver,” he said.
According to a release from Adelup, there are 150 working buses ready for Department of Education’s new school year, which starts tomorrow.
“This is an important installation to our school buses and this is a great way to start off our school year. I want to thank DPW for working hard to ensure a safe environment for our community,” stated Governor Calvo in a press release.
The release explains that both DPW and DOE held training over the summer at Okkodo High School for bus drivers to ensure the safety of students riding the bus focusing on self-help/maintenance, Positive Behavioral Intervention Supports, and Bus Crash Problems.
