Athens-Clarke police want to put cameras on school buses to catch drivers who illegally pass buses while they're dropping off students.

Police Chief Jack Lumpkin proposed mounting cameras on the sides of some school buses starting early next year at an Athens-Clarke Commission work session Tuesday night. A survey of bus drivers would determine which routes see the most cars driving around buses when they should stop, he said. "Bus drivers understand where the violations occur," he said.

The Clarke County School District runs 168 buses on 145 routes. About three-quarters of the district's 12,000 students ride them.

An average of 24 children die in school bus-related collisions each year—11 bus passengers and 13 pedestrians—according to the National Institute for Highway Safety. Georgia leads states with six deaths in the past three school years. Several Georgia communities, including Cobb, Muscogee, Henry, Carroll and Bartow counties and Carrollton, already have such cameras.

The program would function much like red-light cameras at intersections. They'd take video of cars passing buses and photos of the cars' license plates. An officer would review the evidence and mail a ticket to the car's owner, who could get out of it by signing a document stating someone else was driving the car. The citation wouldn't go on drivers' insurance or cost them points on their licenses. The fines would be much higher than red-light cameras, though—$300 versus $70.

Lumpkin said he'll ask commissioners to preliminarily approve the cameras in October. They responded favorably to his presentation Tuesday. "People who speed, people who don't stop for school buses—it's amazing," said Commissioner Alice Kinman, whose daughter attends public school. "I'm all for this."

If the commission approves it in October, the program would start about three months later, Lumpkin said. Officials said they need the time to contact vendors and find out how much cameras would cost. Before issuing tickets, they'd start an "aggressive" education campaign and give warnings, Athens-Clarke Manager Alan Reddish said.

Red-light cameras generally pay for themselves with ticket revenue, and Reddish said he doesn't anticipate any up-front costs. But Lumpkin said he hopes school-bus cameras aren't a revenue generator. "If we can reduce (violations), that means our children are safe," he said.

ACC would probably keep all the money for itself, since the issue is law enforcement and ACC would cover all the costs, rather than share revenue with the school district, as some local governments do, Reddish said. The school board has agreed to that arrangement, he said. "In this case, we don't feel like there's a place for the school district to be involved, and neither do they," he said. But school officials did agree to the cameras when Lumpkin approached them last November, he said.