ALLENTOWN, Pa. — There were no lights and no sirens. No flash that lit up Victor Mazziotti’s car as he drove through Allentown’s West Park neighborhood near 15th and West Turner streets.
And it would take a few weeks before a $300 citation landed in his mailbox explaining what allegedly had happened.
Mazziotti had unknowingly triggered one of Allentown’s school bus stop-arm cameras — a now-common enforcement tool across Pennsylvania that records photos and videos of drivers allegedly overtaking buses loading or unloading students.
Except Mazziotti said that’s not what happened. And his citation came after his wife had already received one in the mail for a separate alleged offense.
“You don’t know my wife,” an exasperated Mazziotti told the Allentown School Board during public comment on Oct. 23.
“She has never had a traffic citation in her life. Never. Fifty years of driving, so she was shocked when she received that.
"But I don’t know if you’ve seen the citation. It basically says, ‘We got you. We have you on videotape. The police have looked at it. You’re guilty.’”
“She has never had a traffic citation in her life. Never. Fifty years of driving, so she was shocked when she received that."Victor Mazziotti, describing his wife's reaction after she received a citation for allegedly passing a school bus
So the couple paid the $300 and moved on — until another citation arrived, this one with Victor’s name on it. The accompanying video, he said, only deepened his frustration.
The footage showed a school bus seemingly parked at the curb when the driver suddenly deployed the stop sign with no warning to passing motorists. Mazziotti said there appeared to be no children getting on or off.
At that point, he wondered how and why the violation had been approved — and whether the program was truly about safety or more about money.
He’s not the only one asking that question.
From September 2024 to October 2025, Allentown police approved 8,598 citations, or 96% of all alleged school bus camera violations they reviewed — a proportion far greater than those in other Lehigh Valley school districts, according to data from numerous school bus camera programs.
But a spokesperson for the private vendor behind the program, BusPatrol LLC, said it's clear evidence of a larger issue.
“Programs like this exist because illegal school bus passing is a persistent and well-documented problem,” BusPatrol spokeswoman Kate Spree said in an emailed response to questions.
She said reporters at times "attempt to manufacture controversy by painting school bus stop-arm safety programs as revenue driven.”
“Parents, transportation safety advocates, education and community leaders alike overwhelmingly support stop-arm camera enforcement around school buses to protect children and afford them the utmost safety as they board and exit the bus,” Spree said.
How Allentown’s program took off, and others followed
Across Pennsylvania, stop-arm cameras have quietly multiplied.
When drivers pass a stopped school bus, cameras mounted on the vehicle record the alleged infraction from multiple angles. The evidence then moves through a multi-step review process that ends with local police.
Advocates say each citation raises awareness and helps protect children.
But behind the safety messaging also lies a network of opaque contracts and potentially lucrative revenue streams — ones that benefit both local police departments and BusPatrol.
Records obtained by LehighValleyNews.com after a lengthy Right-to-Know battle show the Virginia-based company has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from Allentown drivers.
But Allentown School District, at least initially and for the first four years of the contract, received nothing.
The arrangement comes through a 60/40 revenue split that, in practice, leans heavily toward BusPatrol.
The company charges the district $85 per bus per month in technology fees — covering equipment, installation, storage and maintenance — and deducts those costs from the district’s 40% share of citation revenue, not its own.
The revenue sharing is spelled out in a contract that BusPatrol and the school district fought for nearly seven months to keep secret, until releasing it and revenue data to LehighValleyNews.com on Oct. 30.
Besides the revenue split, BusPatrol also performs a monthly “true-up” — a reconciliation of paid fines, refunds and fees to determine how much the school district is owed after expenses.
Each $300 ticket includes two fixed surcharges: $25 to the state’s School Bus Safety Grant Fund and $25 to the local police department. The remaining $250 goes toward the shared arrangement between the school district and BusPatrol.
“The financing model simply ensures that taxpayers don’t bear the burden of implementing or operating the system,” Spree said.
Allentown became the first district in the Lehigh Valley to test BusPatrol’s system, launching a 47-day pilot in 2020. Two buses equipped with cameras identified 205 alleged violations in 21 locations — an average of more than two per bus per day.
A five-year contract followed in early 2021.
“The contract entry was motivated by a desire to protect students at bus stops and to take advantage of advanced stop-arm camera technology,” school district solicitor Jeffrey Sultanik said.
BusPatrol’s expansion soon reached Wilson Area, Salisbury Area, and Catasauqua Area school districts, with broader rollout in Bethlehem Area, Easton Area and beyond.
Though the program paused statewide in 2023, allowing lawmakers to move the appeals process from district judges to PennDOT-appointed hearing officers, things were quickly back on track.
By the fall of 2024, Allentown’s new transportation provider began outfitting 138 buses with BusPatrol’s cameras. Even with only part of the fleet active, alleged violations topped 3,000 inside a three-month period, and the program generated nearly $640,000 in fines from motorists from September 2024 to April 2025.
“The contract entry was motivated by a desire to protect students at bus stops and to take advantage of advanced stop-arm camera technology."Jeff Sultanik, Allentown School District solicitor
The police department collected $53,212 in surcharges during that time, which Police Chief Charles Roca said is recorded in the general fund and is used to support police operations.
The department also previously had earned more than $17,000 in revenue from the program in 2023, but reported just $574 earned for all of 2024.
The disclosure of those figures stemmed from a separate Right to Know request in April by LehighValleyNews.com to the police department.
The city initially denied the request but provided some revenue numbers following a ruling by the state Office of Open Records, saying it does not maintain the data in the level of detail sought by this news outlet.
In its contract with the school district, BusPatrol says it provides the district with monthly reports on the number of violation notices issued, and the number and monetary amount of fines and penalties collected each month — data it fought for months to withhold from public disclosure in another open records request by LehighValleyNews.com.
After rulings by the state Office of Open Records against the company, BusPatrol appealed to Lehigh County Court to keep that data secret, citing proprietary information. It ultimately withdrew its appeal and provided records this month.
Different standards, same company
While Allentown police approved 96% of citations over 13 months, other local departments were far more selective.
Salisbury police approved only 42% of those they reviewed. Bethlehem approved 58%; Easton, 76%; and Wilson, 72%, according to data from the respective school bus camera programs.
In the Easton Area School District, 1,532 out of 2,230 citations, or 69% overall, came from four consecutive blocks of Route 248 (Nazareth Road). State law stipulates traffic must stop on both sides of the multi-lane roadway due to the absence of a fixed barrier.
A district official told LehighValleyNews.com back in the spring they would look to see what, if anything, can be done regarding driver education and awareness, along with "engaging in continued analysis of data to determine changes to stops or rerouting of buses."
Across Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, more than 19,500 citations were issued between September 2024 and October 2025.
Roughly half of those were paid, and about 11% were contested.
The disparities in citation approvals have raised questions among residents about how consistently evidence is reviewed before citations are issued, why trouble spots — areas seeing large volumes of violations — aren’t addressed, and how much oversight exists once footage reaches police.
BusPatrol said enforcement and the decision to issue a citation rests entirely with police.
"While BusPatrol’s cameras detect alleged violations of the school bus stopping law, they do not issue citations,” Spree said. “Every alleged violation recorded by the cameras is reviewed by a trained, sworn law enforcement officer, and the determination rests with them. (As it should!)
"We trust that our community partners, including those in traffic enforcement, have the experience, training, and judgment to deliver safety to their respective communities as they see best fit."
Chief Roca said the criteria in Allentown comes from one question: "Was there a clear violation of the vehicle code?"
“The reason why the disapproved violation number is so low is because a majority of the violations are so obvious,” he said, noting four officers from the department’s traffic unit are trained on the system, with each review of an alleged violation taking roughly one to two minutes.
“Bus Patrol conducts a review of all violations prior to sending an evidence package to the police department,” Roca said.
“Once we get the evidence package, we review the still photos that are provided and then we watch the videos showing the violations. We are provided with videos that accurately show different views of the violations. When the violation is confirmed, it is approved.”
While police may end up with a small share of the revenue, the remaining financial arrangement adds another layer of complexity. BusPatrol’s technology fees in Allentown totaled close to $94,000 over the eight months between September 2024 and April 2025, offsetting the school district’s 40% share and leaving BusPatrol with about $413,000, documents show.
Sultanik said the school district’s early revenue payments went toward repaying BusPatrol’s capital investment, meaning the district received no citation revenue for years after installation.
Allentown began receiving net revenue for the first time this past July — about $26,000 by late October, Sultanik said.
He also said he was unaware of a designated district program manager to oversee the partnership between the district, police and BusPatrol — a position specified in the contract — though he said he doesn’t believe such a role is necessary, as the district plays no part in approving citations or adjudicating violations.
Officers also must sign off on each case before a citation is issued, and the BusPatrol contract stipulates an officer's electronic signature and badge number be included. LehighValleyNews.com found citations issued to motorists without those details, but they did include text of a sworn statement from police attesting to the validity of the citation.
BusPatrol’s reach and recent scrutiny
BusPatrol’s 60/40 revenue share is fairly standard across Pennsylvania. But in Easton Area, where cameras are installed on 80 buses, the district pays $150 per bus per month in fees.
In Pittsburgh, BusPatrol operates cameras on 217 buses and mailed more than 10,900 citations between August 2024 and June 2025 — roughly $3.3 million in fines if all were paid.
Under the same split, BusPatrol’s share would exceed $1.6 million, plus technology fees. The Pittsburgh Police Department would receive about $272,000 in surcharges, while the district’s portion would again be offset by costs.
City to city, the model scales easily: more buses, more tickets, more revenue. Critics say the setup incentivizes volume over fairness.
Supporters and BusPatrol argue it’s saving lives.
“Beyond the exterior stop-arm cameras, BusPatrol also equips buses with interior cameras that support school district transportation operations and student safety. These investments go well beyond enforcement because BusPatrol is a mission-driven organization focused on child safety, not profit,” Spree said in an email.
“We also cover all program operating costs, including system maintenance, violation processing, court support, postage and program management.
“In addition, BusPatrol funds public safety awareness campaigns, investing hundreds of thousands of dollars annually at no cost to the taxpayer to educate drivers, students, and families about the importance of stopping for the school bus.”
A story from the Bucks County Courier-Times last fall highlighted a drop in repeat offenders in some areas — a sign, police said, that drivers were becoming more aware of flashing red lights and buses loading and unloading students.
According to data from various school bus camera programs, recidivism among violators is under 10% in Lehigh Valley districts, with fewer violations through the 2024-25 school year.
“In the Lehigh Valley, the results are especially encouraging: during the back-to-school period from 2024 to 2025, Lehigh Valley school districts recorded a demonstrable reduction in violations,” Spree said.
“These reductions demonstrate that the program is working as intended — changing driver behavior, improving awareness and making roads safer for children. BusPatrol will continue to work closely with our school district and law enforcement partners to build on this success and drive violations down even further.”
Still, the program has drawn intense scrutiny. In Florida, a Miami Herald and Tributary investigation found BusPatrol’s initial contract allowed it to keep up to 70% of revenue, reduced to 60% after two years.
In Miami-Dade County, the Herald reported BusPatrol cameras recorded more than 11,000 violations in two weeks, potentially generating millions for the company. Additional reports also revealed the district failed to appropriately vet its contract with BusPatrol, according to a report released by the district's internal auditor.
The Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office ultimately halted the BusPatrol program in April 2025 due to what it said were significant errors in the traffic citations triggered by the vendor, which included incorrect fee amounts and other mistakes that made it difficult for people to pay or appeal the tickets.
In New York, Newsday recently reported BusPatrol offered to pay two districts up to $1 million to join the program — offers that surfaced after revelations that more than 80,000 citations had been issued in four districts that had not authorized the program.
The revenue from those tickets, if paid, would be more than $20 million split between the town and BusPatrol, the report said.
Through it all, BusPatrol’s influence has extended throughout the nation, particularly in Pennsylvania, where it's "the designated system administrator for nearly 100 school bus stop-arm safety programs,” Spree said. (BusPatrol lists 71 of those programs on its website, totaling more than 5,000 buses equipped with its technology).
Records show the company has spent at least $613,833 lobbying state officials from July 2019 through September 2025 — a period that coincided with legislation authorizing and expanding the use of automated school-bus cameras.
A backlog of cases, and drivers still waiting
Even as money flows to BusPatrol and police departments, thousands of drivers such as Mazziotti are still waiting for their proverbial day in court.
BusPatrol citation hearings across Pennsylvania have become mired in extreme delays, with vehicle owners waiting more than a year to actually get an appeal hearing.
PennDOT, which oversees the process, has expanded its staff from eight to 12 full-time hearing officers, plus a supervisor, to help address the ever-growing caseload.
The new officers are still in training, said deputy communications director Jennifer Kunch, but are expected to begin hearing cases soon.
Kunch said officers have already heard more than 400 cases from Lehigh Valley districts. Still, the backlog has grown from 1,013 unheard cases earlier this year to 1,461 across seven school districts.
| School District | Total # of Violations Pending Hearing, as of Nov. 3 |
| Allentown School District | 772 |
| Bethlehem Area School District | 283 |
| Catasauqua Area School District | 86 |
| Northwestern Lehigh School District | 12 |
| Salisbury Township School District | 24 |
| Wilson Area School District | 17 |
| Easton Area School District | 267 |
School bus program data reviewed by LehighValleyNews.com reflected just one appeal heard this year from Allentown’s share of citations — and none in Bethlehem or Easton. Wilson had one appeal heard in January.
Of those that reached a hearing, about 21% of drivers (35 of 165) were found not liable. Those 35 citations paid would have totaled $10,500.
Supporters of automated enforcement say every ticket represents a potential tragedy prevented. But the structure of the contracts — where both the vendor and police departments get cuts from each fine — continues to raise questions about transparency and oversight.
Sultanik said the Allentown School District’s focus remains on safety and compliance with state law. He told Mazziotti in a conversation following last month's board meeting that no children have been injured in Allentown due to drivers violating school bus safety laws.
The district’s contract with BusPatrol runs through 2026 and automatically renews unless terminated. There’s no requirement for an independent audit or public accounting of citation revenue.
When asked if BusPatrol would cooperate with an audit, Spree responded: “We unequivocally respect the oversight role that our government and school district partners play in administering these programs, and we will always cooperate with their processes and reviews as part of our shared commitment to transparency and safety.”
"Something's not right here."Victor Mazziotti, discussing the BusPatrol system in Allentown
In the meantime, following reporting from LehighValleyNews.com earlier this year, state Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton/Lehigh, has proposed updates to Pennsylvania’s school bus camera law, including a tiered penalty system and a plan to speed up the choked appeals system.
Senate Bill 1046 was officially introduced Oct. 21 and referred to the Senate Transportation Committee.
For drivers like Mazziotti, a former Lehigh County commissioner, potential changes to the law can’t come soon enough.
The evidence, he believes, points to a program more punitive than protective, which he says erodes trust.
“Something’s not right here,” he said.
BusPatrol pushed back, saying Mazziotti’s case “fails to acknowledge that school buses are designed to be the most visible object on a roadway — they are large, bright yellow, and deploy bright flashing lights and a stop sign that is oftentimes illuminated as well.”
“When a school bus is slowing down, the bus driver first deploys amber lights, signaling drivers from both directions to prepare to stop,” Spree said, suggesting many drivers see the system activated and try to “beat the red lights.”
“Parents and school district leaders overwhelmingly want drivers to slow down around school buses and proceed with the utmost caution to ensure no child is needlessly struck by a moving vehicle,” she said.
In Allentown, Roca invited reporters to visit the department and see review of violations first hand. That visit is scheduled in the coming days.
“The Allentown Police Department not only engages in enforcement, but also in outreach work through our social media channels. Having the partnership with Bus Patrol assists us in addressing the very real issue of vehicle drivers passing a bus with its extended stop arm out and red lights flashing," he said.
“The Allentown Police Department follows the standard and will continue to do so for the safety of the students who ride on buses in the City of Allentown.”
