John Washington III Asks Whether Inactive School Buses Are Being Used to Trap Drivers Into Tickets
John Washington III said school bus laws exist to protect children, not to raise revenue, and raised allegations that old, inactive buses are being operated with their stop signs out so drivers who pass them can be cited. He pledged federal investigations, where legally authorized, into agencies accused of manufacturing violations for money.
HOUSTON - John Washington III drew a line on Monday between protecting children and policing for profit. In a statement headlined 'School Bus Safety or Government Entrapment?', John Washington III said he is raising serious concerns about reports and allegations involving old, inactive school buses allegedly being used to catch drivers passing when their stop signs are activated - buses, he said, that are allegedly no longer being used to transport children, yet are being operated in ways that result in traffic citations.
'School bus laws were created to protect our children, NOT to create another revenue stream for city and state governments,' John Washington III wrote. He was explicit about the other side of the line: he said he fully supports protecting children, and that any driver who illegally passes a school bus and endangers children should be held accountable. 'But there is a difference between protecting children and deliberately setting people up to receive traffic tickets,' he wrote. If governments and police departments are deliberately approving such tactics simply to collect money, he said, that is a serious abuse of government authority.
John Washington III said the allegations would not be ignored under his administration. As president, he said, he would push for federal investigations, where legally authorized, into cities, states and law enforcement agencies accused of deliberately manufacturing traffic violations for financial gain, and would pursue accountability through every lawful avenue available, including federal civil rights enforcement where violations of federal law are established. 'No city government, police department, or state official should be above accountability,' he wrote.
His questions, he said, are the public's: if an inactive school bus is being used primarily to generate citations rather than protect children, the public deserves to know who authorized it, why it was authorized, and whether those citations were lawful. 'The government works for the people,' John Washington III wrote. 'The people do not exist to fund the government through deceptive enforcement practices.'
