A brief glance won’t tell you the new buses are equipped with voice-over-IP communication systems, or that they transmit data on speed, location and acceleration in real-time. The “Thumbs-Up!” thumbprint scanner, which keeps track of which kids are on the bus and whether they’re supposed to be there, is also hard to see unless you’re really pressing your face to the glass, as are the multiple interior security cameras.
Slightly easier to notice is the rear-facing camera, dubbed — no joke — the “Pedophile Finder.” “I wish we could have come up with a better name for it,” says Dallas County Schools spokeswoman Allison Allison. (Yes, that’s the correct name.) The camera, mounted on the top portion of the school bus and positioned to capture the license plate of tailing vehicles, isn’t just to catch pedophiles. It could be a parent who lost custody of their child, or a kidnapper. But “Pedophile Finder” was the name that stuck. “The bus driver can’t tell if somebody’s tailing him but if they recognize a pattern of a car following a bus” based on video, they can take appropriate measures. Full Article
Wow! I guess the stupid meter has gone a few marks lower. It’s too bad the $ being spent on this isn’t going to a more worthy cause, like the elderly in need, or the homeless family, or the homeless mentally ill people that society ignores because they cant be bothered and they just don’t care. They prefer to chase phantoms that have been proven to be nonexistent. The kind of people that think up this loony stuff remind me of Barney Fife preparing for some big disaster that never happens.
Out of curiosity, was the description of the camera so heinous that you had to change the wording n the headline from pedophile to predator?
What about the poor joe that happens to drive the same route on his way to work and is mistaken as following the bus?
They got taxpayers soooooo wound-up tight ..just wind them up…….if “finder” truly works, the bus would never leave the personnel parking lot grounds.
Another solution in search of a problem.
Welcome to our fascist police state.
I just BET you couldn’t think of any better name, Allison Allison (that’s a little odd too)!! How about “rear facing camera???
Well…if they start making it a site-seeing bus like the movie stars…then I want millions a dollars from their circus act.
I’m willing to bet money these buses still don’t have seat belts!!!
The trend is for a law to be passed for each individual case then apply it indiscriminately across the board, without relation to actual threat related to a rather high percentage of ex offenders.
Panic has no reasoning therefor it is only natural to shape the law around panic so logic and truth are purposely taken out of the equation. This is the politicians dream. Make no mistake about it, it is about posturing and using a legally indefensible class to exploit it to its fullest.
If there is a real cause for panic, it is that lawmakers are running amiss in an intoxicated state of glad handing and fear mongering while obviously devoid of constitutional awareness or acknowledgement for that matter. Meanwhile industrialists and opportunistic public servants take full advantage.
This is abuse of authority plainly and simply and the resultant chaos of ill conceived attempts at applying the quagmire of law based on mainly on illusion and distortion of statistics.