School across the state started this week. It’s 7:40 in the morning on a neighborhood two-lane road somewhere in Goshen, Middletown, or Washingtonville. You’re so late for work that you’re worried. A school bus ahead of you slows, its yellow lights start flashing, and then the red lights come on, and the stop arm swings out. It seems like there is no movement on or off. The bus and the road ahead remain clear. You decide to go around the bus slowly and continue your drive. That is a big NO NO.
Much later, a letter arrives in the mail with a citation; you got caught.
The other version? Way worse. A cop saw it all, pulled you over, and handed you an 8-point moving violation ticket. (Yes, 8 points).
Both are about the same three seconds of driving. Nothing else is the same.
What the Law Actually Requires
Passing a Stopped School Bus in NY
New York Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1174 is unforgiving. The School bus stopped and red lights are flashing? Every driver who pulls up to or behind that bus must fully stop. A driver must stay stopped until the bus starts moving again, the bus driver signals you forward, or a police officer waves you past. That seems obvious to most motorists. Not always.
A few points drivers get wrong constantly:
- Both directions have to stop. It does not matter that you are on the opposite side of the road traveling the other way. You stop.
- Divided highways are not an exception. This is probably the single most common misunderstanding in New York. Drivers assume a median or a physical barrier means the rule does not apply to oncoming traffic. In New York, it does. Two-lane roads, multi-lane roads, and divided highways all require traffic from both directions to stop.
- Parking lots and private roads count.
- Yellow lights are your warning, not your window. Don’t hit the gas when you see the yellow lights come on.
- “I didn’t see any kids” is not a defense. That doesn’t matter in the slightest. The red lights of the bus came on? You stop, period.
- Stopping too close to the bus. A good rule is to stop at least 20 feet away, and you don’t move again until the signals go off.
The State’s Operation Safe Stop campaign spells it out in plain terms: red lights = stop, from every direction, on every kind of road.
Two Very Different Tickets
1. Officer-Issued Ticket
This is a serious one and potentially worse than a bad speeding ticket. An officer caught you and wrote you a ticket. It is a moving violation that goes on your driving record, and the penalties are steep:
- Fine: roughly $250 to $400 for a first offense, plus the mandatory state surcharge (about $88–$93), with the exact amount left to the judge.
- Points: 8 points as of February 16, 2026 — increased from 5 under the DMV’s overhauled point system.
- Jail: up to 30 days is legally available on a first offense. It is rare, but it is on the books, and judges in these cases are not known for their sense of humor.
- Second conviction within three years: roughly $600–$750 and up to 180 days.
- Third conviction within three years: roughly $750–$1,000, up to 180 days, and a mandatory revocation of your New York license.
The reality? Because 8 points now lands you above the Driver Responsibility Assessment threshold, a single school bus conviction on an otherwise clean record triggers a DRA bill of roughly $450, billed by the DMV over three years. That is on top of the fine, surcharge, and separate from what your insurance company does when it sees a school bus violation on your abstract.
Under the revised system, points now stay in the calculation window for 24 months rather than 18. Eight points is close enough to the administrative action thresholds that one more ticket in that window — a cell phone ticket, a speeding charge from one of the county’s expanding speed enforcement zones — can put your license genuinely at risk.
2. Camera-Issued
It arrives in the mail, and they started going out in Orange County in 2024.
Differences:
- Mercifully, it is a civil notice. Fines attach to the registered vehicle owner.
- Fine: $250 for a first violation. Subsequent violations within an 18-month period go up by $25 increments, to a maximum of $300.
- No points. It does not go on your driving record and is not reported to the DMV as a moving violation.
- No jail, and no license consequences.
- You can see the evidence. The citation comes with a citation number and a link to video of the incident, viewable through the AlertBus portal.
- If you were not driving, you can request a transfer of liability to the person who was.
So: a mailed camera notice is a $250 problem. An officer-issued ticket is an 8-point, four-figure problem. Read the paperwork carefully before you decide how worried to be — and before you decide how to respond.
The Orange County Camera Program, Specifically
Orange County partnered with BusPatrol to equip school bus fleets countywide at no cost to the districts or taxpayers. The county’s School Bus Safety Program is funded entirely out of the violations it generates. As of the current school year, buses in these districts are running stop-arm cameras:
- Chester, Middletown (Enlarged City School District), Florida, Goshen, and Greenwood Lake
- Highland Falls–Fort Montgomery, Kiryas Joel, Minisink Valley, and Monroe-Woodbury
- Newburgh, Port Jervis, Valley Central, Warwick Valley, and Washingtonville
That is 14 of the county’s 17 public districts, and well over a thousand buses. County officials have said they expect the remaining districts, and eventually private schools, to follow.
Can You Fight It?
Yes — and the calculation is different depending on which ticket you got.
On an Officer-Issued Charge
Here is the hard truth: many prosecutors and courts will not negotiate this charge down the way they might a speeding ticket. Endangering children getting off a bus is not a sympathetic posture in front of a judge. That often leaves two options — plead guilty as charged and absorb 8 points, or contest it.
Contesting is not hopeless, because the People have to prove each element:
- The bus was actually stopped to receive or discharge passengers
- The red visual signals were in operation at the moment you passed — not the yellow ones
- You passed or met the bus without stopping
- The officer was positioned to see what they say they saw
All these aspects matter and must be proved by the state. If one or more is missing, this is something your traffic attorney will spot and use to your advantage.
On a Camera Notice
The evidence is video, and it is usually clear. Nationally, about 95% of drivers do not contest once they have watched the clip. It is still worth watching yours — plate misreads happen, and if someone else was driving your vehicle, the transfer of liability process exists for exactly that reason. But if the video shows what it usually shows, paying the $250 and moving on is often the sensible call, precisely because there are no points attached.
What Not to Do
- No matter what, do NOT ignore it. Ignoring it will lead to a suspension for failure to answer, which turns a bad ticket into a much bigger problem — and driving on that suspension is its own charge, Aggravated Unlicensed Operation. An unpaid camera violation goes to collections and can create registration headaches.
- Do not just pay the officer-issued ticket. Paying a traffic summons in New York is a guilty plea. You would be pleading guilty to an 8-point violation by mail, without anyone looking at whether the case could be beaten. We have written about this before, and it applies double here.
- Do not assume it is the same ticket your neighbor got. Two people in the same district can get very different papers for the same conduct.
Fighting a School Bus Ticket in Orange County
If you were pulled over and handed a summons under VTL § 1174, that ticket carries more point exposure than most speeding charges and can put your license in play faster than you would think — especially if there is anything already on your record within the last two years.
Zucker Law Offices handles traffic matters in the local courts throughout Orange and Sullivan Counties. Bring the ticket in before you answer it, and let us look at what the case actually consists of before anything gets entered as a plea.
Call (845) 567-1002 or reach out through our contact page for a consultation.