John Washington III: School Bus Laws Exist to Protect Children — Not to Trap Drivers for Revenue

John Washington III is raising what he calls a serious abuse-of-authority question: whether old, inactive school buses — buses he says are allegedly no longer being used to transport children — are being operated with their stop signs activated in ways that result in traffic citations for drivers who pass them. In a statement headed "SCHOOL BUS SAFETY OR GOVERNMENT ENTRAPMENT? THE PEOPLE DESERVE ANSWERS!", he argued that the purpose of the law is being turned upside down. "School bus laws were created to protect our children, NOT to create another revenue stream for city and state governments," he wrote.

He was explicit about where he stands on genuine school-bus safety. 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 city governments and police departments are deliberately approving such tactics simply to collect more money from hardworking Americans, he wrote, that is a serious abuse of government authority.

John Washington III said the allegations would not be ignored under his administration. As president, he wrote, 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 he 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.

He closed the complete portion of his statement with the questions he says the public is entitled to have answered: 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," he wrote. "THE PEOPLE DO NOT EXIST TO FUND THE GOVERNMENT THROUGH DECEPTIVE ENFORCEMENT PRACTICES." For New Jersey parents, the question lands close to home: school-bus stop-arm enforcement is part of daily life on the state's roads, and his demand is that it stay what it was written to be — a child-safety law, not a revenue device.