School Bus Stop-Arm Violation Programs
This page offers a selection of published Advisory Committee opinions mentioning or discussing VTL § 1174-a (Owner liability for failure of operator to stop for a school bus displaying a red visual signal and stop-arm). It is not an exhaustive compilation, nor does it constitute legal advice; it is only intended as a starting point for ethics research.
We have been advised of the existence of VTL § 1180-e (Owner liability for failure of operator to comply with certain posted maximum speed limits), which seems to follow a similar model. As of December 2025, the Advisory Committee has not addressed any judicial ethics questions that may arise out of that statute.
Please note that the topic of "Automated Traffic or Parking Tickets; School Bus Stop-Arm Violation Monitoring Program" has been added to the subject matter index.
VTL § 1174-a
- 24-183 Assuming the proceeding is lawfully commenced, a town or village justice may ethically participate in a county’s school bus stop-arm violation monitoring program under VTL § 1174-a, where (a) the court schedules the hearing, (b) the District Attorney appears and prosecutes violations, and (c) the court performs judicial functions without any need to use or access a commercial vendor’s online portal. However, we cannot comment on any legal questions.
- 24-124 A town or village justice court may not access or use an online portal created by a for-profit vendor to prosecute and/or adjudicate VTL § 1174-a cases, nor participate in the vendor’s training to implement the program.
- 21-56 (1) This Committee, unlike an individual judge, cannot determine the constitutionality of the enabling statute for a school bus stop-arm violation monitoring program nor whether any resulting guidelines, requirements, directives, forms, notifications or advisements emanating from that statute are lawful and thus ethically permissible. (2) A judge must comply with legal mandates. Absent a legal requirement to do so, a judge should not voluntarily comply with guidelines that are not directly enabled by the law, to the extent that they require a judge to engage in ethically impermissible conduct.