EDGEWATER, Fla. – A Volusia County man claims he was erroneously issued a $225 fine when someone riding a scooter was caught on camera illegally passing a stopped school bus in Miami Beach.
“I ain’t never been to Miami in my life,” Ray Shover told News 6 before correcting himself. “Actually, I can’t say that. I got lost one time going to the Keys and went through (Miami), but that was over 20 years ago.”
Shover recently received a violation notice in the mail indicating the scooter’s license plate had the same tag number as a motorcycle registered to him.
However, photographs and videos of the violator’s license plate captured by cameras mounted on the school bus are extremely poor resolution and difficult for Shover to decipher.
“I couldn’t read it. It’s so blurry,” said Shover. “The letters could be anything, really.”
Besides the violator’s scooter having a different appearance and size than the motorcycle owned by Shover, the person operating it appears to be wearing a business suit.
“I don’t own a suit,” said Shover, a construction worker who claims he was on a job site in DeLand on Feb. 12 at the time the violation occurred in Miami Beach. “That’s not me.”
Under a 2023 Florida law intended to protect students from passing vehicles, videos from school bus cameras can be used to cite motorists who illegally pass stopped buses.
However, before a violation notice or uniform traffic citation can be issued to the vehicle’s registered owner, law enforcement agencies are required to determine if the vehicle violated a traffic law.
According to the violation notice mailed to Shover, Sgt. Giovanni Poveda with the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office certified that a vehicle registered to Shover “was operated in violation of Florida (law) based on the inspection of the recorded video and images showing the motor vehicle involved in the violation.”
“I was flustered, especially when I saw how much the ticket was,” Shover told News 6. “They need to have a better system. If they can’t get it right, they shouldn’t be trying to charge you.”
Spokespeople for the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office initially did not respond to emails from News 6 inquiring about Shover’s violation notice and the blurry license plate photo.
After News 6 sent an email to Sgt. Poveda informing him of Shover’s complaint, an agency representative offered to promptly review the matter.
“This is indeed a unique situation, as the individual has not been in the Miami area for over 20 years,” wrote Detective Argemis Colome. “We understand this may be frustrating for them, and we are committed to assisting in any way we can.”
After this story was published, Shover said he received a phone call from the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office informing him that the violation notice would be dismissed. The agency did not immediately respond to an email from News 6 seeking confirmation.
“Thank you so much. You do get results,” Shover told News 6.
The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office encourages motorists who believe they erroneously received violation notices to send an email to SSCP@MDSO.COM with a detailed explanation of their experiences.
The Miami Herald recently published several reports detailing complaints about “bogus violations” stemming from the school bus cameras and the difficulty of getting court hearings to dispute the violations.
Miami-Dade County Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz announced earlier this month that her agency would suspend enforcement of certain infractions as she reviews the school bus camera program.
A Miami-Dade County motorist filed a class action lawsuit in early March accusing the county, the school board, and the camera vendor of failing “to provide a process for those cited to attend a hearing and contest their notices.”
The defendants have not yet responded to the lawsuit in court.
Shover’s violation notice indicates he can contest the violation by mailing a paper form to a “document processing center” located in Virginia operated by the school district’s camera vendor, BusPatrol America.
After News 6 sent an email to BusPatrol America inquiring about Shover’s violation notice, a company representative got in contact with Shover to explain the dispute process.
“We continue to support the Miami Sheriff’s Office in however they decide to best enforce violations and promote school bus and child safety in Miami-Dade,” a BusPatrol spokesperson wrote in a statement.
Shover does not yet know when he will receive a court date in Miami-Dade County or whether he can appear virtually at an online court hearing in lieu of making a 500-mile roundtrip journey from Volusia County.
“That’s quite a drive. I might have to take a day off work,” said Shover. “I might have to buy a suit!”
Many school districts in Central Florida have installed cameras on school buses, but very few currently use outside vendors to review videos of passing motorists and process violation notices.
The School District of Osceola County has stop-arm cameras installed on three school buses but is not actively monitoring violations.
However, a spokesperson said the district is currently exploring vendors to supply equipment for additional buses with the goal of monitoring violations in-house.
Polk County Public Schools recently partnered with Verra Mobility to administer a school bus stop arm safety program.
Brevard County Schools is planning to install bus cameras provided by BusPatrol America, the same vendor that has a contract with Miami-Dade County Schools, a spokesperson said. Brevard’s school district took part in a pilot program with the company in 2022.
School districts in Orange, Seminole, Volusia and Marion counties do not use vendors to monitor bus cameras, representatives of those districts told News 6.
