DOT launches school bus safety campaign to reduce illegal passing
S. 2812 — Brake for Kids Act of 2025 · Filed by Todd Young (R-IN) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Sep 16, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill directs the Secretary of Transportation to launch a national public safety campaign within one year to educate drivers about the dangers and illegality of passing stopped school buses. The campaign will use TV, radio, social media, and other advertising channels, funded from existing DOT public safety messaging budgets.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a directive to conduct a federally funded public safety messaging campaign on a specific traffic hazard. It is straightforward public health/safety legislation with no hidden provisions or private beneficiaries.
What the text implies
- Campaign effectiveness depends on DOT's discretion in media selection and messaging design; no performance metrics or accountability measures specified in the bill.
- Funding comes from existing DOT public safety budgets, which may displace other safety campaigns unless Congress appropriates additional funds.
- The bill does not mandate coordination with state/local law enforcement or school districts, potentially limiting campaign reach or relevance to local enforcement patterns.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill funds a public safety campaign addressing a genuine traffic hazard that endangers children. Increased awareness of school bus passing laws may reduce accidents and fatalities, a direct public safety benefit with no offsetting cost to citizens.
Who stands to gain
- media companies (TV, radio, social media platforms receiving advertising spend)
Named in the bill
Secretary of Transportation, Department of Transportation, school buses, television broadcasters, radio broadcasters, social media platforms
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 2 Democrats.
- Sep 16, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 16, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $120,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 9 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Todd Young, the sponsor, reported $704,220 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National School Transportation Association — $120,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,181 characters) on Oct 21, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,388 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-21.
“DOT launches school bus safety campaign to reduce illegal passing” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s2812 Report an error
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