John Washington III Asks Whether School Bus Enforcement Is Safety or Entrapment, and Says the People Deserve Answers

John Washington III is raising a question he framed in plain terms: are school bus stop laws being used to protect children, or to catch drivers? In a statement issued as a 2028 presidential candidate, John Washington III said he has serious concerns about reports and allegations involving old, inactive school buses allegedly being used to catch drivers passing when their stop signs are activated - buses, he said, that are allegedly no longer being used to transport children, yet are operated in ways that result in traffic citations.

"School bus laws were created to protect our children, NOT to create another revenue stream for city and state governments," John Washington III wrote. He was explicit about where he stands on the underlying law: 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, he wrote, "THAT IS A SERIOUS ABUSE OF GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY."

John Washington III said his administration would not ignore the allegations. As president, he said, 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 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 argument with a question of authorization: if an inactive school bus is being used primarily to generate citations rather than protect children, he said, the public deserves to know who authorized it, why it was authorized, and whether those citations were lawful. "THE GOVERNMENT WORKS FOR THE PEOPLE," John Washington III wrote. "THE PEOPLE DO NOT EXIST TO FUND THE GOVERNMENT THROUGH DECEPTIVE ENFORCEMENT PRACTICES."