BILL ANALYSIS
------------------------------------------------------------
|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2499|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
|1020 N Street, Suite 524 | |
|(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | |
|327-4478 | |
------------------------------------------------------------
THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 2499
Author: Portantino (D), et al
Amended: 8/5/10 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE : 9-0, 6/29/10
AYES: Lowenthal, Huff, Ashburn, DeSaulnier, Harman, Kehoe,
Pavley, Simitian, Wolk
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : 10-0, 8/9/10
AYES: Kehoe, Ashburn, Alquist, Corbett, Emmerson, Leno,
Price, Wolk, Wyland, Yee
NO VOTE RECORDED: Walters
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 64-10, 6/1/10 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Traffic violator schools
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill consolidates the licensing of all
traffic violator schools (TVSs) under the authority of the
Department of Motor Vehicles and treats a violation as a
conviction, rather than as a dismissal, if the person
attends a TVS.
ANALYSIS : Existing law defines a "traffic violator
school" as a "business which for compensation provides, or
offers to provide, instruction in traffic safety,
including, but not limited to, classroom defensive-driver
CONTINUED
AB 2499
Page
2
concepts, for persons referred by the courts?or to other
persons who elect to attend."
A court may order a person to attend a licensed traffic
violator school, a licensed driving school, or other
court-approved program of driving instruction, under
specified circumstances, in lieu of adjudicating the
traffic offense. When a person attends a TVS, he/she is
entitled to have the complaint (i.e., citation) relating to
the safe operation of a vehicle dismissed. The court may
not, however, dismiss a violation for attendance at a TVS
under the following circumstances:
The person who allegedly committed the violation holds a
commercial driver's license in either this state or
another.
The alleged violation occurred in a commercial motor
vehicle.
A conviction of the violation would result in a violation
point count of more than one point.
The court must notify the Department of Motor Vehicles
(DMV) when it dismisses a complaint for participation in a
TVS within 10 days of the complaint being dismissed. DMV
must record the dismissal but hold it confidential (i.e.,
mask it) if it occurs in any 18-month period.
DMV regulates the licensing and administration, including
minimum curriculum requirements, of classroom-based traffic
violator schools, but does not regulate "home study"
programs, which may offer instruction through a variety of
non-classroom means (e.g., internet, textbook, video, and
CD ROM). Instead, each court approves those home-study
programs that it orders violators to attend.
For classroom-based TVSs, existing law prescribes licensing
procedures that DMV must follow for owners, operators, and
instructors.
TVS owners must:
1. Maintain an established place of business in the state
AB 2499
Page
3
that is open to the public.
2. Conform to standards established in regulation by DMV
regarding school personnel, equipment, curriculum,
testing and evaluation procedures, recordkeeping, and
other business practices.
3. Procure and file with DMV a bond of $2,000.
4. Have a classroom approved by DMV.
5. Have a lesson plan approved by DMV that provides not
less than 400 minutes of instructional time.
6. Designate the DMV director as an agent of the TVS owner
for service of process.
7. Meet the requirements prescribed for a TVS operator, if
the owner is also the operator. If the owner is not the
operator, then the owner must designate an employee that
does meet the requirements for an operator.
8. Provide DMV assurance that the TVS will comply with the
American with Disabilities Act.
TVS operators must:
1. Have not committed an act that would constitute grounds
for suspension or revocation of his/her license.
2. Pass an exam administered by DMV regarding traffic laws,
safe driving practices, the operation of motor vehicles,
teaching methods and techniques, TVS laws and
regulations, and office procedures and recordkeeping.
3. Be 21 years of age or older.
4. Have provided classroom instruction for a minimum of 500
hours.
TVS instructors must:
1. Be 18 years of age or older.
AB 2499
Page
4
2. Have a high school education.
3. Pass a DMV exam on traffic laws, safe driving practices,
the operation of motor vehicles, and teaching methods
and techniques.
4. Hold a valid California driver's license.
In addition to licensing classroom-based schools, DMV is
also authorized to audit, inspect, and monitor all licensed
TVSs. Auditing includes, but is not limited to, the review
and examination of business records, class records,
business practices, and the content of the program of
instruction set forth in the lesson plan or curriculum of a
licensee. Inspecting includes, but is not limited to, the
review of the business office, branch office, and
applicable classroom facilities of a licensee. Finally,
monitoring includes the onsite review of the actual
presentation of the program of traffic safety instruction
provided in a classroom.
Fees
Existing law prescribes specific fees for the issuance of
original, renewal, and duplicate licenses for traffic
school owners, operators, and instructors. DMV may also
charge for each course completion certificate, up to $3.
The fee shall be in an amount to defray DMV's actual costs
for publication and distribution of traffic violator
schools, for monitoring instruction, business practices,
record keeping, and any other activity deemed necessary to
assure high quality education for traffic violators.
Course Completion Certificates
A traffic school purchases the certificates from DMV for
issuance to it students upon completion of its course and
may charge its students for the certificates in an amount
not to exceed the school's actual costs. Once a student
completes the course and is issued a completion
certificate, the student submits the certificate to the
court that then dismisses the complaint against the person.
Referral List
AB 2499
Page
5
When a violator opts to attend traffic school, the court,
or the court-assistance program under contract with the
court, must provide a list of traffic violator schools that
the violator may attend. Existing law requires DMV to
publish a list of traffic violator schools it licenses and
to transmit the list to each superior court in the state in
sufficient quantity to allow the courts to provide a copy
to each person referred to a TVS. The DMV list only
includes the schools it licenses, but a court may add
court-approved schools for the jurisdiction the court
services.
Existing law prescribes the type of information that must
be included on the list, how the list is organized, and
procedures for removing a name if a court finds that the
name of a school is inappropriate.
Court-Assistance Programs (CAP)
A CAP is a nonprofit agency under contract with a court to
monitor traffic violator schools and provide assistance in
traffic violator school administration. A CAP is required
to monitor all classroom locations and home-study programs
within the judicial district in which the agency is under
contract with a court.
A court may charge a traffic violator a fee, as determined
by the court, to defray the costs incurred by a CAP for the
monitoring and reporting services it provides to the court.
This bill makes two major changes with regard to the
administration of the TVS system. First, it requires that
all traffic violator schools, whether they are
classroom-based schools licensed by DMV or home-study
programs approved by a court, be licensed by DMV. Second,
when a violator attends a TVS program, the bill requires
the court and DMV to treat the violation as a conviction
that is held confidential, rather than as a dismissal.
In moving responsibility for the licensing of all TVSs to
DMV, this bill makes numerous changes that affect different
elements of the overall TVS system, as described below:
AB 2499
Page
6
Licensing TVS Owners
With regard to the licensing of TVS owners, this bill makes
the following changes:
1. Requires DMV to establish standards for each
instructional modality, not just for classroom-based
courses, and permits DMV to establish standards that are
specific to the instructional modality (i.e., the
standards may vary for each modality).
2. Eliminates the requirement that DMV approve classrooms,
even for classroom-based courses. Typical classrooms
include hotel conference rooms.
3. Deletes the minimum number of minutes (400) that lesson
plans must provide for and instead requires that lesson
plans include a post-lesson knowledge test.
4. Establishes a bond of $15,000 for home-study courses.
5. Establishes parameters for the operators that an owner
may designate. A person may be an operator for more
than school if the schools have a common owner and the
schools share a single established business address. A
traffic school with multiple branch or classroom
locations may designate a separate operator for each
location, but must designate one of the operators as the
primary contact for DMV.
6. Requires an owner to have an instructor licensed by DMV
but clarifies that an owner may serve as an instructor
provided certain requirements are met.
7. Requires court-approved programs that were in operation
prior to July 1, 2011 to apply to DMV for licensure as a
traffic violator school by
March 1, 2012, but allows a court-approved program to
continue operating until DMV makes a licensing decision.
8. Prohibits courts from approving a TVS after July 1,
2011.
Licensing TVS Operators
AB 2499
Page
7
With regard to the licensing of operators, the bill deletes
the requirement that an operator have a minimum of 500
hours experience providing classroom instruction and
instead requires that the operator has completed an
educational program that is at least four hours in length
and that the owner provide to DMV a certification that the
operator has the knowledge necessary to perform the duties
of an operator.
Course Completion Certificates
This bill deletes the requirements that TVSs provide to a
student a completion certificate and that the student
submit the certificate to the court as evidence of course
completion. Instead, this bill requires DMV by
April 1, 2012, to develop a Web-based database accessible
by the courts and TVSs that allow oversight of student
enrollment and course completions. Requires TVSs to update
course information within three business days of class
completion and provide to the courts class completion
information on a daily basis.
Referral Lists
This bill deletes the requirement that DMV publish and
transmit to each superior court a referral list of
DMV-licensed TVSs and the provisions of law that prescribe
the type of information that must be included on referral
lists, how the list is organized, and the procedures for
removing the name of a TVS from the list. Instead, this
bill requires DMV to provide on its website a list of all
licensed TVSs and to include the modality of instruction
and the cities where classroom instruction is offered. The
order of the TVS names shall be randomized on a daily basis
so that no one TVS receives more or less attention from
traffic violators seeking a school. When providing traffic
violators with a referral list, a court or a CAP may only
provide a date-stamped list that has been downloaded from
DMV's Web site within the past 60 days.
Fees
This bill deletes the specific fees prescribed in current
AB 2499
Page
8
law for the licensing of traffic school owners, operators,
and instructions, as well as the fees DMV charges traffic
violator schools for course completion certificates, which
a traffic school purchases and then issues to violators who
complete its course. Instead, this bill authorizes DMV to
charge fees, the amounts for which would be established by
DMV through regulation, for the following activities:
1. Issuance of an original, renewal, or duplicate license
to a TVS owner, operator, instructor, or for a branch or
classroom location.
2. Transfer of an operator or instructor license from one
TVS to another.
3. Approval of a curriculum.
4. Administration of exams for operators and instructors.
The fees DMV may charge a TVS shall be sufficient to cover
its costs to administer the TVS program, but may not be
used to cover routine monitoring of instruction. To cover
DMV's monitoring costs, this bill requires the court to
assess a fee against each violator that elects to attend a
TVS. The fee assessed by the court shall include a $49
administrative fee to cover its actual costs for administer
traffic violations and a separate fee, determined by DMV,
to cover its monitoring costs.
CAPs
This bill re-defines a court-assistance program as a
"traffic assistance program" (TAP), which is a public or
private nonprofit agency that provides services under
contract with a court to process traffic violators or under
contract with DMV to provide oversight activities. This
change reflects the shift from a court to DMV the
responsibility to approve and monitor TVSs, while
maintaining the authority for a court to use a TAP to
assist with the administration of traffic violations when
violators opt to attend a TVS. As in current law, courts
may charge violators a fee to defray its costs for
employing the services of a TAP.
AB 2499
Page
9
Convictions instead of Dismissals
This bill provides that, beginning July 1, 2011, attending
a TVS will result in a conviction, rather than a dismissal,
that is held confidential by DMV and specifies that DMV
will not assign a violation point on the driver's license
for that conviction.
A conviction will not be held confidential for attending a
TVS if a violation occurred within 18 months of another
conviction that was held confidential for attending a TVS.
This bill requires that a court notify DMV of a conviction
within five days, instead of 10 for a dismissal, when a
court convicts a violator and designates the conviction
confidential for attendance at a TVS.
Operative Dates
This bill establishes different operative dates for
different programmatic changes. Specifically, this bill:
1. Prohibits a court from approving a TVS after July 1,
2011.
2. Requires a court-approved program that was in operation
prior to July 1, 2011 to file with DMV an application
for licensure as a TVS by
March 1, 2012.
3. Requires the court to begin treating violations as
convictions rather than dismissals when a violator
elects to attend a TVS beginning July 1, 2011.
4. Requires the court to inform DMV that such violations
are convictions, rather than dismissals, to be held
confidential and requires DMV to record them as
convictions to be held confidential beginning July 1,
2011.
Comments
There are approximately 400 licensed TVSs and 200
AB 2499
Page
10
unlicensed home study schools currently operating in the
state. DMV estimates that approximately 1.2 million
persons, or one-fourth of all minor traffic offenders, take
a TVS class annually. The TVS option assists the operation
of the courts by significantly reducing the volume of
potential court cases. DMV licenses all classroom TVSs,
plus their owner-operators, and instructors. In addition,
DMV establishes course curricula, provides completion
certificates, conducts monitoring activities, and performs
other related responsibilities. Home study courses are
approved by individual courts on a court-by-court basis.
Consequently, for these courses, there are no consistent
standards for curriculum content, duration of course, or
verification of the identity of the student. Under this
bill, DMV would be responsible for licensing and monitoring
both classroom and home-study programs, either with their
own staff or through TAPs.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: Yes
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee:
Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund
DMV: TVS regulations minor/absorbable
costsSpecial*
DMV: Web site database $40
Special*
DMV: licensing $500 $100
Special*
(all licensing costs fully offset by
fees)
DMV/TAP monitoring annual costs of $2,500, fully offset
by fees
DMV: administration annual costs of $550, fully offset by
fees
DOJ processing requirements minor/absorbable
costsGeneral
* Motor Vehicle Account
AB 2499
Page
11
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/10/10)
Judicial Council of California
National Association of Driving Safety Educators
TrafficSchool.com
OPPOSITION : (Verified 8/10/10)
AVSights.com (independent contractor with CTSI)
California Traffic Classes, Inc.
California Traffic Safety Institute (CTSI)
California Traffic School Association
Comedy Traffic School
Coordinated Court Services, Inc.
Facil Divertido y a su Alcance TVS
Fun 4U Fast 2 "Home Study Traffic School"
Highway Blues, Inc.
Interactive Safety Education, Inc.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
National Traffic Safety Institute
Quick Stop Traffic School
San Diego County Traffic School Association
Traffic Classes of America at Home
Traffic Safety Center, Inc.
Traffic Safety Consultants, Inc.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : Writing in support, the Judicial
Council of California writes: "The bill effectively
implements the goals the Judicial Council supported in 2007
of ensuring meaningful statewide regulation of the traffic
violator school industry, and relieving the judicial branch
of its well-intended, but misplaced, role in attempting to
ensure quality TVS programs for court users in the absence
of statewide regulation." The Judicial Council goes on to
explain that the traffic violator school industry has
expanded over the years to include various means of home
study, including internet, video, and workbook programs,
but absent DMV oversight, courts have been left to respond
to complaints about the quality of the home study programs.
As the home study option has become more popular, the
Judicial Council notes that courts have struggled to fill
the regulatory void by developing their own criteria for
approving, monitoring, and essentially regulating home
study programs offered to traffic violators, rather than
AB 2499
Page
12
denying a traffic violator the convenience of the home
study option.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : Coordinated Court Services,
Inc. writes:
"The existing laws concerning the traffic violator school
program were instituted based upon DMV's failure to
perform this service, and there is nothing to counter
that underlying premise. We believe that historically
DMV has shown an inability to provide monitoring as is
required under existing law. CCS sees no reason to take
a system that is working well within the private sector
and place it in the control of a government agency with
existing revenue problems.
"The financial impact of this bill would cause most
classroom schools to close their doors because of the
absence of lists other than on the DMV website. If the
Courts had to print the lists, they would incur costs for
paper, ink and other supplies as well as loss of staff
time. Most courts would be unable to retain their
current Court Assistance Program (CAP) clerical help
because revenues will decrease, thus creating additional
cost to the court in staff time. The amount of loss or
additional cost to the courts may be astronomical.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR :
AYES: Adams, Ammiano, Arambula, Bass, Beall, Bill
Berryhill, Block, Blumenfield, Bradford, Brownley,
Buchanan, Caballero, Charles Calderon, Carter, Chesbro,
Cook, Coto, Davis, De La Torre, De Leon, Emmerson, Eng,
Evans, Feuer, Fletcher, Fong, Fuentes, Fuller, Furutani,
Galgiani, Gilmore, Hall, Hayashi, Hernandez, Hill, Huber,
Huffman, Jones, Lieu, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza,
Miller, Monning, Nava, Nestande, Niello, Nielsen, V.
Manuel Perez, Portantino, Ruskin, Salas, Saldana, Silva,
Skinner, Smyth, Solorio, Swanson, Torlakson, Torres,
Torrico, Villines, Yamada, John A. Perez
NOES: Anderson, Blakeslee, Conway, DeVore, Gaines, Hagman,
Harkey, Knight, Logue, Tran
NO VOTE RECORDED: Tom Berryhill, Garrick, Jeffries, Norby,
Audra Strickland, Vacancy
AB 2499
Page
13
JJA:mw 8/11/10 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
**** END ****