BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 3
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Date of Hearing: April 11, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION
Bonnie Lowenthal, Chair
AB 3 (Miller) - As Amended: April 5, 2011
SUBJECT : Confidential home addresses
SUMMARY : Provides an alternative traffic violation notification
process for persons whose home addresses are held strictly
confidential by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).
Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires DMV, as part of its registration renewal process, to
provide a person who requests a confidential home address any
outstanding notices of toll evasion or red light camera
violations that appear on his or her records with the DMV.
2)Requires DMV to provide such persons the same level of
notification as is required under existing law for those
violations.
3)Suspends the statutory time periods for collection of these
violations until the registered vehicle owner receives
notification under these provisions.
4)Prohibits a fee or charge being assessed for failure to pay
outstanding toll evasion or red light camera violations that
are noticed by DMV under these provisions.
5)Allows DMV to collect reasonable fees from persons so noticed
in order to recover DMV's costs.
6)Requires DMV to refuse to renew the registration of a vehicle
if the processing agency has filed or electronically
transmitted to DMV an itemization of the unpaid toll evasion
or red light camera violations, DMV has mailed the notice
required under these provisions, and the person has not paid
the penalty.
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7)Defines, for the purposes of these provisions, "red light
camera violation" to mean an alleged violation of red light or
red arrow restrictions, or an illegal turn at an intersection,
that is recorded by an automated enforcement system.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Lists 24 classes of persons primarily in law enforcement
fields, plus the spouses and children of those persons, and
allows them to request that their home addresses be held
confidential by DMV. The home address of these persons may
only be disclosed to a court, a law enforcement agency, the
state Board of Equalization (BOE), or any governmental agency
legally required to be furnished that information.
2)Affords confidentiality for the home addresses of all other
individuals contained within DMV records. These provisions
similarly allow for disclosure to courts, law enforcement
agencies, and other governmental agencies but also allow for
limited disclosure to financial institutions, insurance
companies, attorneys, vehicle manufacturers, and persons doing
statistical research.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown. However, this version of this bill has
been developed in consultation with staff of both the Assembly
and Senate Appropriations Committees in a vigorous proactive
effort to minimize costs.
COMMENTS : Until 1989, DMV records were considered public
records, unless state law specifically made them confidential,
as was the case for peace officers' addresses. Therefore, until
1989, home addresses were not considered confidential, and any
person who gave a reason that DMV deemed legitimate and could
present to DMV a person's driver's license number or license
plate number could obtain address information on that
individual.
In 1989, actress Rebecca Schaeffer was stalked and killed. The
murderer obtained her address from a private investigation
agency doing business in Arizona. The private investigation
agency acquired her address through a subcontractor agent in
California, who obtained it from DMV. In response, the
Legislature enacted AB 1779 (Roos), Chapter 1213, Statutes of
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1989, which made home addresses in DMV records confidential,
with specified exceptions.
AB 1779 left in place, however, earlier confidentiality
provisions that applied only to peace officers and certain other
officials thought to be at risk. The home addresses of those on
the statutory list of such officials (a list that has increased
substantially in the intervening years) may only be disclosed to
a court, a law enforcement agency, the BOE, or any governmental
agency legally required to be furnished that information. The
home addresses of everyone else may also be disclosed, in
limited circumstances, to financial institutions, insurance
companies, attorneys, vehicle manufacturers, and persons doing
statistical research.
The Orange County Register in 2008 conducted an investigation
that uncovered thousands of unpaid violations and tolls accrued
by a number of peace officers and other individuals whose DMV
records are afforded enhanced confidentiality beyond the
protections afforded under AB 1779. Those unpaid tolls and
fines had cost agencies in Orange County over $5 million over
the prior five years. Parking and toll agencies throughout the
state, including those in San Diego and San Francisco, had
experienced similar abuses.
When parking agencies or toll road operators attempt to collect
fines from such individuals, DMV is not able to provide the
offender's registered addresses in a manner timely enough for
fines to be collected under the statute of limitations.
Therefore, it is generally not cost effective for agencies to
pursue money owed, so that fines for these violations are
usually written off. While some agencies attempt to collect the
money by sending a notice to the individuals' employing entities
on file at DMV, there is no way to enforce the collection of
violations because this practice is not authorized under the
law.
This bill would require a person already enrolled in the
confidential records program, or who applies for the
confidentiality of his or her home address, to waive his or her
right to receive a notice requirement of a toll violation,
parking, red-light camera or other traffic violation. Since the
notice of violation would first be received months after the
alleged violation, the bill waives all penalty and
administrative fees assessed in addition to past due fines for
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all enrollees in the program.
DMV would further be required to refuse to renew the
registration of a vehicle of a person who has failed to pay a
delinquent parking violation, toll violation, or traffic
citation, and the processing agency has filed or electronically
transmitted to the department an itemization of the unpaid
parking, toll violation, or traffic citation, less any past due
penalties or administrative fees associated with delinquent
payment.
According to the author, his intent is to "generate revenue for
local transportation projects and promote transparency in
government by closing a loophole in the Confidential Records
Program Act that currently enables bureaucrats to avoid paying
their traffic tickets."
Since the enactment of AB 1779 more than two decades ago, there
is not one documented case of any licensed driver or registered
vehicle owner being tracked down for nefarious purposes through
their DMV records. Therefore one might question whether there
is any need for the confidentiality program that applies to
peace officers and others on the statutory list. If the
political will does not exist for the repeal of that program, at
the very least it should not be used to enable individuals to
avoid the payment of traffic tickets. In that light, this bill
represents a long overdue reform that will both discourage these
violations and boost the revenue streams of the affected public
agencies.
Legislative history : AB 996 (Spitzer) of 2008, which was vetoed
by Governor Schwarzenegger, would have allowed confidential home
addresses maintained by DMV to be disclosed to a governmental
agency when that information was necessary to serve or collect a
traffic, parking, toll bridge, or toll road violation. It also
would have suspended the applicable statutory time periods for
processing the service and collection of traffic, parking, toll
bridge, or toll road violations until DMV provided the affected
law enforcement agency or governmental agency with the home
address of a vehicle owner or driver's license holder whose
address information is otherwise held confidential by DMV.
The Governor, in his veto message, said in part: "There are
existing mechanisms in place to allow a traffic enforcement
agency to pursue collections from law enforcement officers and
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others who have a restricted confidential home address. The
agencies are authorized to obtain an individual's employment
information from DMV and send billing notification to the
individual's place of employment. Additionally, unpaid fines
can be reported to DMV and included in the registration renewal
notice.
"DMV estimates significant costs to implement this bill,
depending on the volume of requests for restricted confidential
address records. DMV maintains over 1.5 million records that
fall under the Confidential Records program. These records
cannot be accessed electronically, and therefore, additional
staff time would be required to manually process requests for
these records."
Subsequent to that veto, the author of this bill last year
introduced AB 2097. AB 2097, which would have require persons
in the confidentiality program to provide DMV with a current
employment address, unanimously passed all Assembly votes, as
well as the Senate policy committee vote, but died on Suspense
in the Senate Appropriations Committee. That committee's
analysis estimated costs in the range of $500 thousand to $1.5
million for DMV to manually update its records to reflect
employer addresses. It also cited potentially significant costs
for the California Highway Patrol (CHP) to process updated forms
regarding its own employees' addresses.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Automobile Club of Southern California
Bay Area Toll Authority
California State Association of Counties
California State Automobile Association
Metropolitan Transportation Commission
South Bay Expressway
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Howard Posner / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093
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