BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: AB 516 Hearing Date: July 14, 2015
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|Author: |Mullin |
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|Version: |June 30, 2015 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|MK |
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Subject: Vehicles: Temporary License Plates
HISTORY
Source: Metropolitan Transportation Commission
Prior Legislation:AB 2197 (Mullin) 2014 held in Assembly
Appropriations
Support: California New Car Dealers Association; The
Metropolitan Transportation Commission; Santa Clara
Valley Transportation Authority; Transportation
Corridor Agencies
Opposition:California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation (unless
amended); Car Dealers Saving Lives; Consumers for Auto
Reliability and Safety (unless amended); Lawyers'
Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay
Area (unless amended)
Assembly Floor Vote: 74 - 1
PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to: 1) require the Department of
Motor Vehicles (DMV) to create a process to issue temporary
license plates (TLPs) by January 1, 2018; 2) require dealers to
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attach TLPs to all unplated vehicles when they are sold
beginning January 1, 2018; and 3) makes the forging, altering
etcetera of a temporary license plate a jail wobbler.
Existing law requires car dealers, when selling a vehicle, to
use the report-of-sale forms issued by the DMV, to give written
notice of the sale to the DMV not later than the fifth calendar
day after the sale, and to display a copy of the report of sale
on the vehicle. (Vehicle Code § 4456)
This bill sunsets the above provision on January 1, 2018 and
creates a new electronic report system that the DMV and car
dealers shall use beginning on January 1, 2018.
This bill requires that DMV create a system to issue temporary
license plates for cars sold that do not already have a license
plate.
Existing law permits vehicles displaying a copy of the
report-of-sale to be operated until the license plates are
received by the purchaser or for 90 days, whichever occurs
first. The penalty for failing to display the plate is a fix-it
ticket. (Vehicle Code § 4456)
This bill provides that a vehicle displaying a report-of-sale
form or temporary license plate may be operated without license
plates until the license plates and registration card are
received by the purchaser or a 90 day period commencing with the
date of the sale of the vehicle has expired.
Existing law authorizes dealers to charge document preparation
fees of $80 for new cars and $65 for used cars. (Vehicle Code §
4456.5)
This bill increases those fees to $90 and $75 beginning on
January 1, 2018.
Existing law makes the altering, forging etcetera of various DMV
documents a jail wobbler. (Vehicle Code § 4463)
This bill would make the altering, forging etcetera of a
temporary license plate a jail wobbler.
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
For the past eight years, this Committee has scrutinized
legislation referred to its jurisdiction for any potential
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impact on prison overcrowding. Mindful of the United States
Supreme Court ruling and federal court orders relating to the
state's ability to provide a constitutional level of health care
to its inmate population and the related issue of prison
overcrowding, this Committee has applied its "ROCA" policy as a
content-neutral, provisional measure necessary to ensure that
the Legislature does not erode progress in reducing prison
overcrowding.
On February 10, 2014, the federal court ordered California to
reduce its in-state adult institution population to 137.5% of
design capacity by February 28, 2016, as follows:
143% of design bed capacity by June 30, 2014;
141.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2015; and,
137.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2016.
In February of this year the administration reported that as "of
February 11, 2015, 112,993 inmates were housed in the State's 34
adult institutions, which amounts to 136.6% of design bed
capacity, and 8,828 inmates were housed in out-of-state
facilities. This current population is now below the
court-ordered reduction to 137.5% of design bed capacity."(
Defendants' February 2015 Status Report In Response To February
10, 2014 Order, 2:90-cv-00520 KJM DAD PC, 3-Judge Court, Coleman
v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (fn. omitted).
While significant gains have been made in reducing the prison
population, the state now must stabilize these advances and
demonstrate to the federal court that California has in place
the "durable solution" to prison overcrowding "consistently
demanded" by the court. (Opinion Re: Order Granting in Part and
Denying in Part Defendants' Request For Extension of December
31, 2013 Deadline, NO. 2:90-cv-0520 LKK DAD (PC), 3-Judge Court,
Coleman v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (2-10-14). The Committee's
consideration of bills that may impact the prison population
therefore will be informed by the following questions:
Whether a proposal erodes a measure which has contributed
to reducing the prison population;
Whether a proposal addresses a major area of public safety
or criminal activity for which there is no other
reasonable, appropriate remedy;
Whether a proposal addresses a crime which is directly
dangerous to the physical safety of others for which there
is no other reasonably appropriate sanction;
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Whether a proposal corrects a constitutional problem or
legislative drafting error; and
Whether a proposal proposes penalties which are
proportionate, and cannot be achieved through any other
reasonably appropriate remedy.
COMMENTS
1.Need for The Bill
According to the author:
Under current law cars are allowed to drive without
permanent plates for up to 90 days, but in practice,
many people drive without plates for even longer.
Because of the state's system of simply requiring a
folded up copy of the report-of-sale in the inside
windshield prior to permanent plates being installed,
it's impossible for law enforcement to know whether
the 90-day period has lapsed. The result is that
thousands of vehicles drive on our highways and local
streets every day with no license plate, creating a
public safety hazard and reducing toll revenue by $15
million per year as a result of vehicles without
plates using toll roads and bridges without payment.
AB 516 is not breaking new ground at the national
level, it's finally bringing California into the
mainstream. Specifically,
35 states have some form of unique
temporary tag system, requiring the display of a
visible, unique ID number with expiration date.
Of the 14 that do not (other than
California):
o 10 assign the license plate to the
vehicle's owner, rather than vehicle, enabling
immediate placement of plate on a newly
purchased car.
o 4 require the vehicle to be
permanently registered within 45 days or less.
AB 516(Mullin) proposes a point-of-sale,
self-financing, temporary tag system similar to
that in operation in 13 states and the District
of Columbia.
Vehicles without plates are harder to
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locate when involved in a crime, whether a
hit-and-run accident or a more serious crime.
This is why last year's bill, AB 2197, was
supported by the three major local law
enforcement associations.
According to the U.S. Justice Department,
50 percent of Amber Alerts in 2011 were solved as
a result of a member of the public or law
enforcement recognizing a vehicle. Their best
practices call for including plate number in
Amber Alert notices.
The California Transportation
Infrastructure Priorities report recommends
Caltrans embrace pricing and express lanes to
better manage congestion and operations of the
state highway system while generating new revenue
(Recommendation 10.3, page 12).
This new direction depends on automated
license plate readers for enforcement. It only
works if all drivers play by the same rules and
have license plates installed on their vehicles.
2. Temporary Plates
In general this bill requires the Department of Motor Vehicles
(DMV) to create a process to issue temporary license plates
(TLPs) by January 1, 2018, and requires dealers to attach TLPs
to all unplated vehicles when they are sold beginning January 1,
2018.
The author is concerned that current law allows thousands of
vehicles to drive on our roads with no license plate, creating a
public safety hazard and reducing toll revenue by $15 million
per year as a result of vehicles without plates using toll roads
and bridges without payment.
Electronic toll payment collection systems rely upon a photo of
the vehicle's license plate for enforcement. Without a plate,
vehicles are able to use toll lanes and toll bridges without
much fear of getting caught. Because cars are often sold
without plates, and it is legal to operate without plates for 90
days, transportation agencies are concerned about revenue
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losses. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission estimates
that it loses $9 million annually in unpaid tolls, with
statewide losses of $15 million.
This bill was heard in, and passed 10-0, Assembly Transportation
Committee on July 7 where the issues related to the creation of
these new temporary license plates by DMV were discussed.
3. Wobbler for Altering, Forging Etcetera a Temporary License
Plate
Existing law makes it a jail wobbler to alter, forge,
counterfeit, or falsify a certificate of ownership, registration
card, certificate, license, license plate, special plate or
permit by a foreign jurisdiction or to alter, forge, counterfeit
or falsify the document, device or plate with the intent to
represent it as issued by DMV or to alter, forge, counterfeit or
falsify with fraudulent intent and endorsement of transfer on a
certificate of ownership or other document evidencing ownership,
or with fraudulent intent display or cause to be displayed or
have in his or her possession a blank, incomplete, canceled,
suspended, revoked altered, forged, counterfeit, or false
certificate of ownership, registration card, certificate,
license, license plate special plate or permit.
This bill would also make doing any of the following to the
temporary license plates created under this bill a jail wobbler.
Is this the appropriate penalty? The concern appears to be
that a person will alter the date on a temporary license plate
in order to be able to continue using it beyond 90 days. Is the
altering, forging, counterfeiting or falsifying of a temporary
license plate the same as altering, forging, counterfeiting or
falsifying other DMV documents and thus should have the same
penalty or is it somehow distinguishable?
4. Cannot Use the Temporary Plates Beyond 90 days
The author and supporters are concerned with people who keep
temporary or dealer plates on their cars even after they get
their license plates in order to evade tolls. The thought is
that with these new temporary plates it will be easier to
determine when the 90 days has run and thus ticket a person who
has not installed their license plates.
The opposition believes that people who have not received their
plates through no fault of their own should not be subject to a
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penalty. The author intends to amend the bill in Committee to
clarify that a person will not be held responsible if they
notify DMV that they did not receive their license plates before
the expiration of the 90 days.
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