BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 789 (Wieckowski) - Driver's license suspension: restricted
privilege
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|Version: February 27, 2015 |Policy Vote: T. & H. 10 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: May 4, 2015 |Consultant: Mark McKenzie |
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This bill does not meet the criteria for referral to the
Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: SB 789 would authorize a person with a restricted
driver's license to drive to or from school at a postsecondary
educational institution, as specified.
Fiscal
Impact: The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) would incur
one-time costs of approximately $80,000 in 2015-16 for necessary
programming and form changes (Motor Vehicle Account).
Background: Existing law requires a drivers and vehicle owners to carry
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evidence of financial responsibility, defined primarily as
written evidence of valid automobile insurance coverage.
Existing law generally requires a driver involved in a traffic
accident that results in property damage in excess of $750, or
bodily injury or death, to report the accident to DMV within 10
days.
If a person involved in such an accident fails to provide proof
of insurance at the time of the accident, DMV is required to
suspend the driving privileges of the driver or vehicle owner
for one year, as specified. As an alternative to driver's
license suspension, existing law authorizes DMV to restrict
driving privileges to the following situations, if the applicant
maintains insurance coverage and pays a penalty fee of $250: 1)
necessary travel to and from the person's place of employment;
2) driving required to perform employment-related duties; and 3)
necessary travel to take a minor dependent to and from primary
or secondary school if public transportation or a school bus are
unavailable. The option of applying for restricted driving
privileges is not available to holders of a commercial driver's
license, unless the commercial license is surrendered and DMV
instead issues that person a noncommercial class C or M license.
Proposed Law:
SB 789 would authorize a person with restricted driving
privileges to drive himself or herself to and from school, in
addition to the authorized situations noted above. The bill
would define "school" for these purposes to mean a California
community college campus, a California State University campus,
a University of California campus, or a private postsecondary
educational institution.
Related
Legislation: SB 438 (Hill), which has also been referred to
this Committee, would increase the property damage threshold for
reporting a traffic accident to DMV from $750 to $1,000, and
make other conforming changes.
Staff
Comments: This bill would allow a person who fails to provide
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proof of insurance when involved in an accident, upon payment of
a penalty and maintaining ongoing proof of insurance, to secure
a restricted driving privilege for driving to and from a
postsecondary educational institution. This bill is intended to
prevent the potential disruption of educational progress that
may come with certain driver's license suspensions.
DMV indicates that it issues less than 4,000 restricted driver
privileges each year, collecting approximately $1 million in
penalty fees. The bill is not expected to have a noticeable
impact on the number of applications for restricted driving
privileges in a given year. As such, any revenue impacts are
expected to be minor.
In order to provide for the expansion of authorized situations
in which a person may drive with a restricted driving privilege,
DMV would need to make programming changes to add a new
restriction code, make changes that allow for reinstatement with
the new restriction, and modify systems that provide automated
notices for the new type of restriction following an uninsured
accident. DMV would incur programming costs of approximately
$80,000 to make these necessary changes. The department would
also incur minor costs to update regulations to establish
criteria for the new restriction.
Staff notes that DMV has a significant programming backlog of
federal and state mandates. These include federally-mandated
changes to the Commercial Driver License System, compliance with
which is tied to federal transportation funding, and state
mandates such as programming for the veteran designation on
driver's licenses and IDs (AB 935, Chap 644/2014) and the
issuance of free ID cards for homeless applicants (AB 1733, Chap
764/2014). Given the backlog, DMV would be unable to complete
the programming necessary to implement this bill by the January
1, 2016 operative date without impacting currently scheduled
programming priorities.
Recommended
Amendments: In light of DMV's programming backlog, staff
recommends an amendment to delay the operative date by six
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months, to July 1, 2016.
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