BILL ANALYSIS
AB 254
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 13, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
AB 254 (Jeffries) - As Amended: April 21, 2009
Policy Committee:
TransportationVote:12-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill:
1)Exempts authorized emergency vehicles from paying any highway
or bridge tolls subject to the following conditions:
a) The vehicle is properly displaying an exempt California
license plate, an external warning light or lights, and
public agency identification.
b) The vehicle is being driven while responding to or
returning from an urgent call or engaging in fire station
coverage related to an emergency response.
c) The driver determines that use of the toll facility will
likely improve response time.
2)Authorizes the head of the public emergency response agency to
certify in writing that the emergency vehicle is exempt from a
toll if the toll facility operator elects to invoice the
public agency for use of the toll facility pursuant to the
above.
FISCAL EFFECT
Negligible revenue loss to toll facility operators and potential
minor savings to emergency response and public safety agencies.
COMMENTS
Purpose . According to the author, "emergency first responders
AB 254
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and their vehicles are routinely called upon to provide
essential services across California regardless of political
boundaries. When responding to emergency calls, emergency
vehicles such as fire trucks and police vehicles sometimes use
these tolled lanes and facilities as the quickest response
route. If they travel on a tolled road or bridge, these
vehicles are ticketed for a toll violation while responding to
an emergency call."
The author's office points out that this bill was developed
because of events that occurred during the recent emergency
response of wildfires in the Southern California area, when
emergency personnel from throughout the region were dispersed to
assist and aide local fire authorities, often times having to
use toll roads in the Orange County region to access the
affected locations.
The author adds that "in order to expunge and avoid tickets for
a toll violation while responding to an emergency call, the fire
chief or fire department must spend valuable time (typically in
the middle of fire season) researching, pulling incident logs,
contacting vehicle operators and dealing with bureaucracy."
During the most recent wildfires, while many local fire
departments had pre-existing agreements in place with the
Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA), other assisting
departments did not have such agreements and subsequently
received charges for use of the toll facilities. Those charges
were later cleared after TCA determined that personnel were
responding to the fires during an emergency situation.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081