BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2499
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 12, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION
Bonnie Lowenthal, Chair
AB 2499 (Portantino) - As Amended: March 25, 2010
SUBJECT : Traffic violator schools
SUMMARY : Brings home study traffic violator schools (TVSs)
under the purview of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).
Specifically, this bill :
1)Provides that completion of a program at a TVS as a result of
having violated a statute relating to safe vehicle operation
shall result in a designation of the driver's conviction as
confidential, rather than having the complaint dismissed.
2)Provides, in such a circumstance, that no point count is to be
assessed against the driver's record.
3)Removes the confidentiality of the conviction if the convicted
person holds a commercial driver's license, the violation
occurred in a commercial vehicle, or the violation is one that
results in more than one point against the driver's record.
4)Requires DMV to establish standards for each TVS instructional
modality, which may include requirements specific to each
modality.
5)Increases to $15,000 the amount of the bond that each TVS is
required to file with DMV.
6)Repeals the requirement for TVS classrooms to be approved by
DMV.
7)Repeals the requirement for a TVS lesson plan to provide at
least 400 minutes for adults or 600 minutes for persons under
18.
8)Requires a TVS lesson plan to include a postlesson knowledge
test and requires the lesson plan for each instructional
modality to obtain separate approval by DMV.
9)Prohibits any person from being designated as the operator of
more than one TVS.
AB 2499
Page 2
10)Allows a TVS with multiple branch locations to designate a
separate operator for each location, but requires it to
designate one of the operators as the primary contact for DMV.
11)Allows a TVS owner who is designated as the operator for the
school to act as an instructor without meeting the
requirements that otherwise apply to instructors.
12)Allows the owner's license to include authorization to act as
an instructor if the owner is not designated as the operator
but meets instructor requirements. The owner's license would
be required to specify if the owner is authorized to offer
instruction. If the owner is not approved to act as an
instructor, the TVS would be required to employ a licensed
instructor.
13)Requires a court-approved traffic safety program that was in
operation prior to July 1, 2011, to file an application for
licensure as a TVS by September 1, 2011.
14)Prohibits any court from approving a traffic safety program
after June 30, 2011.
15)Allows a court-approved program to continue to operate as
approved by a court until the DMV makes a licensing decision.
16)Allows a licensed court-approved traffic safety program to
continue to use a curriculum approved by a court until DMV
establishes curriculum standards in regulation.
17)Requires any such court-approved program to comply with the
new curriculum standards by the effective date established in
regulation.
18)Repeals requirements for DMV to publish a referral list of
all the approved locations of TVS classes and instead requires
DMV to provide a list of licensed TVSs on its Internet Web
site. For each licensed school, the list would be required to
indicate the modalities of instruction offered and specify the
cities where classroom instruction is offered. The sequential
listing of licensed schools would be randomized daily.
AB 2499
Page 3
19)Requires DMV to develop a Web-based database accessible by
the courts and TVSs to allow oversight of TVS student
enrollments and course completions.
20)Allows courts to charge traffic violators a fee to defray the
costs incurred by a court assistance program (CAP) for
monitoring and traffic administration services provided to the
court.
21)Prohibits the fee from exceeding the actual cost incurred by
the CAP.
22)Repeals provisions governing the monitoring of TVSs by CAPs.
23)Allows courts to enter into contracts with public or private
nonprofit agencies to provide services to the court, provided
those services do not duplicate those conducted by DMV.
24)Repeals obsolete requirements regarding the collection of
information by the Judicial Council regarding TVSs.
25)Requires DMV to charge a fee for each of the following:
a) Original issuance of a TVS owner, operator, instructor,
and branch or classroom location license;
b) Renewal of a TVS owner, operator, instructor, and branch
or classroom location license;
c) Issuance of a duplicate or corrected TVS owner,
operator, instructor, and branch or classroom location
license;
d) Transfer of an operator or instructor license from one
TVS to another;
e) Approval of curriculum, based on the instructional
modality of the curriculum; and,
f) Administration of TVS instructor examinations.
26)Requires these fees to be sufficient to defray DMV's actual
cost to administer the TVS program, except for routine
monitoring of instruction.
AB 2499
Page 4
27)Requires a single administrative fee to be assessed against,
and collected by the court from, each driver who is allowed or
ordered to attend TVS, including an amount determined by DMV
to be sufficient to defray the cost of routine monitoring of
TVS instruction.
28)Allows a court, after a deposit of bail and bail forfeiture,
a plea of guilty or no contest, or a conviction, to order a
continuance of a proceeding against a person who receives a
notice to appear in court for a violation of a statute
relating to the safe operation of a vehicle, in consideration
for attendance at a licensed TVS.
29)Allows the court to order that the conviction be held
confidential by DMV if the offense is not alleged to have
occurred within 18 months of another offense that was held
confidential.
30)Allows the court to order or permit completion of a licensed
TVS program.
31)Requires the driver, in such an instance, to submit to the
court a certificate of completion for the traffic violator
program by the date required by the court. If the certificate
of completion is not received by the court as required, the
court would be authorized to issue an order to show cause for
the failure to comply with the court's order. Upon issuance
of an order to show cause, the court would be required to
notify the person by mail that failure to appear at court
within 10 days of the notice and show good cause for the
failure to comply with the order to submit a certificate of
completion will result in the reporting of the conviction,
assessment of points for an offense, and an increased sentence
up to the full fine, penalties, and fees allowed by law for
the conviction. If the person fails to appear as ordered, the
court would be required to update the court records to change
the status of the conviction included in the previous order
from confidential to public and to report the conviction to
DMV.
32)Allows a court, after a deposit of a specified fee or bail, a
plea of guilty or no contest, or a conviction, to order or
permit a person who holds a noncommercial class C, class M1,
or class M2 driver's license who pleads guilty or no contest
AB 2499
Page 5
or is convicted of a traffic violation, to attend a TVS.
33)Prohibits a court from ordering or permitting a person who
holds a class A, class B, or commercial class C driver's
license to complete a licensed TVS course in lieu of
adjudicating any traffic offense, or from ordering that a
conviction of a traffic offense by a person holding a class A,
class B, or commercial class C driver's license to be kept
confidential.
34)Prohibits a court from ordering a conviction to be kept
confidential or permitting a person, regardless of the
driver's license class, to complete a program at a licensed
TVS in lieu of adjudicating an offense if the offense occurred
in a commercial motor vehicle or is one of several serious
enumerated violations such as reckless driving or leaving the
scene of an accident.
35)Repeals provisions that allow courts to restrict referrals to
certain TVSs.
36)Modifies content of the courtesy notice mailed to a defendant
for an offense that qualifies for TVS attendance to include
the message: "One conviction in any 18-month period will be
held confidential and not show on your driving record if you
complete a traffic violator school program."
37)Specifies that the fee collected by a court clerk from every
person ordered or permitted to attend TVS is to be in an
amount equal to the total bail set forth for the eligible
offense on the uniform countywide bail schedule plus a $49
court administrative fee and a fee determined by DMV to be
sufficient to defray the cost of routine monitoring of TVS
instruction.
38)Requires this fee to be allocated to DMV to defray the costs
of TVS instruction.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Allows a court to order any person convicted of a traffic
violation to attend a TVS.
2)Allows a court, in lieu of adjudicating a traffic offense, to
order a person to attend a TVS with the consent of that
AB 2499
Page 6
person.
3)Allows a court to grant a continuance and dismiss an action
for violation of any statute related to the safe operation of
a vehicle in consideration for attendance at a TVS or any
other court-approved program of driving instruction.
4)Requires DMV to license TVSs and prohibits persons from owning
or operating TVSs without a DMV license.
5)Establishes various license requirements for TVSs, including
the maintenance of a place of business, the procurement of a
bond, and having a lesson plan approved by DMV with a
prescribed number of minutes of instruction.
6)Requires DMV to license TVS operators and prescribes minimum
qualifications for licensed operators including passage of a
DMV examination and having 500 hours experience providing
in-class instruction in driver training and education.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : Under existing law, motorists cited for certain
traffic violations may, at the option of the court, be ordered
to attend TVS as part of their sentence or be offered to have
the charges dismissed in consideration for attending TVS. There
are reportedly 400 licensed TVSs and unlicensed 200 home study
schools currently operating in the state. It is estimated that
about one 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 sheer
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, on the other hand, 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.
This bill is the latest in a long series of attempts to bring
all segments of the TVS industry under the direction of DMV.
AB 2499
Page 7
The issue of providing a uniform set of standards for traffic
school operations has tended to pit the "brick-and-mortar," or
classroom, segment of the industry against the "home study"
(i.e., mostly internet, but also video, and correspondence)
segment of the industry. Other interested parties, each with
their own preferences and points of view, include the courts,
the CAPs, and DMV itself. As noted below, a number of attempts
to resolve this issue have been unsuccessful, with numerous
bills failing to clear the Legislature and one having been
vetoed by the Governor.
Most recently, the Legislature directed DMV to recommend a
comprehensive plan for licensing all TVS instructional programs.
This bill is intended to implement the DMV recommendation that
were developed in response to that mandate.
The DMV report laid out a far-reaching plan for licensing all
segments of the TVS industry, transitioning the court-approved
programs to this new licensing scheme, and implementing a fee
schedule that would support these licensing and oversight
activities. It also recommended that the process for dismissing
traffic violations be re-structured to prevent high-risk drivers
from completing traffic safety instruction multiple times to
avoid convictions, that all complaints concerning the TVS
program be submitted directly to the department and not be
submitted or processed by any other entity, and that, while DMV
should be responsible for annual post-licensing review of the
business, the routine monitoring of the TVS courses could be
"outsourced" (i.e., by the use of CAPs, as is currently done by
the courts).
On this last point, the report states, "The department
recognizes and appreciates the services provided by CAPs, which
have assumed a significant role in monitoring classroom and
home-study programs. For example, the California Traffic Safety
Institute has 60 course monitors working in 25 counties every
day. This means that nearly 25% of the TVS providers operating
within those judicial districts are monitored daily." It also
states, "The department recommends that the routine monitoring
of the TVS courses be performed by department employees and
third parties, similar to the function provided under today's
system by CAPs." It should be noted, however, that in the view
of the CAPs, the current bill language does not reflect this
particular DMV recommendation.
AB 2499
Page 8
The classroom segment of the industry, which opposes this bill,
goes further, claiming that the bill is unworkable as DMV has
nowhere near the resources to oversee this large of an
operation. The classroom operators contend that, "There is no
demonstrated need to authorize DMV to regulate home study
traffic violator programs on a statewide basis. Only home study
programs will profit which will force more classroom schools out
of business. The current system is not broken and is not in
need of major surgery. The DMV has not demonstrated over the
years that it can effectively regulate the classroom industry.
Based on past experience, DMV cannot effectively regulate the
hundreds of existing home study programs, hundreds of new home
study school applications that will result from the enactment of
AB 2499." Classroom operators also object to the bill's
reliance on online lists of TVSs rather than the current paper
list that is distributed by DMV. "The proposal in AB 2499 to
only make the Classroom Location List available to the traffic
violator electronically via the DMV's website, is strongly
opposed. It is discriminatory! It discriminates against all
California drivers who do not have, or use, the internet. This
one change alone will disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of
traffic violators, including 10.9-million Californians who do
not go online."
Nevertheless, the bill represents a major step forward in
enacted a long-sought regulatory scheme to bring some parity and
consistency to a process that impacts so many drivers and holds
the potential, if as yet unrealized, to positively affect driver
behavior.
Speaking on behalf of the courts, which currently (and
reluctantly) oversee home study courses, the Judicial Council
states, "The bill effectively implements the goals the Judicial
Council supported in 2007 of ensuring meaningful statewide
regulation of an 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. It is critical to maintain the distinction between
executive branch and judicial branch function. AB 2499 would
properly place the regulation of the TVS industry with the
executive branch. AB 2499 brings consistency to the TVS
licensing requirements, while giving DMV the ability to ensure
that all components of the TVS process are designed to improve
traffic safety in California."
AB 2499
Page 9
Similarly, the National Association of Driving Safety Educators,
representing home study providers, states, "There is simply no
public policy reason why providers of traffic violator education
should be regulated based upon the modality of the instruction
they offer. Licensing and regulation is properly an executive
branch function which should be performed by DMV, not by 58
different Superior Courts. In a time of extreme pressure on
court budgets, there is a compelling need to relieve courts of
duties more properly performed by the executive branch, so that
courts can focus on core duties. Consolidating regulation in
the DMV will eliminate the current hodge-podge of rules applied
to traffic violator schools by the various courts. Although our
client companies may well pay more for regulation under AB 2499,
we are in strong support of the measure because we will have one
regulator, with one set of rules, and be relieved of the burden
of seeking approval to operate on a court-by-court basis, 58
times."
While there may be some clarification needed as to retaining the
beneficial role to be played by CAPs, there seems to be
consensus, other than from the classroom segment of the
industry, that it is time to bring all TVS activities under the
purview of DMV. Inasmuch as this bill builds on the efforts of
the vetoed AB 2377 (Longville-2004) but also incorporates the
recommendations contained in DMV's report, it would appear to
have the best chance of any of the recent attempts at TVS reform
to both pass legislative review and obtain a Governor's
signature.
Legislative history : This bill is a followup to AB 758 (Plescia
and Portantino) Chapter 396, Statutes of 2007. The introduced
version of AB 758 would have required DMV to license home study
TVSs. When consensus could not be achieved on a means of
accomplishing that goal, the bill more modestly required DMV to
recommend to the Legislature a comprehensive plan for licensing
all TVS instructional programs.
In that same session, Mr. Portantino carried AB 1099, which
would have restructured the governance of TVSs. AB 1099 died on
Suspense in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Previously,
AB 1932 (Benoit) of 2006, offered a comprehensive scheme for the
DMV regulation of home study TVSs. AB 1932 also died on
Suspense in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. AB 1932 was
largely a reintroduction of AB 2377 (Longville), which was
vetoed by the Governor in 2004. The Governor's veto message
AB 2499
Page 10
said, in part: "This bill is another example of expanding state
bureaucracy without demonstrating a need. It is a waste of
taxpayer money to require the Department of Motor Vehicles to
expend significant funds to provide for licensing of traffic
violator schools that are currently approved at the local level
by the courts."
AB 2377 was, in turn, a follow-up to AB 435 (Matthews),
introduced in 2003 and AB 546 (Cohn), introduced in 2001. AB
435 and AB 546 were ultimately unsuccessful due to the inability
of the affected parties to come to a comprehensive agreement.
The long and contentious history of this issue had, in fact, led
the then-chair of the Senate Transportation Committee to state
that his committee would not hear any TVS-related legislation
that did not represent a consensus. In that context, long-term
discussions between classroom TVSs, home study TVSs, court
assistance programs (CAPs), court clerks, DMV, and legislative
staff did manage to achieve consensus on one facet of the TVS
issue, the oversight of TVSs by DMV and CAPs. That consensus
was embodied in AB 1479 (Chu), Chapter 518, Statutes of 2003.
Senator Runner introduced a spot bill earlier in this session,
SB 210, that might have served as a vehicle for TVS reform. An
inability to achieve consensus among that various parties
reportedly led the senator to abandon that effort.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Judicial Council of California
National Association of Driving Safety Educators
TrafficSchool.com
Opposition
California Traffic Classes, Inc.
California Traffic Safety Institute
Cheap School TVS
Educational Safety Institute Inc.
Facil Divertido Y A Su Alcance TVS
Fun 4U Fast 2 Traffic School
Highway Blues, Inc.
Interactive Safety Education, Inc.
Phone calls from numerous individual traffic schools
AB 2499
Page 11
Simple Fast Fun TVS
Traffic Safety Center, Inc.
Traffic Safety Consultants, Inc.
Universal E-Com
Analysis Prepared by : Howard Posner / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093