BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: ab 2499
SENATOR ALAN LOWENTHAL, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: portantino
VERSION: 6/22/10
Analysis by: Jennifer Gress FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: June 29, 2010
SUBJECT:
Traffic violator schools
DESCRIPTION:
This bill consolidates the licensing of all TVSs under the
authority of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and treats a
violation as a conviction, rather than as a dismissal, if the
person attends a TVS.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law defines a "traffic violator school" (TVS) as a
"business which for compensation provides, or offers to provide,
instruction in traffic safety, including, but not limited to,
classroom defensive-driver concepts, for persons referred by the
courts?or to other persons who elect to attend."
A court may order a person to attend a licensed traffic violator
school, a licensed driving school, or other court-approved
program of driving instruction, under specified circumstances,
in lieu of adjudicating the traffic offense. When a person
attends a TVS, he or she is entitled to have the complaint
(i.e., citation) relating to the safe operation of a vehicle
dismissed. The court may not, however, dismiss a violation for
attendance at a TVS under the following circumstances:
The person who allegedly committed the violation holds a
commercial driver's license in either this state or another.
The alleged violation occurred in a commercial motor vehicle.
A conviction of the violation would result in a violation
point count of more than one point.
The court must notify DMV when it dismisses a complaint for
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participation in a TVS within 10 days of the complaint being
dismissed. DMV must record the dismissal but hold it
confidential (i.e., mask it) if it occurs in any 18-month
period.
DMV regulates the licensing and administration, including
minimum curriculum requirements, of classroom-based traffic
violator schools, but does not regulate "home study" programs,
which may offer instruction through a variety of non-classroom
means (e.g., internet, textbook, video, and CD ROM). Instead,
each court approves those home-study programs that it orders
violators to attend.
For classroom-based TVS's, existing law prescribes licensing
procedures that DMV must follow for owners, operators, and
instructors.
TVS owners must:
Maintain an established place of business in the state that is
open to the public.
Conform to standards established in regulation by DMV
regarding school personnel, equipment, curriculum, testing and
evaluation procedures, recordkeeping, and other business
practices.
Procure and file with DMV a bond of $2,000
Have a classroom approved by DMV.
Have a lesson plan approved by DMV that provides not less than
400 minutes of instructional time.
Designate the DMV director as an agent of the TVS owner for
service of process.
Meet the requirements prescribed for a TVS operator, if the
owner is also the operator. If the owner is not the operator,
then the owner must designate an employee that does meet the
requirements for an operator.
Provide DMV assurance that the TVS will comply with the
American with Disabilities Act.
TVS operators must:
Have not committed an act that would constitute grounds for
suspension or revocation of his or her license.
Pass an exam administered by DMV regarding traffic laws, safe
driving practices, the operation of motor vehicles, teaching
methods and techniques, TVS laws and regulations, and office
procedures and recordkeeping.
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Be 21 years of age or older.
Have provided classroom instruction for a minimum of 500
hours.
TVS instructors must:
Be 18 years of age or older.
Have a high school education.
Pass a DMV exam on traffic laws, safe driving practices, the
operation of motor vehicles, and teaching methods and
techniques.
Hold a valid California driver's license.
In addition to licensing classroom-based schools, DMV is also
authorized to audit, inspect, and monitor all licensed TVS's.
Auditing includes, but is not limited to, the review and
examination of business records, class records, business
practices, and the content of the program of instruction set
forth in the lesson plan or curriculum of a licensee. Inspecting
includes, but is not limited to, the review of the business
office, branch office, and applicable classroom facilities of a
licensee. Finally, monitoring includes the onsite review of the
actual presentation of the program of traffic safety instruction
provided in a classroom.
Fees
Existing law prescribes specific fees for the issuance of
original, renewal, and duplicate licenses for traffic school
owners, operators, and instructors. DMV may also charge for
each course completion certificate, up to $3. The fee shall be
in an amount to defray DMV's actual costs for publication and
distribution of traffic violator schools, for monitoring
instruction, business practices, record keeping, and any other
activity deemed necessary to assure high quality education for
traffic violators.
Course completion certificates
A traffic school purchases the certificates from DMV for
issuance to it students upon completion of its course and may
charge its students for the certificates in an amount not to
exceed the school's actual costs. Once a student completes the
course and is issued a completion certificate, the student
submits the certificate to the court that then dismisses the
complaint against the person.
Referral list
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When a violator opts to attend traffic school, the court, or the
court-assistance program under contract with the court, must
provide a list of traffic violator schools that the violator may
attend. Existing law requires DMV to publish a list of traffic
violator schools it licenses and to transmit the list to each
superior court in the state in sufficient quantity to allow the
courts to provide a copy to each person referred to a TVS. The
DMV list only includes the schools it licenses, but a court may
add court-approved schools for the jurisdiction the court
services.
Existing law prescribes the type of information that must be
included on the list, how the list is organized, and procedures
for removing a name if a court finds that the name of a school
is inappropriate.
Court-assistance programs (CAP)
A CAP is a nonprofit agency under contract with a court to
monitor traffic violator schools and provide assistance in
traffic violator school administration. A CAP is required to
monitor all classroom locations and home-study programs within
the judicial district in which the agency is under contract with
a court.
A court may charge a traffic violator a fee, as determined by
the court, to defray the costs incurred by a CAP for the
monitoring and reporting services it provides to the court.
This bill makes two major changes with regard to the
administration of the TVS system. First, it requires that all
traffic violator schools, whether they are classroom-based
schools licensed by DMV or home-study programs approved by a
court, be licensed by DMV. Second, when a violator attends a
TVS program, the bill requires the court and DMV to treat the
violation as a conviction that is held confidential, rather than
as a dismissal.
In moving responsibility for the licensing of all TVS's to DMV,
the bill makes numerous changes that affect different elements
of the overall TVS system, as described below.
Licensing TVS owners
With regard to the licensing of TVS owners, this bill makes the
following changes:
Requires DMV to establish standards for each instructional
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modality, not just for classroom-based courses, and permits
DMV to establish standards that are specific to the
instructional modality (i.e., the standards may vary for each
modality).
Eliminates the requirement that DMV approve classrooms, even
for classroom-based courses. Typical classrooms include hotel
conference rooms.
Deletes the minimum number of minutes (400) that lesson plans
must provide for and instead requires that lesson plans
include a post-lesson knowledge test.
Establishes a bond of $15,000 for home-study courses, which
require consumers to pay for the courses in advance of
receiving any instruction.
Establishes parameters for the operators that an owner may
designate. A person may be an operator for more than school
if the schools have a common owner and the schools share a
single established business address. A traffic school with
multiple branch or classroom locations may designate a
separate operator for each location, but must designate one of
the operators as the primary contact for DMV.
Requires an owner to have an instructor licensed by DMV but
clarifies that an owner may serve as an instructor provided
certain requirements are met.
Requires court-approved programs that were in operation prior
to January 1, 2011 to apply to DMV for licensure as a traffic
violator school by January 1, 2012, but allows a
court-approved program to continue operating until DMV makes a
licensing decision.
Prohibits courts from approving a TVS after January 1, 2011
Licensing TVS operators
With regard to the licensing of operators, the bill deletes the
requirement that an operator have a minimum of 500 hours
experience providing classroom instruction and instead requires
that the operator has completed an educational program that is
at least fours in length and that the owner provide to DMV a
certification that the operator has the knowledge necessary to
perform the duties of an operator.
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Course completion certificates
The bill deletes the requirements that TVSs provide to a student
a completion certificate and that the student submit the
certificate to the court as evidence of course completion.
Instead, the bill requires DMV to develop a web-based database
accessible by the courts and TVS's that allow oversight of
student enrollment and course completions.
Referral lists
The bill deletes the requirement that DMV publish and transmit
to each superior court a referral list of DMV-licensed TVSs and
the provisions of law that prescribe the type of information
that must be included on referral lists, how the list is
organized, and the procedures for removing the name of a TVS
from the list. Instead, the bill requires DMV to provide on its
website a list of all licensed TVSs and to include the modality
of instruction and the cities where classroom instruction is
offered. The order of the TVS names shall be randomized on a
daily basis so that no one TVS receives more or less attention
from traffic violators seeking a school. When providing traffic
violators with a referral list, a court or a CAP may only
provide a date-stamped list that has been downloaded from DMV's
website within the past 30 days.
Fees
The bill deletes the specific fees prescribed in current law for
the licensing of traffic school owners, operators, and
instructions, as well as the fees DMV charges traffic violator
schools for course completion certificates, which a traffic
school purchases and then issues to violators who complete its
course. Instead, the bill authorizes DMV to charge fees, the
amounts for which would be established by DMV through
regulation, for the following activities:
Issuance of an original, renewal, or duplicate license to a
TVS owner, operator, instructor, or for a branch or classroom
location.
Transfer of an operator or instructor license from one TVS to
another.
Approval of a curriculum.
Administration of exams for operators and instructors.
The fees DMV may charge a TVS shall be sufficient to cover its
costs to administer the TVS program, but may not be used to
cover routine monitoring of instruction. To cover DMV's
monitoring costs, the bill requires the court to assess a fee
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against each violator that elects to attend a TVS. The fee
assessed by the court shall include a $49 administrative fee to
cover its actual costs for administer traffic violations and a
separate fee, determined by DMV, to cover its monitoring costs.
Court-assistance programs (CAPs)
The bill re-defines a court-assistance program as a "traffic
assistance program" (TAP), which is a public or private
nonprofit agency that provides services under contract with a
court to process traffic violators or under contract with DMV to
provide oversight activities. This change reflects the shift
from a court to DMV the responsibility to approve and monitor
TVSs, while maintaining the authority for a court to use a TAP
to assist with the administration of traffic violations when
violators opt to attend a TVS. As in current law, courts may
charge violators a fee to defray its costs for employing the
services of a TAP.
Convictions instead of dismissals
The bill provides that, beginning July 1, 2011, attending a TVS
will result in a conviction, rather than a dismissal, that is
held confidential by DMV and specifies that DMV will not assign
a violation point on the driver's license for that conviction.
A conviction will not be held confidential for attending a TVS
if a violation occurred within 18 months of another conviction
that was held confidential for attending a TVS.
The bill requires that a court notify DMV of a conviction within
5 days, instead of 10 for a dismissal, when a court convicts a
violator and designates the conviction confidential for
attendance at a TVS.
Operative dates
The bill establishes different operative dates for different
programmatic changes. Specifically, the bill:
Prohibits a court from approving a TVS after January 1, 2011.
Requires a court-approved program that was in operation prior
to January 1, 2011 to file with DMV an application for
licensure as a TVS by January 1, 2012.
Requires the court to begin treating violations as convictions
rather than dismissals when a violator elects to attend a TVS
beginning January 1, 2011.
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Requires the court to inform DMV that such violations are
convictions, rather than dismissals, to be held confidential
and requires DMV to record them as convictions to be held
confidential beginning July 1, 2011.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . The laws and regulations that govern traffic
violator schools treat classroom-based programs and home-study
programs differently. DMV licenses classroom-based programs
whereas each court approves the schools it refers violators to
attend. State law prescribes no licensing requirements or
fees for court-approved programs. Furthermore, because each
court approves the home-study programs to which it sends
violators, the rules and curricula governing these schools
could vary for each of the courts across the state.
Writing in support of the measure, the Judicial Council of
California writes "The bill effectively implements the goals
the Judicial Council supported in 2007 of ensuring meaningful
statewide regulation of the traffic violator school 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." The
Judicial Council goes on to explain that The traffic violator
school industry has expanded over the years to include various
means of home study, including internet, video, and workbook
programs, but absent DMV oversight, courts have been left to
respond to complaints about the quality of the home study
programs. As the home study option has become more popular,
the Judicial Council notes that courts have struggled to fill
the regulatory void by developing their own criteria for
approving, monitoring, and essentially regulating home study
programs offered to traffic violators, rather than denying a
traffic violator the convenience of the home study option.
To address the many issues that arise from having a fragmented
system of traffic violator schools, the Legislature passed and
the Governor signed AB 758 (Plescia and Portantino), Chapter
396, Statutes of 2007, to require DMV to develop a plan by
which licensing and oversight of all traffic violator schools,
regardless of modality, would be consolidated under DMV's
authority. DMV submitted its report to the Legislature in
July 2008 and in it recommended a number of statutory and
regulatory changes that would be necessary to achieve that
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objective. This bill implements many of those
recommendations.
2.Convictions vs. dismissals . The purpose of treating
violations that were once dismissed for TVS attendance as
convictions under this bill is to prevent high-risk drivers
from completing traffic safety instruction multiple times to
avoid convictions. Under current law, although the first
dismissal within any 18-month is held confidential (masked),
subsequent violations are also reported as dismissals.
Violations that are dismissed cannot be used for risk
assessment by insurance providers or for applying punitive
driving sanctions such as assigning violation points on a
driver's license. Treating these violations as convictions
helps to assure that high-risk drivers are sanctioned
appropriately, with the hope that the driver is persuaded to
drive more safely.
3.Opposition . Many in the TVS industry oppose this bill.
Home-study programs oppose because they believe DMV will not
be able to manage the workload that licensing approximately
400 classroom-based and 200 home-study programs will require.
Some classroom-based programs, as well as court-assistance
programs oppose because they believe the bill will result in
closing their business.
Both classroom-based and home-study program share the concern
about deleting the requirement that courts provide a hardcopy
list of school to violators, believing that it will hurt their
businesses and that it is discriminatory to violators who do
not have internet access. To address this concern, the
committee may wish to consider an amendment to require that
courts provide a hard copy of a current list of TVS's
downloaded from DMV's website to violators in the same manner
that that they do today.
4.DMV workload . DMV is unsure how many TVSs would seek
licensure, but it would incur substantially increased workload
demands to accommodate the licensing of all schools. In
addition to licensing, DMV would also become responsible for
all oversight activities, including conducting audits and
monitoring classes. Among the concerns raised by opponents is
whether DMV will be able to manage the workload and ensure
that TVS programs maintain a high quality of service. In its
2008 report, DMV acknowledged that, under the current system,
"it has been unable to maintain the level of oversight that it
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would deem adequate in monitoring TVS programs to ensure the
highest level of consumer protection." CAPs are opposed to
this bill because they view DMV's new licensing role as
interference with their role in monitoring programs operating
in the jurisdiction of the courts with which they contract.
In their minds, DMV would be assuming what had been the CAPs'
responsibilities without the ability to carry those
responsibilities out effectively.
To help understand how DMV and the TVS program are affected by
DMV's increase workload and to assess whether further changes
may be needed to ensure proper oversight of the TVS program,
the committee may wish to consider an amendment that would
require, in the initial years, DMV to provide annual reports
that illustrate its performance carrying out this centralized
licensing approach. The report could include such information
as the number and types of programs licensed, the length of
time it took DMV to process applications, the number of
complaints received about TVS programs, the number of
classrooms monitored, and the number of schools audited, among
other information.
5.Dates . The bill establishes a series of dates to implement
the transition from the bifurcated system the state has today
to a system whereby DMV licenses all schools. The bill also
establishes dates dictating when the courts and DMV may start
treating dismissals for TVS attendance as convictions. The
dates, however, create some gaps, and therefore questions,
about how court-approved programs will be treated after
certain dates have passed. The dates also create a gap
between when the court begins treating dismissals as
convictions and when DMV records them as such. Furthermore,
no dates are established to indicate when DMV will establish
its regulation or when it will license violators. To address
these gaps, the committee may wish to consider amendments that
would establish the following deadlines and operative dates:
January 1, 2011: Court may no longer approve new TVS
programs.
July 1, 2011, instead of January 1, 2011: The court shall
begin treating what were dismissals as convictions to be held
confidential.
July 1, 2011: DMV shall begin recording dismissals as
convictions and holding confidential.
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July 1, 2011: DMV adopts regulation for licensing all TVS
programs.
January 1, 2012: All former court-approved programs must have
applied to DMV for licensure.
July 1, 2012: DMV makes a licensing determination for each
applicant that applied by the January 1, 2012 deadline. After
this date, no former court-approved program may continue
operating.
6.Evidence of course completion . By deleting the requirements
that a traffic violator school provide a student with course
completion certificates that the student then submits to the
court as evidence of course completion and requiring that DMV
develop a web-based database accessible by the courts and
traffic violator schools, the bill contemplates that the onus
will be on the traffic violator school to submit evidence to
the court of the student's participation. The bill, however,
does not clearly articulate this intent, nor does it provide
much detail regarding the functions that the internet-based
database may serve.
Furthermore, there is no requirement that a traffic violator
school provide the student with a receipt or other evidence of
completion that would be recognized by the court or DMV in the
event that the traffic violator school failed to report the
completion or otherwise committed an error in reporting. To
remedy these concerns, the committee may wish to consider
amendments that would explicitly articulate the process by
which evidence would be submitted to the court of a student's
completion of a TVS program, that require traffic violator
schools to provide students with a receipt or other evidence
of course completion that is acceptable to the court and DMV
in the event of error, and that articulate the specific
functions the database is expected to serve.
7.Exemption from consumer disclosure . Under current law,
traffic violator schools are required to disclose to students
that the curriculum standards for a TVS should not be
considered equivalent to those that apply to driving schools.
TVS's are not required to provide such a disclosure to
students referred to them by the court. The purpose of the
disclosure or the exemption from the disclosure is unclear,
but if a disclosure is to be required, it should be provided
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to all attendees. For this reason, the committee may wish to
delete either the disclosure requirement or the exemption from
it.
8.Reduced curriculum standards . The bill deletes the minimum
instructional time that a curriculum must provide for and
instead requires that the TVS administer a post-lesson
knowledge test. The bill does not require, however, that the
student pass the test. If the required minimum instructional
time is to be deleted, the committee may wish to consider an
amendment that would require students to pass the knowledge
test.
9.Responsibilities of traffic assistance programs . The bill
defines a traffic assistance program and specifies the
functions they may perform under contract with the court, but
it does not address what functions they may be authorized to
perform for DMV. The committee may wish to consider
amendments that would specify these functions.
10.Referral lists . The bill deletes the requirements that DMV
distribute a referral list to each court and that the court
provide a copy of the list to each violator and instead
requires DMV to publish a list on its website and the court to
provide information to a violator about how to obtain the list
from DMV's website. To ensure that the list is accessible to
those who do not have internet access, the author or committee
may wish to consider an amendment that would require DMV and
the court to provide a hard copy of the referral list upon
request by the violator.
11.Fees charged to violators . The bill authorizes DMV to charge
fees, in amounts it determines, to defray its actual costs.
The author or committee may wish to consider an amendment to
specify that the fee may not exceed its actual costs.
12.Technical amendments . The author or committee may wish to
make the following technical amendments:
Section 11202(7)(A): Delete "designated to act as" for
clarity as the language implies that an authority higher
than the owner is designating the owner to act as an
operator.
Section 11208(c): Cross reference Section 42007.1,
which authorizes the court to charge an administrative fee.
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Section 40512.6: The bill treats violations that are
held confidential by DMV for participation in a TVS program
as convictions rather than dismissals and deletes the
requirements that TVS's provide a student a completion
certificate and that the student submits the certificate to
the court as evidence of course completion. In some places
the bill maintains the old structure. Clarifying
amendments are needed in Section 40512.6 to make it clear
that the traffic violator school, not the student, must
submit information to the court that the student completed
the course and that the violator, because he or she is
convicted of the violation, is obligated to pay the total
bail. Conforming changes will likely be needed in other
sections.
Section 42005: Cross reference Section 1808.7, which
enumerates the circumstances when a court may not order
that DMV hold a conviction confidential.
42007: Clean-up language referring to bail amounts as
"fees." The terminology of "fees" was appropriate when
violations were treated as dismissals, but if violations
are to be treated as convictions, "bail" is a more
appropriate terminology.
Section 42007(a)(1): Delete "the" and insert "a traffic
violator"
42007.1(a): Delete "court administrative fee."
Section 42007.3(b): Correct a reference by striking
"(b)" and inserting "(c)"
Section 42007.4(b): Correct a reference by striking
"(b)" and inserting "(c)"
RELATED LEGISLATION
SB 1162 (Walters) would have eliminated the $50 fee that a
traffic violator school owner must pay to DMV to renew the
license for each of its branch or classroom locations. [Senate
Transportation and Housing Committee]
Assembly Votes:
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Floor: 64-10
Appr: 17-0
Trans: 12-0
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the Committee before noon on
Wednesday, June 23,
2010)
SUPPORT: Judicial Council of California
National Association of Driving Safety Educators
TrafficSchool.com
OPPOSED: AVSights.com (independent contractor with CTSI)
California Traffic Classes, Inc.
California Traffic Safety Institute (CTSI)
California Traffic School Association
Comedy Traffic School
Coordinated Court Services, Inc.
Facil Divertido y a su Alcance TVS
Fun 4U Fast 2 "Home Study Traffic School"
Highway Blues, Inc.
Interactive Safety Education, Inc.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
National Traffic Safety Institute
Quick Stop Traffic School
San Diego County Traffic School Association
Traffic Classes of America at Home
Traffic Safety Center, Inc.
Traffic Safety Consultants, Inc.
15 individuals