BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2499
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 2499 (Portantino and Gilmore)
As Amended August 5, 2010
Majority vote
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|ASSEMBLY: |64-10|(June 1, 2010) |SENATE: |22-8 |(August 18, |
| | | | | |2010) |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Original Committee Reference: TRANS .
SUMMARY : Brings home study traffic violator schools (TVSs)
under the purview of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).
The Senate amendments :
1)Add legislative findings regarding the need to provide uniform
statewide regulation of TVSs.
2)Require court clerks to notify DMV that a traffic violator's
conviction is to be held confidential if the violator
completes a TVS program.
3)Require DMV to hold the first such conviction in an 18-month
period confidential and prohibits it from assessing a
violation point unless the violator holds a commercial
license, the violation took place in a commercial vehicle, or
the violation carries more than one point.
4)Allow a TVS owner to operate that TVS if his or her license
includes an owner/operator designation.
5)Allow operators to operate more than one TVS if those TVSs
have common ownership and the same business address.
6)Require a TVS operator to complete a four hour educational
program and provide certification from the owner that he or
she has the necessary knowledge to perform an operator's
duties.
7)Require any hard copy list of TVSs provided to traffic
violators to be a current listing obtained from DMV.
8)Allow court assistance programs (CAPs), which are renamed
AB 2499
Page 2
"traffic assistance programs" (TAPs), to contract with DMV in
order to assist with TVS oversight activities.
9)Allow TAP services to include printing and providing to the
court and traffic violators hard copy county-specific lists
printed from DMV's Internet Web site, administratively
assisting traffic violators, and any other lawful activity
relating to the administration of the court's traffic
infraction caseload.
10) Allow courts to charge traffic violators a fee to defray
the costs incurred by a TAP for traffic case administration
services provided to the court.
11) Allow courts to delegate collection of the fee to the TAP.
Fees must be approved and regulated by the court and may not
exceed the actual costs incurred by the court assistance
program for authorized activities.
12) Repeal the requirement for traffic violators to submit TVS
completion certificates to the court.
13) Allow, until April 1, 2012, courts to restrict referrals to
those TVSs or licensed driving schools that are under contract
with the court or with the county in those counties in which,
prior to January 1, 1985, one or more individual courts, or
the county acting on behalf of one or more individual courts,
contracted for the provision of traffic safety instructional
services to traffic violators referred by the court pursuant
to a pretrial diversion program.
14) Allow these counties to continue to provide those programs
in accordance with the provisions of current and future
contracts as may be amended and approved by the individual
courts within those counties and exempt them from state
regulations relative to maximum classroom attendance.
15) Require DMV to adopt regulations necessary for implementing
this bill no later than September 1, 2011.
16) Clarify that traffic violations can be held confidential as
a result of a violator completing a TVS course of instruction,
rather than by merely attending that course.
17) Require the hard copy list of licensed TVSs provided by a
AB 2499
Page 3
court or TAP to be as current as practicable, but in no event
to be distributed with a date stamp that is more than 60 days
old.
18) Require TVSs to submit updated course completion
information to DMV for DMV's tracking purposes, within three
business days, rather than within 72 hours.
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
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.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill is significantly similar to
the version passed by the Senate.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations Committee
analysis, DMV reports that its costs to set up a Web-based
database to track enrollment and completion of TVS programs by
participants would be in the range of $40,000. Initial DMV
costs associated with developing new regulations for the
licensing and monitoring of TVS programs would be minor. All
ongoing licensing and monitoring of the program, estimated at
AB 2499
Page 4
over $3 million annually, would be fully offset by licensing
fees and fees paid by participants when a court approves
adjudication of a violation by completing a TVS program.
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.
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
AB 2499
Page 5
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."
The classroom segment of the industry, which opposes this bill,
claims that this 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. 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 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
AB 2499
Page 6
will disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of traffic violators,
including 10.9 million Californians who do not go online."
Nevertheless, this bill represents a major step forward in
enacting 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."
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."
There seems to be consensus, other than from the classroom
segment of the industry and some CAPs who fear that DMV may not
contract for their services, that it is time to bring all TVS
AB 2499
Page 7
activities under the purview of DMV. Inasmuch as this bill
builds on the efforts of the vetoed AB 2377 (Longville) of 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
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,
AB 2499
Page 8
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.
Analysis Prepared by : Howard Posner / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093
FN: 0005851