This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
About half of the 17 laws proposed this year to take on California’s epidemic of dangerous driving remain alive in the Legislature after an initial wave of political hearings and key votes in Sacramento.
Now, the eight remaining bills move on to the opposite houses of the state Legislature, a jump that has previously proved difficult for similar measures.
The public hearings on the bills this spring revealed a clear divide.
On one side: Crash victims’ families and lawmakers who want to see tougher consequences for the kinds of dangerous – and often deadly – drivers that California has allowed to stay on the road.
On the other side: Progressive groups like the ACLU, who instead call for more emphasis on road design and other traffic-calming measures.
At one recent Assembly committee hearing, Danica Rodarmel spoke out against expanding mandatory breathalyzers for DUI offenders on behalf of Debt Free Justice California. She said such proposals are too “expensive and difficult for many people to navigate.”
“If we’re serious about prevention, we have to design systems that people can easily comply with,” Rodarmel said at a March Assembly Public Safety Committee hearing. “I also understand that these concerns sound really minuscule when we’re talking about it compared to lives.”
Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, a Southern California Democrat who for the third time has proposed a bill to expand in-car breathalyzers, saw common ground on at least one point.
“I think you said the concerns sound ‘minuscule compared to what is at stake and what’s on the line,’” Petrie-Norris said.
“I could not agree more with that sentiment.”
Here’s a rundown of the status of all 17 bills:
BILL STATUS: STILL ALIVE
- Close the diversion loophole: California has a diversion program that’s supposed to allow low-level offenders to avoid the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction. However, judges have been granting it to drivers accused of killing someone with their car, resulting in the cases never being reported to the DMV. The drivers then maintain clean records. That means you can get a harsher punishment for a speeding ticket than for killing someone with your car. (AB1662 and SB953)
- Expand breathalyzer mandates: Most states require all drivers convicted of a DUI to install an in-car breathalyzer, called an ignition interlock device. California lawmakers have tried and failed several times to mandate them for all DUIs here too. As of now, they’re still only required for repeat offenses or crashes with injuries, a weaker standard that courts still often fail to enforce. (AB1830)
- Increase penalties for repeat DUIs: It usually takes a driver getting four DUIs within 10 years for California prosecutors to be able to charge them with a felony. This bill would make a third DUI in this timeframe a “wobbler” offense, meaning that prosecutors would have the option to pursue stiffer charges and more jail time sooner. The measure would also extend breathalyzer requirements or license suspensions for drivers with four or more DUIs within a decade. (AB1546)
- Longer suspensions and vehicle impoundment for reckless driving: This bill increases the license suspension period and the amount of time a driver can have their vehicle impounded following reckless driving convictions. (SB1198)
BILL STATUS: ALIVE BUT WATERED DOWN
- Harsher DUI penalties: This bill originally had five major provisions. The three still alive would add prison time for some repeat DUI offenders, increase penalties for hit and runs if the driver had a prior DUI and make it easier to charge repeat drunk drivers with murder if they kill someone. The two provisions stripped from the bill would have added vehicular manslaughter to the list of “violent” felonies – ensuring such drivers would have to serve more of their sentence behind bars if convicted – and added prison time for fatal crashes with multiple victims. (SB907)
- Increase points for vehicular manslaughter: Currently, a vehicular manslaughter conviction only counts as two points on a driver’s license. (A speeding ticket is one point. It takes four points in a 12-month period before a driver’s license is suspended.) The original version of this bill would have made all vehicular manslaughter convictions count as three points. The amended version only adds a third point for vehicular manslaughter when the driver is intoxicated and acts with “gross negligence.” (AB1685)
- Lengthen license revocation for repeat DUIs: State law currently requires the DMV to revoke a driver’s license for three years after most felony vehicular manslaughter convictions or for a third DUI conviction. The original version of the bill would have mandated an 8-year revocation. The current version doesn’t make the longer revocation period mandatory but instead gives the DMV discretion. (AB1687)
BILL STATUS: STALLED OR DEAD
- Change the start date of license revocations: As we reported, the courts have often failed to report manslaughter convictions to the DMV. When that has been flagged, the DMV has essentially backdated the start of the revocation to the date of the conviction. As a result some drivers never had their license suspended. One bill would have made any mandatory revocation periods start the date the DMV actually takes action. The other bill would have required the license revocation period to start when a driver gets out of jail or prison as opposed to at the time of conviction for manslaughter. (AB1723 and AB1874)
- Make it easier to charge repeat DUIs as a felony: As I noted above, prosecutors generally can’t charge a driver with a felony for driving drunk until their fourth DUI. This bill would have given prosecutors the discretion to charge a felony on a second or third DUI. (AB1686)
- Make DUI vehicular manslaughter a felony: Killing someone with your car while intoxicated can still be a misdemeanor offense in California, if it’s determined that a driver acted without gross negligence. This bill to make all such cases a felony failed in the Assembly Public Safety Committee after opposition from labor and human rights groups, who argued current law allows appropriate discretion for prosecutors to pursue felony charges. (AB1747)
- Extend DUI license suspensions: This would have doubled the suspension period for a first-time DUI from six months to one year. It also would have lengthened suspensions for repeat offenses and required the DMV to permanently revoke a driver’s license after five DUI convictions within a decade. It was voted down in the Assembly Public Safety Committee. (AB1748)
- “Intelligent Speed Assistance” pilot project: Current law requires repeat DUI offenders to install technology meant to prevent their car from starting if they are trying to drive drunk again. This bill envisioned something similar for someone convicted of reckless driving, creating a pilot to test technology designed to stop them from speeding. (AB2276)
- License stickers to limit post-DUI alcohol sales: Two measures were modeled after a Utah law that limited or banned alcohol sales to multiple-repeat DUI offenders. The measures varied slightly, but would have required the DMV to mark licenses with a phrase like “No alcohol sales” or “Repeat serious DUI offender.” One of the bills proposed a lifetime ban on alcohol purchases for extreme reoffenders. The bill failed. (AB1605 and AB1867)
- Law enforcement DUI training: Law enforcement training related to intoxicated driving currently varies widely. A proposal to expand training requirements for field sobriety tests, drug recognition or impaired driving failed to clear a key May deadline in the Legislature. (AB1814)
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