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Local Voices

New Assembly Bill Discriminates/Eliminates Online Traffic Schooll

Imagine, if you will, a scenario where the California legislature were to pass a special interest bill permitting only Mexican restaurants to be listed on California's official list of licensed restaurants while all other state licensed restaurant categories including Chinese and American restaurants could not be listed!
If you can believe this scenario, it's actually something being closely considered by the 2014 California legislature. AB 1986 will be heard a week from Monday by the assembly transportation committee and yes it would only allow classroom traffic schools to be listed on the DMV's vaulted official traffic school list while eliminating any other licensed modalities including online or book companies from the official DMV approved  list.  
All three DMV modalities--class online and book course have identical DMV licenses, pay identical fees and must  follow the same rules and regulations. 
Ironically, AB 1986 is being championed and carried by the vice-chairman of the assembly transportation committee-Mr. Eric Linder (Riverside) who is sponsoring AB 1986 on behalf of a select group of large online providers who will benefit because now anyone who wants to find an  online traffic schools will now be forced to search online via a search engine instead of through the official DMV website and/or court list.
The bill will create a two-tier approach to traffic schools and is being denounced by many schools in the industry  who suggest they will go out of business if this bill passes since only a few nationwide companies dominate search engine listings. 
A small and powerful  group of online traffic schools had previously authored AB 2499 in 2011 which brought all modalities under similar Dmv authority. Now these same providers hope to create two classes of traffic schools.
The bill can be viewed at: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery 
The DMV traffic school list has been published  for 37 years and is provided as a convenience who pay for this service as a way to remove a point from their record for most minor traffic violation by attending a DMV licensed traffic school course.
A check of the DMV's website currently shows that all 14 of the industries it regulated  including licensed driving schools, dealers, manufacturers, and mature driving schools etc do have an official list of licensed schools to ensure up to date and accuracy information on approved service providers. 
The DMV typically will  only evaluate and comment on this bill after a bill is sent to the governor. 
Brett Elkins, president of the Traffic Safety Educators Association  of California  (TSEAC) stated, "AB 1986 could be the most lopsided, discriminatory and self-serving piece of legislation in California history giving an unfair advantage to one group of providers  at the expense of similarly licensed traffic schools. It is clearly unfair, inequitable, discriminatory and Anti-American to allow via California law the ability to have two separate sets of rules  - and list only classroom traffic schools while another group Internet and Home study book courses will not have equal access. I cannot imagine any legislature putting his or her name on this ridiculous legislation that is an affront to our voting system."
AB 1986 if passed will not the limit the right to take traffic school but it will surely limit the public's ability to access to this important information. 
Currently only 30% of all such courses are taken in a classroom setting. California has  always had a unique approach to traffic safety and is now veering of into uncharted territory.
The bill is scheduled to be heard one week for Monday. 

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