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Huntington Beach to charge fees if out-of-town drivers cause accidents

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Visiting Huntington Beach? Drive carefully or you could pay.

A law approved this week will charge out-of-towners who are responsible for car accidents for the costs of sending firefighters to the scene.

The ordinance is meant to help pay for responses to car accidents, which spike during the summer, when tourists and visitors flock to the beach city. Out-of-towners cause an estimated 300 traffic accidents each year. City officials say fees that could total several thousand dollars per accident will help defray costs as the city cuts $3.1 million from its budget.

Huntington Beach gets 10 million to 13 milion visitors during the summer. “So,” Mayor Cathy Green said, “this is really about people who are impacting our services so much paying the costs.”

Surf City residents pay property taxes help pay for emergency responders, but visitors don’t, Green said. The fees are a way to make nonresidents who are at fault in accidents chip in. Insurance companies would cover be the fees as long as the driver is insured.

Starting next month, the city will charge nonresidents $595 for a car accident with spilled gasoline or oil, $750 if the vehicle is on fire and $1,995 if someone has to be extricated from the vehicle.

If the accident is bad enough that a firetruck is sent, the fee will be $505 an hour.

If the fire chief shows up, the fee will be $210 an hour.

Residents will not have to pay, no matter whose fault it is.

The ordinance also will charge utility companies for the cost of sending firefighters to downed power lines and burst pipelines and hazardous materials spills, which the city estimate happens about 60 times a year.

The fees could generate $100,000 a year for the city, according to a city report.

Fire officials, who proposed the law, pointed out that dozens of other cities in California have similar laws on the books to help pay for increasingly stressed fire and police departments.

“I would be surprised if there wasn’t any city that wouldn’t bill you if you hit a sign and knocked it down or hit a power line and knocked it down,” said Judy Cameron, a spokeswoman for the Huntington Beach Fire Department. “There’s a cost incurred by your error in driving, and you’re responsible for that.”

Councilman Devin Dwyer opposed the fees, saying they would ultimately raise drivers’ insurance rates.

“We’re just shifting the burden,” he said. “It’s just ridiculous.”

tony.barboza@latimes.com

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