1% of Drivers Had Invalid Licenses, RTD Study Finds

The number of Southern California Rapid Transit District drivers who may have operated buses with invalid licenses is only a small fraction of what has recently been reported, district officials said Friday.

All of the bus drivers now on the road have valid credentials, and it appears the number who may have had invalid licenses before recent investigations began was at worst a little over 1% of the district’s 5,000 drivers, RTD officials said.

The conclusions were presented by RTD General Manager John Dyer after an intensive two-week investigation of reports published by the Los Angeles Herald Examiner that one in eight bus operators on the road were “problem drivers” with suspended or expired licenses, wrong type of licenses, outstanding traffic warrants or no record of a license.

But the RTD investigation concluded that “because of the lag time in updating DMV records and numerous internal errors in the records, (the paper’s) conclusions . . . are greatly exaggerated, if not totally invalid.”

The RTD study found that as of Sept. 19, out of 4,479 active drivers, the DMV computer system showed 478 or nearly 11% had license problems. However, field investigations by the RTD and updated DMV records showed only 4.4% or 181 drivers in fact had some problem on their record.

Not Problem Drivers

Of that number, RTD officials added that many were not the “problem drivers” that the records indicated. For example, a judge may suspend a bus driver’s personal license for drunk driving in his own car, but permit him to maintain his bus driving privileges so he can continue to work. Also, driver trainees are given bus-operator learning permits to operate buses that are not recorded in the DMV central computer.

Dyer said records checks are still under way but he estimated that less than 70 drivers--about 1% of active drivers--may have been operating buses without proper credentials before daily checks of drivers’ licenses began last month.

RTD officials insist there are currently no bus drivers on the road without proper credentials. Drivers’ licenses have been checked daily since the news reports were published. In an eight-day period through Sept. 26, a total of 126 drivers arrived at work without proper credentials, although some had simply left them at home, RTD officials said. Most have since produced them.

Dave Robertson, DMV’s manager of driver’s license services in Sacramento, said it is “really hard to say” if the RTD figures are accurate. “It doesn’t sound like they’re too terribly off,” he said.

Lag Time at DMV

He acknowledged that there can be weeks of delay in getting changes in license status into the DMV computer. “It doesn’t mean DMV made an error, it’s just lag time,” he said.

It takes 20 to 30 days after the Sacramento office of the DMV receives a license renewal or an upgrade to a new bus driver’s license to post it in the computer, he said. There is no immediate need for it to be in the computer because the driver has a temporary license in his possession.

There can also be delays in correcting records on license suspensions and traffic warrants, he said. While they are given much higher priority and put in the computer within a few days by the DMV, they involve court actions, he said, and some courts are slow to forward the changes.

There has been another indication that the RTD report could be correct.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, did its own study of 4,735 RTD drivers’ records and found 1.5% may be operating with suspended licenses.

But Katz stressed that only 32 of those could be characterized as safety related. More than half had their licenses suspended for not having insurance on their private automobiles.

The Herald reported that Katz found 480 problem RTD drivers. But that included all of the drivers on which the committee could find no DMV records, as well as those who the records do not show a current bus driver’s license. Katz said those records have to be checked further--as the RTD is attempting to do--before conclusions can be reached.

“I think (the Herald Examiner) drew a conclusion that the numbers do not back up,” Katz said. “Where I believe RTD had a problem is not being on top of the 73 drivers who had suspended licenses (but) this is 1.5% of RTD drivers over a three-year (DMV record-keeping) period, which is very low.”

Katz said questions have emerged about the timeliness and accuracy of DMV records, and funds for a study of the system have been included in newly signed state legislation.

Goldie Norton, a spokesman for the bus drivers union, praised the RTD report. “It basically shows that the drivers are 99% responsible and law-abiding,” he said.