Snafus Prompt Revision of New Driver’s Licenses : Trucking: Some states interpret them to mean motorists cannot drive outside California. DMV alters the wording.

In an unprecedented glitch, the state Department of Motor Vehicles is scrambling to assure 800,000 motorists that--in spite of new restrictions aimed at illegal immigrants--their driver’s licenses are valid in other states.

Beginning July 1, the state issued new driver’s licenses with this disclaimer: “This license is issued solely as a license to drive a motor vehicle in this state; it does not establish eligibility for employment, voter registration or public benefits.”

Since then, some law enforcement authorities in a handful of states--Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia--have interpreted the restriction to mean the driving permit is only valid in California, state DMV officials say. Some California truckers have confronted unexpected law enforcement problems, including detainment and citations.

As a result, the DMV quickly rewrote the language. Driver’s licenses issued since July 28 no longer say “in this state,” and those 800,000 motorists who got driving permits in July are being mailed a special attachment for their licenses--at a cost to the state of $250,000.

Officials questioned other states’ interpretation of the license wording. “We think that’s a tortured reading of it,” said a DMV official, who asked not to be identified. “We can speculate that their motivation was revenue.”

One particularly strong complaint was filed with Gov. Pete Wilson by Riley Norton of Salt Lake City, a vice president of the national trucking firm PST Vans, which he said employs 1,400 drivers, including 125 Californians.

In an interview, Norton said five or six of his long-haul drivers were detained for several hours in the middle of the night by law officers in several states who challenged their California licenses.

But the final straw occurred last month in Ohio, Norton said, when he got a late-night call at home from one of his San Diego-based drivers.

“The driver had been taken off the truck, threatened with incarceration and they wouldn’t release him until I produced $127 in bail money. I had to bail him out in the middle of the night just to keep him going,” Norton said.

In a letter the next day, Norton told Wilson that “we need to do something to keep my drivers and his state’s citizens from being held for ransom around the country.”

“We had a few really rough weeks. I estimate that it cost us $2,000 to $3,000 in lost time and delayed schedules,” Norton said. “There were four or five other companies that had the same problem.”

He said the DMV “jumped right on” it and acted to resolve the issue.

Bill Madison, a DMV spokesman, said the department had anticipated that the wording might cause a problem in other states. In January, the department notified motor vehicle officials around the country that the upcoming disclaimer was not intended to restrict the California license only to California.

“We asked them to spread the word to their law enforcement departments. Apparently, the word didn’t get spread or some law enforcement people decided they couldn’t go along with that,” Madison said.

He said the Legislature was alerted and issuance of licenses with the disputed disclaimer came to a halt July 28. He said production of the revised licenses began last month.