Handicap Permit Loophole Studied

A loophole in the city’s ordinance regulating oversized vehicles has prompted the City Council to consider rewriting it so that people cannot use a handicap permit to exempt vehicles that are not their primary mode of transportation.

To accommodate handicapped people who must rely on oversized vehicles for their transportation, the ordinance included an exemption by granting handicap permits.

But city officials have received complaints that people are taking these handicap permits and using them on motor homes and boat trailers, said Tom Fox, transportation engineer.

“We don’t know how often it is happening, but it’s not an issue of how often--it’s the fact that it has happened,” Fox said. “The exemption is being used in a way that it was not originally meant to be used.”

Despite heavy opposition from RV owners, the council unanimously approved an ordinance in April restricting oversize vehicles from parking on residential streets from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, unless owners seek a temporary parking permit.

The parking permits are issued by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department at no charge and may be used 10 days during a 90-day period.

Council members will also decide Wednesday evening whether to allow dual-rear-wheel pickup trucks to continue to park on residential streets. These trucks, not much larger than typical pickup trucks, exceed the width limitation in the oversized vehicle ordinance. The streets and transportation committee has determined that it was not the intent of the ordinance to restrict pickup trucks.

Camarillo had previously regulated RVs on public streets by enforcing the California Vehicle Code, which requires all vehicles parked for more than 72 hours in one place to be moved at least two-tenths of a mile. But Police Department officials said the code was hard to enforce and a drain on the department’s resources.