Bill Placing New Limits on Youngest Drivers Stalls in Assembly

Despite impassioned pleas by a Thousand Oaks couple and approval in the state Senate, a measure designed to place additional restrictions on California’s teen motorists failed to make it out of an Assembly committee.

The bill, supported by Ventura County Dist. Atty. Greg Totten, stalled in the Assembly Appropriations Committee late last month.

As a result, the measure, originally SB 806 by Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), can’t be reconsidered until the Legislature reconvenes in January.

“The legislative process sometimes is shrouded in mystery,” Totten said. “This proposal was designed to reduce the number of [teen driving] deaths, and I’m disappointed.”

Currently, 16- and 17-year-old drivers can’t carry passengers under 20 during their first six months of driving unless a parent, guardian or licensed driver 25 years or older is also in the vehicle. They also cannot drive between midnight and 5 a.m. for the first 12 months unless supervised, with exceptions for work, school events or medical necessity.

Another bill, AB 1474, which would extend the prohibition on passengers to a full year and begin the driving curfew an hour earlier at 11 p.m., cleared the Legislature on Aug. 30 and awaits action by the governor.

Speier’s measure too would double the time provisional drivers are prohibited from carrying teenage passengers, but it would also increase penalties for violating license restrictions, count such violations as a point against a teen’s driving record and impose a fine on parents if they permitted their child to drive with other teens.

The idea for Speier’s measure was proposed by Greg and Judi Arnett, who live in the North Ranch section of Thousand Oaks. Their 13-year-old son, Gregory Chase Arnett, was killed in July 2004 while riding in a high-performance pickup truck driven by a 16-year-old neighbor who was speeding.

This driver, who had held his provisional license for only a few months, was sentenced to a month’s incarceration and four months’ house arrest.

The penalty for violations is $35 for a first offense and eight to 16 hours of community service. A subsequent offense pushes the fine to $50 and a third day of community service may be added.

Speier’s bill would double the amount of community service issued for a subsequent violation and increase the fines up to $500, which with court fees and assorted add-ons could amount to more than $1,500.

“This bill was ready to roll, but one legislator just said ‘no.’ It’s so frustrating,” said Greg Arnett, a retired dentist.

Assemblywoman Judy Chu, (D-Monterey Park), chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, chose not to bring Speier’s measure to a vote, instead shelving it indefinitely. Chu said she opposed the bill as being too punitive against parents and for its proposed cost of $1 million to implement.

“What would happen would be that if a child is caught driving after curfew, then the parent could receive a ticket. Do we want to go that far?” Chu said in a recent interview. “There should be a better way to inform parents that they are responsible for their child’s driving records.”

The Arnetts originally sought a law to make parents financially liable regardless of whether they knew their child was violating provisional license laws, and to require young drivers to display a placard indicating to law enforcement and other drivers that other teens shouldn’t be in the car.

Speier’s bill wouldn’t punish parents who didn’t know what their teen was doing.

“This is a process. Sometimes you take two steps forward and one step back,” said Erin M. Ryan, a consultant to the Senate Banking, Finance and Insurance Committee, of which Speier is chairwoman. “Even though this isn’t the same bill the Arnetts may have wanted when they started out, it still definitely puts more teeth in the law and has more consequences. It will make teens and parents think twice about blithely ignoring the law.”

AB 1474, by Assemblyman Bill Maze (R-Visalia), who once proposed raising the minimum driving age to 17, would take effect Jan. 1 if signed by the governor.

The Assembly approved the measure without a single “no” vote, and it was finalized Aug. 30 after the Senate approved a companion bill.