House Bill 1027

Chair's Name: Tom Rice

Committee: Motor Vehicles

House Sponsor: Tom Rice

HB 1027 addresses which driving programs or DUI Alcohol or Drug Use Risk Reduction programs can be required/accepted by the court. All of these programs must now be licensed and approved by the Department of Driver Services. For the purposes of defensive driving courses only, the commissioner is authorized to approve online courses.

This committee substitute comes to the House Floor under the Open Rule.

Chairman Rice’s opinion of this legislation:

HB 1027 authorizes the DDS to approve on-line courses for the Defensive Driving course. It also requires only the use of approved DDS courses for pretrial diversion (ticket dismissal). DDS completion certificates for the Defensive Driving courses have decreased from 53,000 down to 43,000 over four years. Therefore, unapproved courses for ticket dismissal are being used in increasing volume.

This Legislation:

• Increases the effective implementation of current law and should lead to reduced repeat offenders.

Further Action

The House insisted on it's position and appointed a conference committee.