SENATE BILL REPORT

                   SB 6351

              As Reported By Senate Committee On:

               Transportation, January 29, 1998

Title:  An act relating to eliminating an obsolete reference to index cross‑reference reporting.

Brief Description:  Eliminating an obsolete reference to index cross‑reference reporting.

Sponsors:  Senators Goings and Oke; by request of Washington State Patrol.

Brief History:

Committee Activity:  Transportation:  1/27/98, 1/29/98 [DP].

SENATE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION

Majority Report:  Do pass.

  Signed by Senators Prince, Chair; Benton, Vice Chair; Wood, Vice Chair; Goings, Haugen, Heavey, Horn, Jacobsen, Morton, Oke, Patterson, Prentice, Rasmussen and Sellar.

Staff:  Jerry Long (786-7306)

Background:  The Director of Department of Licensing keeps a case record on every motor vehicle driver licensed under the laws of Washington State, together with information on each driver, showing all the convictions and findings of traffic infractions certified by the courts, together with an index cross-reference record of each accident reported relating to an individual with a brief statement of the cause of the accident.  In 1937, the requirement that the Chief of the Washington State Patrol would furnish the index cross reference record to the Director of Department of Licensing, with reference to each driver involved in the reported accidents was placed in statute.

The Collision Record Accident Statistics and History (CRASH) project was started in 1995, which is a joint project of the Washington State Patrol, Department of Transportation, and Department of Licensing to consolidate the accident reporting processes for the state into one computer system to be maintained by the Washington State Patrol.  The accident information will be on-line and the three agencies will have access to the accident report information electronically. With the CRASH system, the agencies can extract data from several database fields.

Summary of Bill:  The requirement for the Chief of the Washington State Patrol to provide an index-cross reference record to the Director of Department of Licensing is removed.

Appropriation:  None.

Fiscal Note:  Not requested.

  Effective Date:  Ninety days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Testimony For:  The statute originated in 1937.  This agency request legislation was a result of the Patrol=s effort to identify obsolete or no longer required statutes.  With Collision Reporting Accident Statistics and History System (CRASH), cross referencing is no longer required.

Testimony Against:  None.

Testified:  Senator Goings, prime sponsor; Marsh Pugh, WSP.