SENATE BILL REPORT

SB 5782

As Passed Senate, March 16, 2003

Title: An act relating to driving record abstracts furnished to transit authorities.

Brief Description: Allowing release of bus drivers' driving abstracts to employers.

Sponsors: Senators Horn and Haugen.

Brief History:

Committee Activity: Highways & Transportation: 2/25/03, 3/5/03 [DP].

Passed Senate: 3/16/03, 48-0.

SENATE COMMITTEE ON HIGHWAYS & TRANSPORTATION

Majority Report: Do pass.

      Signed by Senators Horn, Chair; Benton, Vice Chair; Swecker, Vice Chair; Esser, Finkbeiner, Haugen, Jacobsen, Kastama, Mulliken, Oke, Prentice and Spanel.

Staff: Kimberly Johnson (786-7346)

Background: Currently, the Department of Licensing (DOL) may provide certified abstracts of driving records covering three years or less to prospective or current insurance companies upon request. Certified abstracts of driving records covering five years or less may be given to state-approved alcohol/drug assessment or treatment agencies, with information on additional alcohol-related offenses from no more than ten years. Certified abstracts of full driving records must be provided, upon proper request, to the driver, current employers or their agents, prospective employers or their agents, city and county prosecuting attorneys, and an employee or agent of a transit authority checking volunteer vanpool drivers for risk assessment and insurance needs.

Summary of Bill: Upon proper request, DOL must provide a certified abstract of the full driving record of a current or prospective transit operator to an employee or agent of a transit authority. The release of the abstract does not require a signed statement by the employee, prospective employee, employer, prospective employer, or their agent. A transit authority may only use the certified abstract to determine whether the prospective, or currently employed transit operator meets insurance and risk management requirements necessary to drive a vanpool vehicle or bus.

Appropriation: None.

Fiscal Note: Not requested.

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

Testimony For: This bill would allow transit agencies to provide evidence to insurance underwriters that we are reviewing our drivers' safety records. Allowing transit operator employers to receive a full abstract is simply a matter of public safety. Collecting signatures from employees is time consuming and allows a driver to refuse to provide us with an abstract without recourse. Any privacy concerns on this matter are highly overstated; we will handle these records with the utmost care.

Testimony Against: None.

Testified: John Sindzinski, Community Transit; Allen Hatten, Washington State Transit Insurance Pool; Jim Shipman, Washington Transit Association.