HB 2106 -- Disabled License Plates and Placards

Co-Sponsors:  Gibbons, Graham (24)

This bill revises the procedures relating to disabled license
plates and placards and the use of designated disabled parking
spaces.

The Director of the Department of Public Safety is authorized to
promulgate rules to allow physically disabled persons to issue
notes of warning to vehicles violating physically disabled
parking provisions.  The director will also prescribe the form,
information necessary, and the manner for issuance of warning
notes.  A person issuing a warning note will also be required to
fill out a form containing the same information on the warning
note and forward the form to the appropriate county prosecutor.
The form containing the required information will create a
presumption that the owner of the vehicle receiving a note or
warning is the person who parked the vehicle in violation.

Physicians or health care practitioners will be guilty of a
class D felony if they issue, sign, or furnish a physician's
statement or certificate to enable a person to obtain disabled
license plates or windshield placards for any person who does
not meet established conditions required by law or if there is
no basis for a diagnosis, or state a condition or diagnosis
which is outside the scope of the provider's practice.

The bill establishes record maintenance requirements for
physicians and health care practitioners who issue physician's
statements.

No more than 2 removable windshield handicap placards may be
issued by the Director of Revenue to any one person.  The
director will be required to periodically check with the
appropriate licensing boards to verify that physicians or other
health care practitioners who sign physician's statements are
duly licensed and registered.  The director must annually take
steps to check with vital statistics to see if any person issued
disabled plates or placards is deceased.  The director also will
be required to issue a certificate, bound in plastic,
identifying the name and address of any person issued disabled
plates or placards and the plate number or placard identifying
number.  If a disabled person has a driver's license, such
certificate may be incorporated into and made a part of the
license.

Any person issued a disabled plate or placard must present a new
physicians statement every 3 years.  Failure to do so will
result in the cancellation and the call for the return of the
plate or placard.

The bill clarifies who may park in disabled parking spaces and
the penalty for such violations.