SB 39: Vehicles: high-occupancy vehicle lanes.

Existing federal law, until September 30, 2017, authorizes a state to allow specified labeled vehicles to use lanes designated for high-occupancy vehicles (HOVs).

Existing law authorizes the Department of Transportation to designate certain lanes for the exclusive use of HOVs. Under existing law, until January 1, 2019, or until federal authorization expires, or until the Secretary of State receives a specified notice, those lanes may be used by certain vehicles not carrying the requisite number of passengers otherwise required for the use of an HOV lane, if the vehicle displays a valid identifier issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). Until January 1, 2015, existing law authorizes the DMV to issue no more than 55,000 of those identifiers. On and after January 1, 2015, existing Existing law authorizes the DMV to issue no more than 70,000 of those identifiers.

This bill would increase the number of those identifiers that the DMV is authorized to issue to an unspecified amount. 85,000.

This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.