In one of his first decisions as Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) Commissioner Robert M. Ward will recommend more concrete and stringent standards for those permitted to drive school children either in traditional school buses or student transportation vehicles.
The Commissioner will also initiate some other immediate changes in how cases are scrutinized during hearings on whether someone can have the privilege to drive a school bus. This action follows the Commissioner completing a review of a critical report detailing many problems in performing background checks and other procedures that are part of licensing bus drivers (see previous article).
Ward will immediately direct DMV staff to follow the same criteria the state Department of Education uses for screening teachers, administrators and coaches who are employed to work around children in schools. This criteria would prohibit anyone convicted or arrested of a major felony or crime associated with child abuse and neglect from having the privilege to drive school children in these vehicles.
“I want criteria that are at least as stringent as the criteria applied to those who enter the classroom to teach our children or are their coaches on the playing field,” said Commissioner Ward. He said that he will ask the legislature to make this process a law that the DMV must follow.
In addition, the Commissioner has begun an in-depth review of all decisions related to hearings requested after the DMV issued drivers a suspension notice of their privilege to operate a school bus or school transportation vehicle. At these hearings drivers present their reasons why the state should not suspend their privilege. An independent hearing officer decides whether to restore the privilege or continue the suspension.
Following a review of DMV hearing cases that occurred in the last two years, the new Commissioner found that privileges were restored 50 percent of the time. He said that stricter standards will reduce the number of cases restored and that the evaluation processes in hearings needs to be tightened (View the press release for more details about the hearing process).
The Commissioner is appointing DMV Deputy Commissioner John Herman, a Captain in the State Police with more than 30 years of law enforcement experience, to permanently oversee the Public Service Transportation Unit. Both officials are examining the unit’s operation in detail.
More details are available in the press release issued on Jan. 12, 2007.