This Assembly Bill was introduced by Assembly Member Calderon and Coauthored by Assembly Member Romero. Large campaign contributions were made to Assembly Member Calderon's campaign by a prominent owner of classroom attendance traffic schools.

In essence, they are proposing that the Department of Motor Vehicles take over the licensing of Traffic Schools. Under the current system, Home Study Alternative Programs need only be approved by the court in the jurisdiction where they are offering their services. The intention of AB #681 is to eliminate home study and on-line traffic violator schools, and require the standardization of traffic violator school curriculums. This is specifically stated as their rationale for passing the bill (see the Assembly Bill Site). This Bill would also require that traffic violators be required to attend a proctored testing center to take the final exam. While we feel that monitoring of Traffic School Programs is important to ensure that the information being provided is accurate, this Bill will eliminate Home Study Alternative Programs, such as Internet Programs. If some home study programs are allowed to continue, they will make it as difficult as possible for clients to attend, such as required proctoring of exams. In other words, you can complete the program at home, but will be required to take the exams at a proctoring center where someone will watch you while you take the tests. They are doing this in an attempt to make force people to attend classroom attendance schools rather than home study programs. Thier justification is that traffic violators are not "punished" enough by attending home study programs, even though the purpose of traffic violator schools has always been education and not punishment. Another irony is that studies have been done on classroom attendance traffic schools which shows that they are ineffective and do not reduce accidents or traffic violations. There have also been expose's done on classroom attendance traffic schools in which certificates of completion were being given for bribes of $200.00 and more. Home Study Alternative Programs do away with the need for such duplicity as they are much more convenient and cost effective. There have not been any studies done on home study traffic violator programs and we have received many emails from our clients stating that they feel that they learned more from the home study alternative than they would have from the classroom attendance schools, because they could do it at their own pace and were not forced to wake up early and spend eight hours straight sitting in a classroom. What this boils down to is that the classroom attendance traffic schools are saying "Our programs have been proven to be ineffective, so let's shut down the home study programs." Does this make sense? It would make more sense to shut down the classroom attendance traffic schools and do studies on the Alternative Study Programs to show if they are effective or not. It also shows that if you have enough money you can afford to have laws written in your favor no matter how unjust to others. This is a very sad commentary for politics in our Nation. Is it fair that this means that traffic violators will be inconvenienced even further, or even forced to attend classroom attendance traffic schools? People can get a Juris Doctorate Degree over the internet, but AB 681 is stating that you cannot complete something as simple as traffic school via the internet. Does this make sense?

Why should parents be penalized by having to pay the additional childcare costs when they have to attend traffic school? Why should people who work unusual shifts, such as graveyard, be penalized by having to get up during normal hours in order to attend a classroom traffic school? Why should people who work more than five days per week have to take time off work to attend classroom setting traffic schools? Why shouldn't home study programs be available to the general public, so that they can complete them at their own pace, when they have time available, rather than having to work around someone else's schedule? We feel that Home Study Alternative Programs should be available to anyone who wants to attend.

Home Study Programs are more convenient and cost effective to both the traffic violator and the court, and internet traffic schools provide more efficient processing of information for the individual and the courts, as well as being educational and fun. No studies have been done on the effectiveness of Home Study Alternative Programs, yet in Bill #681 it states that "Court-authorized home study traffic violator programs have never proven to be effective in reducing traffic violations or traffic collisions." This information is very misleading, but they can make this claim because no studies have been done in this area. Alternative Home Study Programs have not been proven to be ineffective. However, studies of classroom attendance traffic school have shown that the classroom attendance traffic schools are not effective.

If this Bill is passed we feel that it will inconvenience the general public as they will no longer have the option of attending Home Study Programs to clear their record, but will instead be forced to make arrangements to attend the classroom setting traffic schools, around someone else's schedule and at a drastically increased cost. It will increase the expense of traffic schools as they are proposing that additional fees be imposed for each traffic school completion, not to mention their fees for licensing requirements. These fees will be passed onto each individual attending the traffic school. The average traffic ticket currently costs the individual over $300.00, isn't that enough for making a mistake?

Assembly Bill #681 was passed by the Appropriations Committee on May 26th, 1999, but it still has to be passed on the Assembly Floor. When it went to the Senate it was made into a two year Bill, in other words it will be up to be voted on again in the year 2000. If you would like more information on this Bill please go to www.sen.ca.gov/~newsen/legislation/legislation.htp to look it over for yourself.