Commercial driver bill on the move on Beacon Hill
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A truck drives down Route 295 past the Alta on the Row apartment building.
A bill to prevent commercial drivers from losing their licenses due to offenses that are more than two decades old is on the move on Beacon Hill, after clearing the first hurdle on its way to the House floor.
The Joint Committee on Transportation unanimously endorsed a bill (H 5109) filed by Gov. Maura Healey that would effectively prevent passenger vehicle offenses committed before Sept. 30, 2005 from counting toward commercial license ineligibility. Her administration is also pursuing regulatory changes that would let drivers who have served a sufficient disqualification period regain commercial licenses.
The proposed action represents a shift several months after the Registry of Motor Vehicles notified hundreds of bus and truck drivers that they were ineligible for commercial licenses due to at least two past major offenses, reportedly blindsiding many motorists who for years thought their infractions were behind them.
WCVB reported in August that 482 commercial driver's license holders got the notifications in the mail, and some said the loss of their commercial driving privileges was the result of infractions going back to the 1980s.
In a letter accompanying her bill, Healey wrote that a commercial driver "who meets the safety requirement of federal law should not be disqualified from driving due solely to passenger vehicle offenses that occurred 19 or more years ago."
The bill now heads to the House Ways and Means Committee, according to the House clerk's office.
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