Brief ⁽¹⁾

HB 2596 would amend various statutes to increase the fine amounts for traffic infractions and to extend the moving traffic violation limit from 5 to 10 miles per hour, thus allowing a moving violation to be exempted from public view or preventing its placement on a driver's insurance record, when the violation is within 10 miles per hour over the maximum posted speed limit.

The bill would approximately triple traffic infraction fines, raising some fines, such as the failure of a pedestrian to yield to an emergency vehicle, from $10 to $30, and other fines, such as the improper passing of a school bus, from $100 to $300. The fines, received by district court clerks, would be credited to the following funds: 92.34 percent would be credited to the State General Fund; 7.33 percent would go to the Crime Victims Compensation Fund; and, 1.33 percent to the Crime Victims Assistance Fund. Fines credited to the State General Fund would total approximately $16.0 to $18.0 million.

Background

HB 2596, as recommended by the House Committee on Appropriations, raised traffic infraction fines and altered the amounts credited to the Crime Victims Compensation Fund (from 22 percent to 7.33 percent) and to the Crime Victims Assistance Fund (from 4 percent to 1.33 percent).

The bill was amended by the House Committee of the Whole to include language changing the moving traffic violation limit from 5 to 10 miles per hour and extending the maximum posted or authorized speed limit from 65 miles per hour to 70 miles per hour. The amendments included language allowing moving violations, within 10 miles per hour over the maximum posted speed limit, to be exempted from public view or placed on a person's insurance record.

1. *Supplemental notes are prepared by the Legislative Research Department and do not express legislative intent. The supplemental note and fiscal note for this bill may be accessed on the Internet at http://www.ink.org/public/legislative/fulltext.cgi