By Goodman H.B. No. 2715
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
1-1 AN ACT
1-2 relating to driver's license eligibility and restrictions.
1-3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-4 SECTION 1. Subsection (g) of Section 12, Chapter 173, Acts
1-5 of the 47th Legislature, Regular Session, 1941 (Article 6687b,
1-6 Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is amended to read as follows:
1-7 (g) Upon receipt of [notice] a court order that a person has
1-8 been restricted to the operation of a motor vehicle equipped with a
1-9 device that uses a deep-lung breath analysis mechanism to make
1-10 impractical the operation of the motor vehicle if ethyl alcohol is
1-11 detected in the breath of the restricted operator, the Department
1-12 shall notify the person that his current license will [expire] be
1-13 cancelled in thirty (30) days. Upon application by the person and
1-14 payment of a fee of Ten Dollars ($10.00), the department shall
1-15 issue a special restricted driver's license to operate only a motor
1-16 vehicle equipped with a device that uses a deep-lung breath
1-17 analysis mechanism. Upon the expiration of a court-ordered
1-18 restriction as provided in this subsection, [receipt of a copy of a
1-19 court order removing the restriction,] the department may re-issue
1-20 [shall issue] a driver's license without the restriction.
1-21 SECTION 2. Section 521.201, Transportation Code, is amended
1-22 to read as follows:
1-23 Sec. 521.201. License Ineligibility in General. The
1-24 department may not issue or renew any license to a person [who]:
2-1 (1) who is under 15 years of age;
2-2 (2) who is under 18 years of age unless the person
2-3 complies with the requirements imposed by Section 521.204;
2-4 (3) who is shown to be addicted to the use of alcohol,
2-5 a controlled substance, or another drug that renders a person
2-6 incapable of driving;
2-7 (4) whose driver's license or privilege has been
2-8 denied, canceled, suspended, or revoked [holds a driver's license
2-9 issued] by this state or another state or country [that is revoked,
2-10 canceled, or under suspension];
2-11 (5) who has been determined by a judgment of a court
2-12 to be mentally incompetent unless the person has, by the date of
2-13 the license application, been:
2-14 (A) restored to competency by judicial decree;
2-15 or
2-16 (B) released from a hospital for the mentally
2-17 incompetent on a certificate by the superintendent of the hospital
2-18 that the person is competent;
2-19 (6) who the department determines to be afflicted with
2-20 a mental or physical disability or disease that prevents the person
2-21 from exercising reasonable and ordinary control over a motor
2-22 vehicle while operating the vehicle on a highway, except that a
2-23 person may not be refused a license because of a physical defect if
2-24 common experience shows that the defect does not incapacitate a
2-25 person from safely operating a motor vehicle; or
2-26 (7) who has been reported by a court under Section
2-27 729.003 for failure to appear or for default in payment of a fine
3-1 unless the court has filed an additional report on final
3-2 disposition of the case.
3-3 SECTION 3. This Act takes effect September 1, 1997.
3-4 SECTION 4. The importance of this legislation and the
3-5 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
3-6 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
3-7 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three consecutive
3-8 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
3-9 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
3-10 passage, and it is so enacted.