Senate Committee passes out bill to revoke motor vehicle registrations for individuals with four or more unpaid parking tickets.---

Sen. Stuart Reid, R-Ogden introduced Senate Bill 139 to the Senate Business and Labor Committee today that would allow the Utah Division of Motor Vehicles to revoke vehicle registrations against parking ticket scofflaws. “This way we can make sure they are being honest and diligent in paying those tickets,” Reid told the committee.

The bill faced a few major reservations by the committee. One was the possibility that individuals in a house may be sharing a vehicle, in which case it would be unfair if a registration was revoked based on the behavior of one driver. The committee recommended the bill create a certified letter that would warn vehicle owners of an imminent revocation. The other issue surfaced as a result of the testimony of Mark Johnson of the Utah State Tax Commission who pointed out that his office would need fiscal support to be able to implement the program with local municipalities.

“We have not heretofore handled civil parking violations,” Johnson told the committee. “We would need to build a computer interface with municipalities to process the requests.” The committee passed the bill out unanimously with the strong recommendation that certified notices and a fiscal note are finalized in the next iteration of the bill.