Riverside County Supervisors Propose Crash Tax
Riverside County has estimated $103 million budget gap for the fiscal year starting July 1. County leaders are proposing $55 million in cuts along with the use of $28 million in reserves and $20 million from other county funds in order to balance the budget.
County Supervisors proposed another cost saving measure, a crash tax. The fees would only be assessed to negligent drivers who get in an accident. The Riverside County Board of supervisors this week unanimously approved new firefighter cost recovery rates that will allow county firefighters to charge negligent drivers a fee when they respond to a criminal crash.
“Sounds to me ok, user pays type of thing,” Bob Kays a Riverside County resident.
The fee would trigger if the driver is drunk or drugged, driving recklessly or being chased by police in unincorporated areas of Riverside County. The new fees range from $68 per hour to more than $100 an hour multiplied by the amount of firefighters. The total bill, when you add on an adminstration fee, could be in the thousands.
Some like Pete Moraga with the Insurance Information Network of California say it’s a broken model. “We’re finding the drivers won’t pay the fee and the insurance company won’t either. They don’t have a collections program built in as well.”
The orndiance would also apply to hazmat incidents and false alarms triggered by security systems in unincorporated areas. Over 60 cities in California have passed stricter laws. Now, 5 have rescinded them.
The Riverside County Supervisors still have to approve the ordinance. Supervisor John Benoit who represents the Coachella Valley wants to make it very clear it the new proposal only applies to drivers who are responsible for negligent criminal crashes.
