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Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Ind. Courts - Create state court for commercial truck violations?
Patrick Guinane reports today in the NWI Times:
INDIANAPOLIS | Indiana should establish a centralized administrative court to handle traffic infractions issued to commercial truck drivers, a retired Porter County judge told lawmakers investigating a rash of fatal wrecks involving semitrailers.Senior Judge Raymond Kickbush said many local judges and prosecutors have very limited knowledge of the voluminous federal rules regulating commercial driver's licenses. The lack of expertise, he said, often allows truck drivers charged with drunken driving to keep their licenses despite federal rules mandating suspensions.
"The judges I've talked to, I found, didn't know beans about this," Kickbush told the Legislature's Interim Study Committee on Transportation Matter on Tuesday. * * *
Kickbush advocated a state commercial vehicle court staffed by regional hearing officers who know the commercial vehicle code inside and out. He said the more administrative statewide court, to be modeled after the worker's compensation system, could transfer serious cases involving deaths or potential prison sentences back to the criminal courts.
Kickbush said he has spent the past five years performing judicial outreach on commercial vehicle laws and has encountered many judges and prosecutors who don't realize truck drivers are not eligible for DUI diversion programs or hardship licenses allowing them to continue driving for work.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 15, 2007 03:26 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts