The DMV as a Rogue Agency?

Since the early 1990s, the California Department of Motor Vehicles has been handling drunken boating convictions — aka BUIs — like drunken driving convictions in the sense that they’ve suspended the driver’s licenses of the offenders. There is just one problem with that practice — in early June, the Court of Appeal Second Appellate District Division ruled they didn’t have the right to do so. Such an action would have required a law passed by the California Legislature — which will probably be forthcoming.

As we understand it, those license suspensions will now be set aside, and the ‘victims’ may be entitled to sue the DMV. About 150 to 200 people have been affected each year since the early ’90s.

We’re not in favor of people ‘boating under the influence’, but neither are we in favor of government agencies exceeding the authority granted them under the law.