Bills meant to further bolster limousine safety in New York will be taken up by the Senate Transportation Committee next week, Sen. Tim Kennedy said on Thursday in Buffalo.
Kennedy, the committee’s chairman, said the measures are meant to take a “global focus” to the issue after a stretch limousine crash killed 20 people last October in Schoharie.
“The owners of the business broke the law, put that vehicle back on the road and 20 people are dead today because of it,” Kennedy said. “The fact of the matter is that vehicle in the future with the bills we are going to be passing will be immobilized and impounded. Vehicles that fail to comply with the law and simple measures to keep these limousines safe will no longer be on the road.”
The bills, first reported by The Times Union, will include requirements for limousines to have seat belts, escape hatches and roll bars. Drivers would have to carry a commercial driver’s license and undergo criminal background checks as well as drug and alcohol testing. Kennedy also wants a task force for further study of the issue and increased penalties for breaking the laws governing limo safety.
State lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the budget this year agreed to new insurance requirements for stretch limousines as well as increased penalties for using a vehicle that has been deemed unsafe by the state Department of Transportation.
The bills Kennedy is backing, he said, will go further.
“The focus of the legislation is on the safety of the vehicles themselves,” he said.
The legislative session is scheduled to conclude on June 19, leaving relatively little time for the bills to go through the legislative process. There are no similar versions yet in the state Assembly, but Kennedy said Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli, the Democratic chairman of the chamber’s Transportation panel, will review the bills.
“We are up against the clock; as far as I’m concerned, the sooner we can get these passed, the better,” Kennedy said.