Authorized emergency vehicles.

Hadwick’s measure would broaden the California Highway Patrol’s authorized emergency vehicle permit program to cover vehicles owned by county, city, or city-and-county offices of emergency services, but only when those vehicles are used by a public employee from the office in responding to any disaster, including events such as fire, flood, earthquake, tsunami, or hazardous materials spills.

The proposal adds a new category to the program’s eligible-vehicle list, establishing that these local emergency-services vehicles may receive an emergency vehicle permit solely during disaster-response operations conducted by office staff. The CHP would have the authority to adopt and enforce regulations to implement this new category, and violations of those regulations would be misdemeanors. The bill specifies no new appropriation and requires fiscal-committee review, while retaining the existing categories and regulatory framework governing other permit-eligible vehicles.

Implementation would occur through CHP regulations that define eligibility criteria, application processes, permitted uses, and any signage or identification requirements, with local agencies coordinating with the CHP to determine permit eligibility for their disaster-response fleets. The absence of a stated effective date in the text suggests the timeline would be set by regulatory adoption and any standard statutory timing following enactment, subject to governor action.

In the broader policy context, the change formalizes a permitting pathway for disaster-response fleets to operate under recognized emergency-vehicle privileges, aligning locally owned emergency services assets with state-permitted vehicles within a centralized regulatory framework. Stakeholders include county and city emergency services offices, the California Highway Patrol as regulator and enforcer, and public employees assigned to disaster-response duties, with compliance and administrative considerations for local agencies and regulatory oversight as ongoing elements.