Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Transportation, to which was referred H.B. No. 1959 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to allow individuals with a driver's license issued by another state who are under the age of 18 to obtain a Hawaii driver's license.

The Department of Customer Services of the City and County of Honolulu (DCS) supported the intent of this measure. The State Department of Transportation (DOT) opposed this measure.

Your Committee finds that drivers under the age of 18 who possess a valid out-of-state license are not able to obtain a driver's license through reciprocity although individuals who possess an out-of-state license and are over the age of 18 may do so. Your Committee understands that this difference exists to ensure that younger individuals have completed a driver's education course before being issued a license in Hawaii and finds that many other states have similar requirements.

Although administrative rules adopted by DOT allow for license reciprocity for out-of-state individuals under the age of 18 who have completed a driver education course equal or superior to Hawaii's driver education course standards, your Committee finds that difficulty in correlating standards among different driver education programs from jurisdictions across the nation have made it difficult for some drivers who have completed driver's education courses on the mainland to obtain a license in Hawaii.

However, your Committee understands the concerns raised by DCS that the legal age to drive in Hawaii is 16 and that conflicts may arise if an individual has obtained a license from a state that allows individuals to obtain a license at 15.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended this measure by:

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Transportation that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1959, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1959, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.