State lawmakers today introduced legislation that would bar public transportation employees whose driver’s licenses have been revoked or suspended from obtaining judicial driving permits to operate buses.
Under current Illinois law, motorists who lose their licenses due to drunken-driving arrests or other infractions can petition a Circuit Court judge for a judicial permit on the grounds that they need to drive for essential reasons, such as work.
The proposed law would prohibit public transit employees from using judicial permits to drive buses. Chicago Transit Authority President Frank Kruesi implemented a similar rule last Friday following an internal investigation that found 48 bus drivers during the last 30 years had operated CTA buses using judicial permits.
“If you don’t have a license, you don’t have any business being behind the wheel of a bus,” Kruesi said during a news conference at the James R. Thompson Center.
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Attempts to reach the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, which represents public transit workers, for comment on the bill were unsuccessful.
The bill is sponsored by Sen. Kathleen Parker (R-Northbrook), Sen. Robert Molaro (D-Chicago) and Sen. Walter Dudycz (R-Chicago).
Kruesi said he approached Parker with the idea of proposing a bill so that the CTA’s policy would be “backed 100 percent by state law.”
The CTA’s new ban is the second phase of a crackdown that started in November following the completion of the internal report, Kruesi said. After the report was issued, the CTA started monthly checks with the secretary of state’s office to verify that all of its 5,600 employees operating buses or other agency-owned vehicles have valid commercial driver’s licenses.
In the four months since the checks began, authorities discovered four bus drivers and a bus repairman working with invalid commercial driver’s licenses. Three of the drivers were fired for failing to inform their superiors about their license problems, while the fourth driver and the repairman were reassigned until their licenses are reinstated, Kruesi said.
“Our operators understand that they have to have valid licenses because they will be found out,” he said.
Parker said the Illinois Senate’s Transportation Committee would hold a hearing March 21 for public comments. She said there also was a possibility that the bill could be amended to include school bus drivers.