The California Department of Motor Vehicles is changing the way drivers renew their disabled person placards to help prevent fraud.
Anyone who has had a disabled parking placard for six years or more will need to renew their permit by June 30 in order to continue using it.
According to a state audit of the California DMV, state officials found that the “DMV does not sufficiently ensure placard or license plate applications are legitimate.”
They said the placard requests they reviewed did not provide enough specific information about drivers’ disabilities and they did not regularly update placards of the deceased.
In 2017, the California State Legislature passed Senate Bill 611 a couple of months after the audit in hopes of fixing some of the DMV’s shortcomings.
Placards automatically renew every two years and now the DMV will require placard holders to provide a signature every six years to verify that they still need their placard and are still alive.
This will be the first year the new process will be used, and officials hope it will result in more efficient registrations and limit the number of permits that are misused.
For more information on the disability placard renewal process, use this link.
