California Automotive Business Coalition

ALERT – AB 519 (Solorio) – OPPOSE
August 2010

Regulatory Overkill to End Discount Tow Services Through Auto Repair Facilities

The California Automotive Business Coalition (CalABC) opposes AB 519 (Solorio). This measure – ON INACTIVE FILE SINCE 2009 – seeks to regulate tow-truck operators but is written so poorly that it harms licensed automotive repair facilities and their customers.
AB 519 inadvertently requires auto repair facilities who negotiate and arrange for sublet towing services and discounts for their customers to comply with complicated regulations specifically designed for the operators of tow trucks and tow yards.

• The bill chills the ability of licensed auto repair facilities to negotiate volume discounts on towing services for their customers. AB 519 establishes extensive new statutory regulation for unlicensed tow truck operators and tow yards --then applies these same requirements to licensed automotive repair facilities who don’t even own a tow truck!
  
  Under AB 519, repair shops who simply negotiate discounts and sublet tow services for their customers would actually be required to post “TOW YARD” signage in their own waiting rooms and provide customers with a lengthy “TOWING NOTICE” and a new “TOWING INVOICE” that is separate from the regular “repair invoice”. The AB 519 “towing invoice” is required to include 13 separate fields of detailed information that an auto repair facility has no personal knowledge of (e.g., tow truck service dispatch, arrival and completion times, additional tow truck services that cause service time to exceed one hour, gate fees, etc.).
  
  REAL WORLD UNDER AB 519 (Solorio): Auto repair facilities say “NO THANK YOU!” to unworkable regulation, more signage, redundant paperwork and new liability. They will simply stop arranging tows and tow service discounts for their customers.
  
  NET EFFECT OF AB 519 (Solorio) -- motorists with roadside car trouble will need to deal directly with tow service providers without the assistance of their repair shops nor the benefit of the volume discounts they may negotiate on their customers’ behalf.
  
   
• Unlike tow truck operators, automotive repair facilities are regulated and licensed by the Department of Consumer Affair’s Bureau of Automotive Repair and are subject to a myriad of regulations, including detailed invoice disclosure requirements.

• AB 519 contains a NEW private right of action that will subject already licensed auto repair facilities and their small business owners to NEW civil and criminal penalties and spawn unnecessary litigation.

--Vote "NO" on AB 519 –