Vehicles: tour buses: safety inspections.

Existing law requires the Department of the California Highway Patrol to regulate the safe operation of tour buses, as defined, and requires the department to adopt rules and regulations relating to the equipment and maintenance of tour buses. At least once every 13 months, existing law requires the department to inspect every maintenance facility or terminal of any person who at any time operates any bus, including a tour bus, and makes it unlawful for any person to operate a bus without this inspection having been conducted. In addition to the systematic inspection required of all motor carriers, existing law requires tour bus operators to require each tour bus to be inspected at least every 45 days, or more often if necessary to ensure safe operation. This bill would require the department to, upon the request of, and in consultation with, representatives of a local government in a jurisdiction where tour buses operate, develop protocols for entering into memoranda of understanding with local governments to allow the department to increase the number of the locally operating tour buses that are being inspected by the department. The bill would require a memorandum of understanding entered into with a local government pursuant to these provisions to include a provision that the local government will reimburse the department for all actual costs associated with conducting additional inspections. The bill would prohibit any inspection conducted pursuant to these provisions from being duplicative of any inspection conducted by the department to meet those specified existing inspection requirements.