Asm. Phil Ting

This measure would designate the month of March 2015 and each year thereafter as Brain Injury Awareness, Treatment, and Prevention Month, and would encourage public officials and the citizens of California to observe the month with appropriate activities and programs to raise awareness about the symptoms of, treatments for, and ways of preventing, traumatic brain injuries.

This measure would designate April 20, 2015, as DMV/Donate Life California Day in the State of California and the month of April 2015, as DMV/Donate Life California Month in the State of California, and would encourage all Californians to sign up with the Donate Life California Organ and Tissue Donor Registry.

This measure would proclaim April 2015 as Distracted Driving Awareness Month and call for awareness of the distracted driving problem and support for programs and policies to reduce the incidence of distracted driving.

This measure would designate November 2015 as California Sikh American Awareness and Appreciation Month. The measure would recognize and acknowledge the significant contributions Californians of Sikh heritage have made to the state. The measure would also seek to afford all Californians the opportunity to understand, recognize, and appreciate the rich history and shared principles of Sikh Americans.

Existing federal law, until September 30, 2017, authorizes a state to allow specified labeled vehicles to use lanes designated for high-occupancy vehicles (HOVs) . Existing law authorizes the Department of Transportation to designate certain lanes for the exclusive use of HOVs. Under existing law, until January 1, 2019, or until federal authorization expires, or until the Secretary of State receives a specified notice, those lanes may be used by certain vehicles not carrying the requisite number of passengers otherwise required for the use of an HOV lane, if the vehicle displays a valid identifier issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) . Existing law authorizes the DMV to issue no more than 70,000 of those identifiers. This bill would increase the number of those identifiers that the DMV is authorized to issue to 85,000. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

Existing law prohibits an eligible person from being exempt from service as a trial juror by reason of, among other things, economic status, race, religion, sex, or for any other reason. This bill would specify that marital status is also a prohibited reason to exempt an eligible person from service as a trial juror.

This measure would recognize and honor the men and women of California agriculture for their dedication and productivity by observing March 18, 2015, as National Agriculture Day, and designating March 18, 2015, as California Agriculture Day.

This measure would recognize that pancreatic cancer statistics call for aggressive measures now to develop early detection and treatment tools before the incidence dramatically increases, and would proclaim November 2015 as Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month in California.