California state senators put the state’s top DMV official in the hot seat Tuesday, demanding answers about why dangerous drivers keep their licenses even as road deaths climb — and getting very few straight answers in return.
Steve Gordon, director of the California Department of Motor Vehicles, appeared before a joint hearing of the state Senate’s public safety and transportation committees in what CalMatters reports is the first legislative hearing focused on DUIs, traffic laws, and roadway fatalities in decades. Gordon said he didn’t know if the DMV could speed up license suspensions, couldn’t say how often the agency takes action against dangerous drivers, and wasn’t familiar with data his own agency gave CalMatters just one week earlier.
That data showed the DMV opened only around 3,300 “negligent operator cases” between 2022 and 2024 — even though state records show nearly 55,000 fatal or serious injury crashes during that same period. When pressed for answers, Gordon repeatedly said the agency’s work is “complex,” “very inside baseball,” and “extremely nuanced.”
Sen. Jesse Arreguín (D-Oakland), who chairs the Senate Public Safety Committee, pointed to a specific case covered by CalMatters — that of Kostas Linardos, who drove a three-ton pickup truck at high speed into a sedan in late 2022 after years of speeding and reckless driving tickets. A toddler died in the crash.
“The case that was in CalMatters yesterday, you know, a toddler lost their life because we didn’t flag this earlier in the process and this person was allowed to drive,” Arreguín said. “We’re talking about people’s lives. That’s what we’re trying to protect here.”
Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), said CalMatters’ License to Kill investigative series inspired the hearing. The series found California routinely lets dangerous drivers with serious records stay on the road, and also revealed the state has some of the nation’s weakest DUI laws. Courts across California have also failed to report vehicular homicide convictions to the DMV, the series found.
Sen. Caroline Menjivar (D-Van Nuys), asked how drivers with 15 offenses can still hold a valid license. She also pressed Gordon on why state law says the DMV “may” investigate after a fatal crash, rather than “shall.” Gordon pushed back, saying, “It’s not a question of a ‘shall’ or a ‘may,'” and added, “I believe we have the capacity we need to investigate every case that comes to us.”
Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas), noted the agency moves quickly when it wants to — like setting up road tolls — but seems to stall on life-saving measures like expanding in-car breathalyzers. “The DMV, when they feel it’s important, can act quickly. But then there are these other things that seem to be really stuck in molasses,” Blakespear said.
Gordon acknowledged that driver safety wasn’t his top priority when Governor Gavin Newsom appointed him in 2019. “I’ll admit that wasn’t the first team we attacked, because we were worried about lines and Real ID and a bunch of other things that were occurring,” he said.
Napa District Attorney Allison Haley told lawmakers about a driver with 13 DUIs and another who killed two people but received nearly the same sentence as someone who killed one. “This isn’t Costco. We don’t want a system where you can kill one person and kill another person — or more — for free,” Haley said. “And that’s currently the situation that we have.”
Not everyone at the hearing agreed that tougher sentencing is the answer. Some witnesses argued that redesigning roads and expanding substance abuse treatment would be more effective — and that harsher penalties could fall disproportionately on first-time or low-income offenders.
One of the most emotional moments came from Tara Repka Flores, whose 13-year-old son Alec was struck and killed in 2019 while walking to school in Sutter County. The driver was a fellow school parent who was drunk behind the wheel with her own three children in the car. Repka Flores urged senators to support every available safety measure.
“Ignition interlock? Yes. Stronger sentencing? Yes. Accountability for hit and run drivers? Yes,” she said. “Yes to all of it. Stop other people from getting killed.”
After the hearing, according to US News & World Report, Gordon declined to speak with reporters as he left the building, saying only, “we’re not doing press today.”
Legislators have already introduced a dozen road safety bills this session. Gordon told lawmakers the DMV is conducting an internal review of how the agency’s driver safety unit receives and uses information — though he offered no timeline or specifics on what changes might follow.
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