Kentucky Votes Forum

Introduced in the Senate on February 25, 2008, to require the circuit clerk to ask drivers license applicants to provide an emergency contact person's name, address, and phone number to be kept in the database of drivers license information. The bill does not require the applicant to provide the information

The vote was 38 in favor, 0 opposed and 0 not voting

(Senate Roll Call 0 at Senate Journal 0)

Click here to view bill details.

Since when do lawmakers make laws that aren't really laws? Talk about a waste of taxpayers' money. How about a law that says the Kentucky Revenue Department can ask you for money but you don't have to pay them?

When would this information ever be accessed? For instance, if you have a medical emergency and a hospital needs to contact your next of kin are they going to get the Circuit Clerks to come into the office in the middle of the night to retrieve your information? Would Law Enforcement officers need this information when working a fatality at an accident scene? Funeral homes? County morgues? Would the information be stored in the bar code on the back of the license requiring all locations to obtain bar code readers? The majority of drivers are not in the clerk's office but once every four years so how current would this information be? If the information changed would the driver be required to report that to the clerk as they are for name or address changes? This is definately a waste both of money and citizen's time not to mention the burden to the Circuit Clerks. Has the Circuit Clerk's Association approved this? A very fine example of the legislators wasting time on bills that are useless to the Commonwealth.