Vermont Transportation committee reviews wide-ranging DMV bill on valuation, inspections, tinting and ATVs

The Vermont House Transportation Committee met April 2 to consider an omnibus bill from the Department of Motor Vehicles that would make a series of technical and substantive changes to motor-vehicle law, including vehicle-valuation rules for purchase and use tax, inspection and window-tint standards, and definitions for all-terrain vehicles.

Committee members opened with amendments to instructor requirements for commercial and motorcycle training. The proposal would align commercial driving-instructor qualifications with federal rules and require behind-the-wheel instructors to hold a commercial driver’s license (CDL) of the same or higher class and to have two years of experience driving that class of commercial motor vehicle. For motorcycle instructors, the bill reduces the experience requirement from four years of licensed operation in the last five years to two years in the last four years to encourage more instructors.

The bill replaces the NADA (National Automobile Dealers Association) Official Used Car Guide with JD Power values for calculating taxable cost in the purchase and use tax. It would expressly authorize the commissioner to develop a process for valuing vehicles that do not have a clean trade-in value in JD Power and to compute and notify the purchaser of tax owed at a DMV location or by mail. Committee members said the change responds to…