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Panel refers bill to suspend license when speed alone causes death, after families urge tougher penalties
Summary
House File 750 was referred to the Transportation Committee after testimony from families who lost relatives to high-speed crashes. The bill would require the commissioner to suspend a driver's license when speed alone causes a death and would require revocation on conviction.
House File 750, a proposal to require automatic license suspension where excessive speed alone causes a death, was moved and referred to the House Transportation Committee after testimony from family members of victims during the House Public Safety Committee meeting on Feb. 18, 2025.
Representative Rob Robbins, the bill sponsor, described a statutory gap: under current law criminal vehicular homicide or operation typically requires drugs, alcohol or an intoxicating substance as a contributing factor. "There’s record amounts of high rates of speed causing accidents in our communities and there's just this gap where if the only cause is speed, not speed plus alcohol or drugs, it doesn't rise to the level that would require automatic suspension of driver's license," Robbins said.
Witnesses told the committee about fatal and grievous incidents. Mark Rowe testified that in May 2022 his mother-in-law was struck and killed by a driver "driving in a 45 mile an hour zone going 95 miles an hour, 4 seconds before he hit her and killed her on the spot." Rowe said the driver had multiple prior excessive speeding citations and prior stops for suspended or revoked license conditions. His son-in-law, Matt Whelan, described the family’s frustration with criminal outcomes and post-conviction consequences, saying the offender was released and was later observed driving in the neighborhood after serving part of his sentence.
Committee members asked factual and procedural questions. Representative O'Hara asked whether other charges were served concurrently with the criminal vehicular homicide sentence; the family witness replied there were no other concurrent charges. Representative Tony Moore and others thanked the families and indicated support for further work on the bill.
Representative Robbins renewed his motion that House File 750 be re-referred to the Transportation Committee. The motion was carried by voice vote; the hearing record does not show a roll-call tally.
The bill would direct the commissioner to suspend a license when speed alone causes a death and require license revocation following conviction, closing the statutory gap described by the sponsor and witnesses. It will next be considered in the Transportation Committee per the referral.
