Senate Transportation hears request to extend DMV exemption to nonprofit ambulance services

Members of the Senate Transportation Committee on Feb. 11 heard from Drew Hazleton, chief of operations at Rescue Inc. and chair of the EMS advisory committee, who asked lawmakers to broaden proposed changes to the Department of Motor Vehicles law so ambulances owned by private nonprofit EMS organizations would be included in a vehicle-exemption provision.

Hazleton told the committee that the draft language (noted by him as appearing on “page 9, lines 12”) currently exempts “motor trucks, trailers, ambulances, and other motor vehicles” owned by volunteer fire departments and similar volunteer firefighting organizations. “The bulk of the ambulances in the state of Vermont are owned by private nonprofit EMS services that are not connected with fire departments,” Hazleton said, and he asked that the exemption be amended to cover those nonprofit ambulance organizations as well.

A committee member asked whether any nonprofit services in Vermont currently operate electric ambulances; Hazleton said he did not believe any electric ambulances were currently operating in the state but that it would not be surprising to see them in the coming years. No formal motion or vote took place during this discussion and committee members did not record a directive to staff during the exchange.

The committee paused for a 10-minute break after the item; the next listed speaker was Robert Burke. The discussion was limited to the scope of the exemption language and factual clarifications about who owns ambulances in the state, and did not produce a legislative decision at the meeting.