House passes amendments to impaired-driving laws, creates task force on processing and implied consent

The House adopted committee amendments and ordered third reading of House Bill 44 on Feb. 18, 2025. H.44 makes several changes to Vermont’s impaired-driving statutes, closes reporting gaps between family court and the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, clarifies when criminal and civil charges may be brought, and creates a task force to study processing and implied-consent procedures.

"This bill proposes to make a variety of changes to the impaired driving laws, including technical corrections, closing loopholes to ensure that the Department of Motor Vehicles is notified of license suspensions, and creating proportionate accountability for noncompliance to warrant based blood draws among others," said Representative Goodnow, speaking for the House Judiciary Committee.

Key statutory changes described on the floor include amendments to portions of Title 23 and Title 33 of the Vermont Statutes Annotated: technical amendments to the family division jurisdiction (33 V.S.A. chapter 52a), additions to the definitions related to serious bodily injury, and amendments to 23 V.S.A. sections that govern evidentiary blood draws and civil license suspension procedures. The bill adds a new subsection that would make failure to comply with a warrant-authorized evidentiary blood draw potentially a criminal refusal, but it also provides that a person cannot be convicted of both a DUI violation and a criminal refusal for the same incident; prosecutors must choose one charge.

The bill also resolves a statutory inconsistency concerning the breath/blood alcohol-content threshold language between criminal and civil procedures so that the civil suspension standard reads "at or above" the legal limit consistent with the criminal statute. Representative Goodnow said the change ensures the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles receives an officer's affidavit of probable cause when a notice of violation is issued so the DMV has the information necessary to proceed with suspension where appropriate.

H.44 creates an impaired driving processing task force to study implied consent and processing to recommend constitutional approaches that both minimize the length of law-enforcement encounters and reduce paperwork burdens on officers. The task force membership includes judges, commissioners, the defender general, the director of the department of state's attorneys and sheriffs, a representative of the Vermont Police Association and, as amended by Appropriations, the president of the Vermont Sheriffs Association or designee. A report with proposed legislation is due to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees by Nov. 15, 2025.

House committees reported the bill favorably. The House Judiciary Committee reported the strike-all amendment and the Appropriations Committee recommended a technical membership change to the task force; both committees recorded favorable straw polls and committee votes on the amendment (Judiciary reported a 10-0-1 straw poll; Appropriations reported the amendment favorably). The floor adopted the committee amendment and ordered third reading by voice vote.

Committee witnesses included representatives from the Department of Motor Vehicles enforcement and safety division, the Office of Legislative Counsel, the Defender General's Office, the Traffic Resource Prosecutor, and the judiciary; the bill sponsor said those witnesses supported the clarifications H.44 provides.

Next steps: the task force must report back by Nov. 15, 2025. The bill states it would take effect July 1 (per the legislative calendar language).

Votes at a glance: Judiciary and Appropriations committees recommended the amended bill; committee straw poll votes on the amendment were recorded as 10-0-1 in Judiciary. The floor adopted the committees' amendments and ordered third reading by voice vote.