The mission is to raise funds for unpaid services provided by children’s hospitals statewide. The collaboration involves the Disneyland Resort, the California Children’s Hospital Assn. and the Health Facilities Financing Authority overseen by the state treasurer’s office, according to a news release.

“In this time when Californians are struggling to get access to care, we are thrilled to help unlock new funding to help expand care, improve health outcomes and promote the well-being of children with serious and complex medical needs,” State Treasurer Fiona Ma said.

Next steps toward approval

The announcement begins the process of developing a Disney-themed tag and securing approval from the Department of Motor Vehicles to add to its special license plate program.

Getting the DMV’s OK requires a pre-order minimum of 7,500 license plates. The agency also needs to sign off on the design.

It’s unclear how long this process will take. A DMV representative could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Disney-themed plates, if approved, would be among several the DMV offers to fund charities or causes, including the Arts Council, Breast Cancer Awareness, the Lake Tahoe Conservancy, museums, firefighters and veterans.

What will the license plates fund

After deducting administrative fees, proceeds from the Disney plates would go toward services provided by hospitals and clinics that are not covered by insurance or a patient.

Earnings will be deposited into the program fund established in the State Treasury and awarded to 13 children’s hospitals, including:

• Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
• Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital
• Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford
• MemorialCare Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital Long Beach
• Rady Children’s Health Orange County
• Rady Children’s Health San Diego
• UC Davis Children’s Hospital
• UC Irvine Health Children’s Hospital
• UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital
• UC San Diego Health Children’s Hospital
• UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland
• UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco
• Valley Children’s Hospital

How much will these Disney-themes plates cost

Specialized plates cost $50 — or $103 for personalized versions — with an annual renewal fee of $40 or $83, respectively, in addition to standard vehicle registration fees.

How to pre-order

The California Health Facilities Financing Authority has launched a website for those interested in the Disney collaboration. Interested parties who fill out a form will receive updates on the program, including application details and opportunities to pre-order.

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    The California Department of Motor Vehicles announced April 28 that manufacturers will now be permitted to test large autonomous vehicles, including freight trucks, under a phased system that begins with human safety drivers and progresses to fully driverless operations.

    Under the updated regulations, companies must log significant testing miles before advancing. Light-duty vehicles are required to complete at least 50,000 miles at each stage, while heavy-duty vehicles must reach 500,000 miles. In addition, manufacturers must submit what the DMV describes as a “structured safety case,” demonstrating that their technology meets safety standards across hardware, software and real-world operations.

    The rules also tighten oversight. Law enforcement agencies will now be able to cite companies for traffic violations involving autonomous vehicles, a shift aimed at increasing accountability as more driverless systems enter public roadways.

    Emergency response coordination is another key focus. Companies operating autonomous vehicles must respond to first responders within 30 seconds, and local officials will have the authority to issue electronic geofencing orders that can redirect or remove vehicles from active emergency scenes.

    State officials say the changes are designed to strike a balance between innovation and safety. “California continues to lead the nation in the development and adoption of AV technology,” DMV Director Steve Gordon said in a statement, adding that the updated framework is intended to improve transparency and strengthen safeguards for the public.

    The regulations also give local authorities the ability to establish temporary restricted zones where autonomous vehicles are not allowed to operate. Companies that fail to comply could face penalties, including permit limitations or suspension.

    In a significant shift, the DMV is lifting its previous ban on autonomous vehicles weighing more than 10,000 pounds, clearing the way for self-driving freight operations across the state.

    Some portions of the new rules are already in effect, while others will roll out gradually over the coming months, according to the agency.

    The move follows a 2023 decision by Gov. Gavin Newsom to veto legislation that would have blocked heavy-duty autonomous vehicles from operating without drivers. At the time, Newsom argued that existing laws already gave the state sufficient authority to regulate the industry.

    “Autonomous vehicle technology is evolving,” the governor said in a prior statement, “and the DMV remains committed to keeping our rules current as that evolution continues.”

The post California Approves New Rules for Self-Driving Trucks and Autonomous Vehicles appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Though he didn’t provide many answers.

DMV Director Steve Gordon told lawmakers that he didn’t know if his agency had the ability to speed up license suspensions, didn’t know if he could get data for lawmakers on how often the agency takes action against dangerous drivers, and wasn’t familiar with numbers – that his agency provided CalMatters just last week – showing the DMV rarely investigates motorists who get in crashes seriously injuring or killing people.

Gordon did, however, assure lawmakers at various times that the seeming lack of details or direct response to questions was because the DMV’s operations are “complex,” “very inside baseball,” and “extremely nuanced.”

“I can follow up in detail with your office,” he told one senator.

Gordon’s grilling came at a state Senate informational hearing jointly held by the public safety and transportation committees. It appears to be the first such legislative hearing focused on DUIs, traffic laws and roadway fatalities in decades.

Sen. Dave Cortese, a Democrat from San Jose, cited CalMatters’ License to Kill series as the inspiration. The project has found that the state of California – led by the DMV – routinely allows dangerous drivers with horrifying histories to continue to get behind the wheel, where they go on to kill. The series also revealed that California has some of the nation’s weakest DUI laws and courts across the state failed to report vehicular homicide convictions to the DMV.

Legislators this session have so far introduced a dozen road safety bills aimed at addressing the issues and cracking down on dangerous driving. Tuesday’s hearing was an opportunity to press officials, researchers and advocates on these and other possible solutions. For close to four hours lawmakers talked to road safety and legal experts including a judge, a police chief, a prosecutor, a defense attorney and an advocate with Mothers Against Drunk Driving whose own son was killed.

But the senators saved their most pointed questions for the director of the DMV.

During an extended back-and-forth with Gordon, Cortese repeatedly asked why it was so hard for his staff to get basic data from the DMV as lawmakers weigh new DUI laws. Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat from Van Nuys, wanted to know how drivers with 15 offenses can keep their licenses. Sen. Catherine Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, questioned why the agency can move quickly on things like road tolls, but “puts up a wall” on potential life-saving measures, such as expanding in-car breathalyzers to block drunk driving.

“The DMV, when they feel it’s important, can act quickly. But then there are these other things that seem to be really stuck in molasses,” Blakespear said.

Gordon has avoided talking about the issue in the nearly year since the series launched, declining repeated interview requests and showing no signs publicly that it’s a top priority. In his first public comments, he often dodged questions and said the DMV’s work involves juggling multiple antiquated technology systems.

Gordon said the agency’s driver safety division was not his first priority when he was appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019, but that it has since emerged as an area of focus.

“I’ll admit that wasn’t the first team we attacked, because we were worried about lines and Real ID and a bunch of other things that were occurring,” Gordon said. In the three years since, he said the department has begun to update its processes but that “there’s still much more to do.”

Multiple lawmakers pressed Gordon on specific ways the DMV’s systems fail to hold deadly drivers accountable.

Menjivar, who last month proposed a bill to lengthen suspensions for reckless driving, zeroed in on drivers who “slipped through the cracks” while amassing horrifying histories of reckless driving.

Since state law says the DMV “may conduct an investigation” after a fatal crash, she asked why the department told CalMatters it opened only around 3,300 “negligent operator cases” from 2022 through 2024, when state data shows nearly 55,000 fatal or serious injury crashes. Would it help, she asked, if legislators changed the law to say that the DMV “shall” investigate major crashes?

“It’s not a question of a ‘shall’ or a ‘may,’” Gordon said, adding that he could not recall specific investigation numbers on the spot. “I believe we have the capacity we need to investigate every case that comes to us.”

Sen. Jesse Arreguín, an Oakland Democrat who chairs the Senate Public Safety Committee, focused on the case of Kostas Linardos, who drove a three-ton pickup truck at high speed into the back of a sedan in late 2022 after years of wracking up tickets for speeding and reckless driving.

“The case that was in CalMatters yesterday, you know, a toddler lost their life because we didn’t flag this earlier in the process and this person was allowed to drive,” Arreguín said. “We’re talking about people’s lives. That’s what we’re trying to protect here.”

Gordon told lawmakers that his agency is conducting a review to make sure the unit responsible for driver safety is getting all of the information on drivers that it needs to act from other parts of the agency. However, he offered no details and when approached by a CalMatters reporter as he left the hearing Gordon would only say, “we’re not doing press today,” before exiting the building.

In the hearing room, lawmakers continued to listen to horror stories.

Napa District Attorney Allison Haley recounted a recent case in her office where a driver had 13 DUIs. In another, she recalled, a driver killed two people but served virtually the same amount of time as if he’d killed one. Proposed legislation would address these issues, adding prison time for repeat DUI offenders and drivers who kill multiple victims in a crash.

“This isn’t Costco. We don’t want a system where you can kill one person and kill another person — or more — for free,” Haley said. “And that’s currently the situation that we have.”

Other witnesses at the hearing pushed back on the need for stronger criminal sentencing, focusing instead on ways to redesign roads or encourage more proactive substance abuse treatment. Ramping up jail time or other punishment, they argued, may have disproportionate impacts on first-time offenders or poor defendants.

For Tara Repka Flores, none of this is theoretical. She lived through the horror one day in 2019, when she got a call that Alec — a magnetic 13-year-old athlete, meal prepper and her beloved son — was run down on his way to school in Sutter County. He was hit by another school parent who was driving her own three kids to school drunk.

She urged the assembled senators to do absolutely everything in their power to try to save as many families as possible from a similar fate.

“Ignition interlock? Yes. Stronger sentencing? Yes. Accountability for hit and run drivers? Yes,” she said. “Yes to all of it. Stop other people from getting killed.”

The post ‘We’re talking about people’s lives:’ California lawmakers grill DMV director on deadly failures appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The state will notify everyone who needs to obtain a new REAL ID in January. All fees will be waived, and you may not even need to visit a DMV facility to make the change, the statement assures.

Steve Gordon, CA’s DMV Director, released a statement on the software issue, saying:

“We proactively reviewed our records, identified a legacy system issue from 2006, and are notifying impacted customers with clear guidance on how to maintain a valid California-issued credential,” Gordon stated. “For nearly 99% of REAL ID holders, no action is required. The DMV remains committed to serving all Californians and ensuring REAL ID credentials meet federal standards.”

Only a fraction of California drivers will be notified, approximately 1%, they said. “Approximately 99% of the REAL ID Holders in California do not need to take any action.”

The REAL ID has been required for anyone who wishes to fly in the United States or enter federal buildings, courthouses, and secure areas, including military bases.

The California DMV states it is fully compliant with federal REAL ID requirements and is taking steps to maintain compliance. “This was a limited technical issue involving the expiration date formatting in legacy software,” they said. This issue is unrelated to voting or voter registration, according to the department. It is also unrelated to ineligible people receiving REAL IDs.

“People without legal presence are not eligible for a REAL ID and were not issued one,” the department states. “This has no impact on non-REAL ID licenses.”

How will you be contacted?

The DMV will notify all 325,000 individuals of the actions they must take in the coming weeks to take immediate steps to ensure compliance with federal requirements. The IDs will be expedited, according to the DMV.

“The DMV will not call, text, or email you asking for your personal information or payment to address this issue,” they said. “If you need to verify DMV action, please call 1-800-777-0133.”

Those affected can handle the change online, they said.

“The DMV encourages customers to use its online services and other service channels for tasks such as eligible driver’s license and vehicle registration renewals. Customers can also use the Service Advisor on the DMV website to learn about options to complete DMV tasks,” the news release states.

To sign up for paperless vehicle registration and driver’s license renewal notices, sign in or create a secure online account at dmv.ca.gov to opt in.

The post Hundreds Of Thousands Forced To Get New CA REAL IDs: Here’s Why appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

California decided to revoke the licenses after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pressured the state to make sure immigrants who are in the country illegally aren’t granted the licenses. The Transportation Department has been prioritizing the issue ever since a truck driver who was not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people in August.

Duffy didn’t immediately comment on the delay. California officials are working to make sure the federal Transportation Department is satisfied with the reforms they have put in place. The state had planned to resume issuing commercial driver’s licenses in mid-December, but the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration blocked that.

“Commercial drivers are an important part of our economy — our supply chains don’t move, and our communities don’t stay connected without them,” said DMV Director Steve Gordon.

The Sikh Coalition, a national group defending the civil rights of Sikhs, and the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the California drivers. They said immigrant truck drivers were being unfairly targeted. The driver in the Florida crash and the driver in another fatal crash in California in October are both Sikhs.

Immigrants account for about 20% of all truck drivers, but these non-domiciled licenses immigrants can receive only represent about 5% of all commercial driver’s licenses or about 200,000 drivers. The Transportation Department also proposed new restrictions that would severely limit which noncitizens could get a license, but a court put the new rules on hold.

Mumeeth Kaur, the legal director of the Sikh Coalition, said this delay “is an important step towards alleviating the immediate threat that these drivers are facing to their lives and livelihoods.”

Duffy threatened to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding from California, Pennsylvania and Minnesota after audits found significant problems under the existing rules like commercial licenses being valid long after an immigrant truck driver’s work permit expired.

Trucking trade groups have praised the effort to get unqualified drivers who shouldn’t have licenses or can’t speak English off the road. They also applauded the Transportation Department’s moves to go after questionable commercial driver’s license schools.

The post California delays revoking 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses until March after immigrants sue appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

From now until June 27, just one Department of Motor Vehicles office in the Inland Empire will open an hour early every day to help meet the rush of residents scheduling appointments to get the new travel identification card.

The Rancho Cucamonga DMV, located at 8629 Hellman Ave., will open before its usual opening time to help those get those last-minute Real ID appointments in.

California officials are urging residents to get their Real IDs as soon as possible, especially if they plan to travel by air after May 7.

While there’s no penalty for missing the deadline, travelers without a Real ID — or another approved form of ID, like a passport — could face serious delays at airport security or not be able to travel at all.

“Passengers who present a state-issued identification that is not REAL ID compliant and who do not have another acceptable alternative (e.g., passport) can expect to face delays, additional screening and the possibility of not being permitted into the security checkpoint,” according to a recent news release from TSA.

Appointments are filling up fast, so if you haven’t started the process yet, now’s the time. Make an appointment here.

Across the state, 18 DMV offices are opening early to accommodate the rush through late June.

“We’re excited to offer Californians earlier hours this spring and summer,” stated DMV Director Steve Gordon. “These additional appointments will make it easier than ever to obtain a REAL ID.”

The post Still Need A Real ID? Here’s The Only IE DMV Offering Extended Hours appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

After nearly 45 years of the trusty old format—one number, three letters, three numbers (think: 1ABC234)—the California DMV is preparing for a historic switch-up. Starting next year, newly registered vehicles will sport a fresh sequence: three numbers, three letters and one number (something like 123ABC4).

Why now? Blame a perfect storm of fast-tracked car sales and a little geopolitical drama. Thanks to fears of soaring vehicle prices triggered by trade wars (yes, tariffs strike again), Californians have been snapping up new cars at record rates. The California New Car Dealers Association reported an 8.3% jump in new vehicle registrations in early 2025 compared to last year. That surge pushed the DMV’s plate inventory into the fast lane toward depletion—about a year earlier than expected.

For context, California’s current numbering system kicked off way back in 1980 with “1AAA000.” It was designed to crank out more than 158 million unique combinations, but 13.2 million cars (and counting) later, even that massive stockpile is drying up. As of now, plates are being issued in the “9UBA000–9UBZ999” range, racing steadily toward the finish line at “9ZZZ999.”

And no, you won’t suddenly be stuck without a plate. The DMV has the next system lined up and ready to roll. It’s a simple reshuffle, not a revolutionary redesign. (Though, seriously, can we please bring back those retro ’80s sunset plates already?)

In short: California’s car culture isn’t slowing down any time soon, but your next license plate might look just a little different.

The post California is running out of license plate numbers—here’s what happens next appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.