More than a million permits for disabled drivers and riders handed out by the California Department of Motor Vehicles over three years were questionably approved. That’s one of a host of problems a new state audit found with the DMV’s oversight of the blue placards.
State lawmakers requested the audit last year. It examined 100 applications for the disabled placards and found problems with more than 70 percent—mostly doctors didn’t put down enough information about their patients’ need for the them. Extrapolated out, the audit says, the DMV may have approved more than a third of its three million placards without enough information or valid signatures.
It also says thousands of currently-active permits likely belong to people who have died. Auditors identified nearly 26,000 placard holders in DMV's data that were age 100 or older.
"This number is significantly higher than the estimated 8,000 individuals that comprised California’s entire centenarian population as of 2014, indicating that DMV’s process for canceling placards of deceased individuals is inadequate."
The DMV also doesn’t limit how many times it’ll replace a lost placard—a couple people received more than 20 replacements in three years.
The DMV says it agrees with the results and is taking steps to tighten its oversight.
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