California lawmakers used a rare Senate hearing Tuesday to press the director of the state Department of Motor Vehicles on what they called deadly failures in the state’s road-safety system, focusing on DUI enforcement, investigations after crashes, and how the agency shares information with legislators.
The hearing, jointly held by the Senate public safety and transportation committees, came as lawmakers this session have introduced road-safety bills aimed at cracking down on dangerous driving. Sen. Dave Cortese, a Democrat from San Jose, said CalMatters’ License to Kill series inspired the hearing and pointed to reporting that linked DMV oversight to drivers with serious histories remaining licensed.
During the extended questioning, Gordon did not provide detailed answers, according to the account of the hearing. He told lawmakers he did not know whether the DMV could speed up license suspensions, did not know if he could get data on how often the DMV takes action against dangerous drivers, and said he was not familiar with numbers the state had provided to CalMatters just the previous week.
Gordon, meanwhile, repeatedly suggested that the lack of direct responses reflected the DMV’s internal complexity. At various points, he told senators that the agency’s work was “complex,” “very inside baseball,” and “extremely nuanced,” and he offered to follow up in detail with a senator’s office.
Lawmakers also described what they saw as a mismatch between the scale of serious crashes and what they said the DMV investigates. Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat from Van Nuys, asked how drivers with 15 offenses could keep their licenses, while Sen. Catherine Blakespear of Encinitas questioned why the DMV could act quickly on other matters but “puts up a wall” on potential life-saving measures, such as expanding in-car breathalyzers to help block drunk driving.
Gordon told senators that when the DMV views an issue as important, it can act quickly, but he offered limited specifics in response to the broader data and accountability questions. He said the driver safety division was not his first priority after being appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019, adding that the division’s focus emerged later and that the department has begun updating its processes while still saying more work remained.
Senators pressed for concrete steps to prevent dangerous drivers from “slipping through the cracks.” Menjivar, who last month proposed legislation to lengthen suspensions for reckless driving, asked why California law allows the DMV to “may conduct an investigation” after a fatal crash rather than requiring one, and she questioned whether a proposed shift from “may” to “shall” would change outcomes. Gordon responded that it was not a “shall” or “may” issue and said he could not recall specific investigation numbers on the spot, but added, “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 an example highlighted by CalMatters: the case of Kostas Linardos, who drove a pickup truck into the back of a sedan in late 2022 after years of speeding and reckless driving tickets. Arreguín said the CalMatters story involved a toddler who died and said the question was why the driver was allowed to keep driving despite earlier warning signs.
Gordon told lawmakers the DMV was reviewing whether the driver safety unit is getting all the information it needs from other parts of the agency, but he did not provide details at the hearing. After CalMatters approached him as he left, Gordon said, “we’re not doing press today,” before exiting.
Other witnesses described cases and argued over what remedies should follow, ranging from changes in sentencing to changes in roads and more proactive treatment for substance use. Napa District Attorney Allison Haley described a recent case involving a driver with 13 DUIs and another involving a driver who killed two people, saying proposed legislation would address repeat DUI offenders and drivers who kill multiple victims. She said, “This isn’t Costco. We don’t want a system where you can kill one person and kill another person — or more — for free,” and she added that “that’s currently the situation that we have.”
Tara Repka Flores, whose account was presented as personal, urged lawmakers to do “absolutely everything” to prevent similar tragedies after her son was killed in 2019 when a school parent she said was driving drunk ran down the child on his way to school. She told senators, “Ignition interlock? Yes. Stronger sentencing? Yes. Accountability for hit and run drivers? Yes,” and then said, “Yes to all of it. Stop other people from getting killed.”
The hearing underscored lawmakers’ push to secure answers on whether the DMV can act faster, collect and share basic information, and more aggressively hold dangerous drivers accountable—questions Gordon repeatedly directed as requiring follow-up or describing as part of broader operational complexity.