Anchorage - Following an inquiry from Senator Dave Donley (R-Anchorage), the Alaska Department of Administration should be revising the list of communities exempt from the Mandatory Insurance Law. Under Alaska Statute 28.22.011, motor vehicle owners are exempt from the insurance requirement if the roads in their community are not connected to the land-connected state highway system, and if the average daily traffic volume on all of the roads in the community is less than 499.

"When the Mandatory Insurance law was passed in 1993, an exemption to the law was added for isolated communities in Alaska with little vehicle traffic," said Donley. "The law requires that these communities be evaluated annually to determine if they are still eligible for exemption. This summer, while investigating a report of an uninsured automobile fatality in Kotzebue, my office discovered the last time this review was conducted was in 1994. Apparently, when the Division of Motor Vehicles moved from the Department of Public Safety to the Department of Administration, the statutorily required annual reports were discontinued."

At Donley's request, the Statewide Coordinator of Data compiled a list of exempt communities, and indicated whether or not they still meet the conditions for exemption. 12 communities, including Barrow and Kotzebue, appear to no longer be exempt from insurance requirements under the current statutes because local traffic exceeds the average daily limit. These findings were forwarded to the Division of Motor Vehicles. Senator Donley, who sponsored the existing mandatory automobile insurance law explained, "Mandatory automobile insurance is very important to protect injured victims in motor vehicle accidents and Alaskans in these rural communities with increased traffic deserve that protection."

In a letter to Donley, Mary Marshburn, Director of the Division of Motor Vehicles, said that her office has requested current traffic counts for these areas from the Department of Transportation, as well as information on the methodology used to collect the data. The division will then notify any communities who lose their exempt status, and will begin the process of educating local drivers on their new responsibilities under the Mandatory Insurance Law.

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