Transportation

Releasing of hunting dogs; state or local roadway; hunting, fishing, and trapping special license; penalty. Creates a Class 3 misdemeanor for the release of hunting dogs on or within 15 feet of the edge of a roadway owned or maintained by the Department of Transportation or a locality and provides that a second or subsequent offense is a Class 1 misdemeanor. The bill allows a court to prohibit any person who released hunting dogs on or within 15 feet of the edge of a roadway owned or maintained by the Department or locality from hunting, trapping, or fishing in the Commonwealth for a period of up to five years. The bill permits the stopping of a vehicle on a highway for the retrieval of a companion animal from a highway or area adjacent to a highway. The bill allows certain people such as a landowner and other people associated with such landowner, stockholder, tenant, or guest of the landowner in certain circumstances, to apply for a special license to hunt, fish, and trap exclusively on a landowner's property in lieu of other hunting, fishing, and trapping licenses required by state law.

School crossing zones; institutions of higher education. Expands the definition of "school crossing zone" to include areas surrounding schools where the presence of students reasonably requires a special warning to motorists and provides that the term "school" as it relates to a school crossing zone includes public institutions of higher education and nonprofit private institutions of higher education. Currently, the definition of "school crossing zone" includes only areas surrounding schools where the presence of children requires such warning. Existing provisions of law allowing photo speed monitoring devices to be installed in school crossing zones will apply to any location that meets the expanded definition.