MADISON, Wis. (WSAU) — Governor Scott Walker signed 30 bills into law yesterday. Two of them were authored by Senator Jerry Petrowski of Marathon.
The Marathon Republican says one of the new laws will allow utility trucks servicing gas and electrical outages to travel on roads without getting a permit first. “When there are weight limits on the roads, like in spring with the spring thaw, this will allow those utility trucks to go out and fix lines and to get the power back on.”
Under the old law, utility companies needed a permit from local governments for many of their larger service trucks because they exceeded the posted road weight limits.
Petrowski says an electrical outage can become a health emergency, so this simplification was necessary. “This is important for a number of reasons. If there’s a power outage, it could be so early and there could be bad weather, it could be either because you need the heat running or you need the cooling running, and for health reasons, people need to have electricity, and rather than wait to get a permit, those trucks that are out there putting power back on, they need to go. They need to get the job done.”
Petrowski says like the previous law, utility companies can still be held liable for damage to roads. This law simply streamlines the process and saves valuable time when there is a utility emergency.
The other new law places limits on the use of GPS devices to track people and their vehicles to protect their privacy. The provision authored by Senator Jerry Petrowski of Marathon and Representative Adam Neylon of Pewaukee provides protections for victims from stalking and harassment.
Petrowski says the increasing ease of access to tracking technology prompted action to protect and empower victims of stalking so that they can end this invasion of their privacy. “This just puts some precautionary language in there to protect people, because it could be for stalking, it could be for a variety of things, and to make it punishable if you are putting a GPS device on somebody’s car without their knowledge.”
There are several exceptions for the new law for law enforcement and for parents keeping track of their minor children. “Law enforcement can still get a court order to do this. People that have a ward that their responsible for, they can still have the ability to do it, but the concern is about stalking, items like that.”
There is also an exemption allowing employers to use GPS devices to keep track of their fleet of vehicles.
Petrowski says the law had to catch up with technology to help protect people’s privacy. “I think because technology has just grown through the years, that this is really something that was needed to mainly protect the privacy of people that have a car.”
The GPS law covers all devices used to illegally track people without their knowledge, including cell phones. If the person being tracked did not give permission, it’s illegal unless it fits one of the exemptions.
(Listen to our interview with Senator Jerry Petrowski about these two laws on our website, here.)
