NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY

1965 SESSION

 

 

CHAPTER 893

HOUSE BILL 1004

 

 

AN ACT TO AUTHORIZE CERTAIN COUNTIES TO REGULATE AMBULANCE SERVICE.

 

The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact:

Section 1. Whenever any board of county commissioners shall determine that the ambulance service or services being provided in the county are not adequate to serve the needs of the county properly, such board of county commissioners is authorized to exercise the powers herein set out.

Sec. 2. When such a determination is made, no person, partnership, firm, association, corporation, or incorporated municipality shall operate, or cause to be operated, any ambulance service in the county without first securing a franchise from the board of county commissioners.

Sec. 3. A board of county commissioners may issue a franchise to any person, firm, partnership, association, corporation, or incorporated municipality to operate an ambulance service in the county subject to the rules and regulations promulgated by said board as hereinafter authorized; provided, however, it shall be mandatory, upon request, to issue such franchise to any one operating an ambulance service in a county at the time when the board determines that the ambulance service being provided is inadequate.

Sec. 4. The board of county commissioners is authorized to prescribe the maximum number of ambulances authorized to be operated in the county; to fix a schedule of charges for ambulance services that may be lawfully imposed; to fix minimum limits for liability insurance coverage which operators shall be required to maintain; to prescribe specifications for any motor vehicle to qualify for use as an ambulance; to prescribe the supplies and equipment which ambulances must carry; to prescribe the educational and training qualifications which an ambulance driver or attendant must have in providing ambulance service; and to make all other reasonable rules and regulations to implement the provisions of this Act to the end that an adequate ambulance service may be provided in the county.

Sec. 5. The board of county commissioners is hereby authorized to expend funds necessary to insure that ample and proper ambulance services are furnished and to this end may use non-tax funds, or may levy a tax not exceeding five cents (5¢) on each one hundred dollars ($100.00) of assessed valuation of property for taxation, and the expenditure of funds to provide, or assist in providing, for adequate ambulance service in the county is hereby declared to be a necessary expense within the meaning of the provisions of the State Constitution.

Sec. 6. This Act shall apply only to Buncombe, Haywood and Madison Counties.

Sec. 7. All laws and clauses of laws in conflict with this Act are hereby repealed.

Sec. 8. This Act shall become effective upon its ratification.

In the General Assembly read three times and ratified, this the 9th day of June, 1965.