Sen. Kruse has introduced SB 12 which sets up a process for a person to get a notation on their driver’s license indicating that the person uses a service animal. It doesn’t have a process for verifying that the person is disabled or the dog has any training – so it appears to be the honor system.
These state level service animal laws concern me mainly because they don’t seem to track the federal Americans with Disabilities Act laws. For example, there is no requirement that service animals have any particular credentials. The training requirements are very loose, “service animals are defined as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities.” A person can train their own animal, and I don’t believe there is any requirement that the training be competent or effective.
In any case, if a business owner saw that there was a service animal notation for Indiana driver’s licenses and decided to ask a person to show their driver’s license as a condition of admitting a service animal, the business would likely be in violation of the ADA.
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