Senate to weigh changes to driver responsibility fees,

Driver responsibility program alternative is passed by House.

An alternative to the state’s despised “driver responsibility program,” a plan that would essen- tially spread the fiscal pain to everyone who gets a traf- fic ticket in Texas, is now in the Senate’s hands.

The House on Saturday passed House Bill 2068 on a 133-4 vote, and its spon- sor, state Rep. Larry Phil- lips, R-Sherman, said he would be talking Monday to potential Senate champions of the bill. Phillips said the candidates for carrying SB 2068 in the upper chamber include Senate Transporta- tion Committee chairman Robert Nichols, a Jacksonville Republican, and Sen. Boris Miles, D-Houston.

“We’re working with his office,” Phillips said of Miles. “He’s very eager to try to solve the dilemma that we’re in . ... I have confidence that there’s a real will in both chambers to try to get this resolved, so that makes me more hopeful.”

Phillips’ bill would elim- inate the driver responsi- bility program, a menu of heavy surcharges for various moving violations — most prominently, and expen- sively, driving while intoxicated — and for driving with- out insurance or a license. The program was created to generate money for the Texas Mobility Fund — toll roads, in other words — but the revenue from the fines was later redirected, half and half, to a fund for the state’s hospital trauma cen- ters and Texas government’s general fund.

The program has produced far less revenue than its originators projected, principally because about half of those assessed the surcharges don’t pay them, and it has been hugely unpopular with both the public and legislators. More than 2 million Texans have had their licenses revoked under the program.

But it has proven uniquely hard to eliminate, despite that distaste, because hospitals and state budget writ- ers have come to depend on the revenue. The program generated about $120 million last year.

HB 2068 would retain the large fines for driving drunk — $3,000 for a first offense, and double that for third or later convictions — and driving without insurance coverage. But the $750 fine for lacking insurance could be reduced to $125 if a tick- eted violator purchases car insurance within 60 days.

As for the large DWI fines, Phillips said judges and counties typically would allow them to be paid out over time. And he said it is much less confusing for those arrested and convicted to have it all administered by a judge and the court system, rather than through a faceless state program.

Even retaining the money from those fines, however, the state would fall short on revenue. So HB 2068 would increase from $30 to $50 the state’s portion of moving violation fines (a person would typically pay much more than that for the total ticket, includ- ing county fees and court costs). That aspect gener- ated some flak for Phillips during the Friday debate on HB 2068 when the bill was first up for debate.

“I wish there were an easier way, a less painful way,” Phillips said. “But this is going to be jubilee day for those stuck in the trap of the driver responsibility program. At the end of the day, we’re spreading the cost out.”

Some lawmakers simply wanted to repeal the driver responsibility program this session, and Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, is carrying a bill that would cut fees in half, sustaining the hospital funding but not the money that has been going to the general fund. But those bills have failed to get any momentum because of the lost revenue in a tight session for budget writers.