Roads safer with licensing of immigrants

Thousands of immigrants who can now drive legally under a new California law have lowered the rate of hit-and-run accidents throughout the state and improved traffic safety, Stanford analysts say.

More than 800,000 immigrants in the country without authorization have obtained California driver’s licenses since the controversial law took effect two years ago over the objection of critics who said it would raise the risk of traffic accidents.

But a statistical study by specialists at Stanford’s Immigration Policy Lab, conducted after the first 600,000 license holders were added to California’s driving population, showed neither

an increase in the state’s overall rate of vehicle accidents per capita nor in the rates of fatal accidents.

The researchers also discovered that the number of hit-andrun accidents involving unauthorized immigrants has fallen. Because these drivers are now likely to be insured as part of obtaining their licenses, they are less likely to flee from accidents, to trigger dangerous highway congestion or create fresh emergencies for ambulances and the Highway Patrol, the Stanford analysis found.

“The big takeaway of our study is that when people can drive to work and take their kids to school legally, everyone is safer, and when hit-and-run accidents decline, all drivers are better off," said Jens Hainmueller, a Stanford political science professor and co-director of the Immigration Policy Lab.

And with many of those drivers now insured, California motorists are saving more than $17 million a year in out-ofpocket costs and lowered premiums, the study found.

“Not only are all drivers safer because of the law, but accident victims saved millions of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses," added Duncan Lawrence, the lab’s executive director.

Details of the study were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a national scientific journal.

Luis Alejo, a Monterey County supervisor and former assemblyman who introduced the driver’s license law, AB60, in 2013, said the Stanford study proves the new law’s value.

“It is certainly improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of immigrant families who can now legally drive to work, to school or to the doctor without fear,” Alejo said. “But our state has also had a significant decline in hit-and-run accidents since the law's enactment, and that makes our roads safer for all Californians. I always knew AB60 would be a California success story.”

Allowing unauthorized immigrants to drive legally has long been a politically charged issue throughout the country, and so far only California, 11 other states and the District of Columbia have adopted laws to allow residents who can’t prove they are in the country legally to obtain licenses.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington D.C., organization that supports President Trump’s immigration policies, opposed AB60 and continues to fight efforts like it elsewhere.

Commenting on the study, David Ray, director of communications for the organization, said granting unauthorized immigrants “driver’s licenses makes them invisible to enforcement authorities by handing them the one document they most need to secure employment, transact business and, in many states, register to vote.

“State governments should be working to make it harder, not easier, for illegal aliens to put down roots in the U.S.”