Suspended-license program far from a solution
No one should lose their driver’s license because they can’t afford to pay a fine.
No one should have to choose between picking up their kids from daycare or getting to work and risking more fines or even incarceration.
Sadly, this is the reality for more than 1 million Ohioans. In 2017, nearly 1.1 million Ohioans had their driver’s licenses suspended. That’s about 12 percent of all people old enough to drive in Ohio, and 1 in 8 licensed drivers. Because people can rack up more than one suspension, the total active suspensions were more than 3.2 million, averaging 2.96 suspensions per driver.
How? Easy. Imagine you are working, but your income isn’t enough to make ends meet. You get pulled over and end up with a license suspension for driving without insurance. You can’t afford the reinstatement fee, but you also can’t afford to miss work, so you continue to drive and end up with more tickets. More fees. Eventually, you’re left with a debt that becomes insurmountable.
Last year, Ohio lawmakers woke up to this issue and passed House Bill 336, a six-month driver’slicense reinstatement-fee debt-reduction and waiver program. However, this amnesty program applies only to specific violations and includes steep eligibility requirements. To qualify, all court-ordered sanctions related to the eligible offense must be completed and the license must have been suspended for at least 18 months. To receive a reinstatement-fee waiver, the applicant also must provide proof of indigence in the form of a screen shot of case status from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services Benefits Self-service Portal.
While an amnesty program can certainly provide relief for some, it’s hard to say how many people are eligible for this program, and even more difficult to estimate how many people will take advantage of the opportunity since there is no requirement for the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to provide notice to all individuals with a suspended license.
Additionally, this program does not stem the tide of new driver’s-license suspensions that are dished out for offenses that have nothing to do with safety on our roads and highways. You can have your license suspended for failure to pay child support, dropping out of high school, failing to pay fines, missing a court hearing or failing to provide proof of insurance if you are one of the 5,400 randomly selected Ohioans each week who receives a letter requesting documentation. In fact, there are dozens of offenses that can result in a suspended driver’s license, many of which have nothing to do with driving.
In 2016, the largest number of license suspensions was for failure to provide proof of insurance (1.25 million). The second largest was for people who failed to pay fines or appear in court (nearly 500,000).
Suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid court fines or missing a court date unfairly punishes those without means perpetuating our two-tiered system of justice and is counterproductive. It is simply illogical to take away a person’s means of getting to work so they can earn money to pay their child support or court fines. In Ohio, access to a driver’s license is essential to get to work, school, child care, to respond to medical emergencies and so on. This is especially true in rural areas with no public transportation systems.
Ohioans deserve much bolder action from our legislators. Saddling people too poor to pay with more debt and the risk of jail time does nothing to make our roads safer and instead criminalizes poverty and destabilizes families and communities. It’s time to propose comprehensive reform to our broken driver’s-license suspension system.