California DMV restores more than half a million suspended driver licenses
The California Department of Motor Vehicles restored more than half a million driver licenses that were suspended as a result of the drivers’ failure to pay traffic fines or appear in court, according to a new court filing.
The move comes as the department complies with a ruling from California’s 1st District Court of Appeal in the case of Hernandez v. CA Department of Motor Vehicles.
In that case, first filed in 2016, Guillermo Hernandez
of Contra Costa County reported he had difficulty paying a 2013 traffic ticket for expired registration and failing to update his license with the DMV.
The unpaid ticket prevented him from being able to renew his driver’s license and impacted his ability to work and earn money to support his two kids, according to the Western Center on Law & Poverty, which was part of a coalition of groups representing Hernandez and other plaintiffs against the DM V.
“A driver’s license is essential to one’s economic security,” said Western Center on Law & Poverty attorney Rebecca Miller in a statement. “In the majority of cases, California suspended licenses of people who could not afford to pay their traffic tickets. The result did very little to make our roads safer, but it imposed a severe penalty on drivers with low incomes, making it harder for them to work and care for their families.”
The appeal court sided with Hernandez in June 2020. In November, the DMV reached a stipulated agreement with Hernandez’s attorneys that called on the state to clear most failure-to-appear license suspensions.
The new court filing by the DMV gives an accounting of how many licenses it restored. It says the DMV cleared 554,997 suspensions by December of last year.
The groups representing the plaintiffs said they want to see more changes to DMV policies.
For instance, drivers can still have their license suspended for failure to appear in court, even before the due date on their traffic citation. According to a court filing from the DMV, more than 600,000 failure to appear suspensions remain as of January 2021.
In addition, drivers who don’t go to court or pay their traffic tickets by the deadline are cited with a $300 civil assessment, which can increase the cost of a traffic ticket substantially.
Finally, California remains one of the most punitive states for suspending driver’s licenses of people who are in arrears for child support, the Western Center said in a statement.
“California should continue the moratorium on license suspensions for child support arrears until the process can be reformed,” said Michael Herald, Western Center legislative director, said in a statement. “Suspending licenses to reimburse the government for public benefits, for example, causes unnecessary harm to parents and stresses family relationships without sending any additional money to the children whose well-being the system is supposed to protect.”