Nothing new here. It happened at Ferguson, Missouri for decades putting the poor and vulnerable in a severe hardship. The police force payroll survived by the illegitimate tickets and the poverty cascade. People lost jobs and sent to prison for the greed of few.they didn’t need a large police force. But it was created at the cost of the poor people. The perverted system destroyed many lives. They were proven after the investigation pf DOJ. Alas, the same practice goes on very day in many areas. It isa travesty!
6
Our cars are registered under my name in order to keep my Hispanic husband from being profiled by a plate reader.
7
Only in America...
3
Yesterday, Memorial Day, driving the path of least tornadoes through Northwest Iowa, the long straight road I was on for nearly 12 miles ended at a long straight road perpendicular to it. The two were the only roads for miles and miles in this vast prairie valley. Before turning right, I paused at the stop sign, though obviously, the prairie was desolate. Or so I thought.
A hundred yards later, flashing lights and the reassuring broadcast of a police siren suggested I pull the car to the shoulder. "Oh," I thought, "It's the white guy from 'In the Heat of the Night', I'd recognize those sunglasses anywhere." He took my license, car registration, and insurance verification to his car, returning twenty minutes later to hand me the write-up. "Oh, officer, I'd be THRILLED to pay a $200 fine for 'not stopping fully at a stop sign.' After all, it's only 1/10 of my social security check. I can get by with nothing at all for three days. I ENJOY drinking a lot of water. Thank you for this opportunity, sir."
I drove the remaining 180 miles with a smile on my face, whistling "What a Wonderful World," content in the thought that I'd been relieved of money I might have spent frivolously. When I arrived home, there was a letter in my mailbox from the Fraternal Order of Police asking for a donation similar to the ones I had given every year for the last decade. "Let's see. Where's my checkbook?"
Would my story be better if I had to pay $13,000? Probably.
5
Nobody should feel sorry for Leah Jackson. She broke the law, chose not to pay the fine, got pulled over again and keep driving with a known suspension and continued to to get pulled over probably because she broke more laws. Regardless of her wealth, this is the typical sob story from irresponsible people that only obey what laws they choose. Let her take the bus.
12
While I understand the problem of poor people getting buried under traffic fines and losing their ability to drive, and therefore work, the example of the problem is not a good one. Why did Ms. Jackson get pulled over four times within a few months? Police don't know the driver of a car doesn't have a valid license until after they are pulled over for some other offense. When she hadn't paid the first ticket and her license was suspended, I would expect her to have driven like a saint. Few people, and only the worst drivers, get pulled over that often, and only the most masochistic risk drawing the attention of police officers when they are driving with their license suspended. Being pulled over that many times is not simply bad luck.
224
not true about being pulled over the way you describe. in Minnesota plate readers are common in most squad cars. you do not have to break a law or have a bulb out.
i know because it happened to me. I was stopped by airport police who told me the plate reader said the owner of the car had a suspended license.
the state had suspended my license by mistake because of a medical condition many years previous, that had since been resolved.
I had to go to court and provide the letter from my doctor that i no longer had to renew my medical information every four years.
amazingly the cop who stopped me let me leave the scene and drive home. I carry a copy of the letter in both vehicles i drive.
96
@me I question the legality of the stop based only on the owner of the car having a suspended license, as the officer does not know if the owner is driving unless the officer also has a description of the owner. In addition, while plates are sometimes run by police at random, it would be highly unusual for that to happen multiple times to the same vehicle within a few months unless the officer is familiar with the vehicle or driver.
9
@David Richards
Not to mention the tax of Driving while Black/Hispanic. I am seldom pulled over for anything, no matter HOW I drive. When I am, I am often successful in getting it dismissed in court. Only court costs to pay or Traffic School to attend.
My late brother was often harassed on the road, even when his car was in excellent repair and when he religiously drove the speed limit (in the days LONG before license plate readers). It was not too many years after he was getting stopped three times a week, when the NJ State Trooper Profiling scandal broke. He was being Profiled.
As it turns out, I am lily pink-white with smooth hair and my brother is a swarthy Italian with kinky-curly dark hair. His experience was typical of that shared by a good friend of mine who drives an expensive Mercedes... he keeps his DL, registration, and insurance card in a ziplock on his seat because he gets pulled over on the order of three times a week by CA Highway Patrol. He's a VP at a Fortune 500 company with an Ivy League education... and he's a dark skinned Hispanic.
But if you're poor? And you have something wrong with your license...
Good luck!
38
For 40 years I paid far more than my share of traffic fines, on average one per year, 95% for speeding. I could afford the fines but the insurance costs finally opened my eyes. I found a simple solution: I quit breaking the law. I suggest the same for people who can't afford the fines. It's not that complicated.
234
@Larry Bennett. I can't remember where I read it years ago but most driver commit some sort of moving violation each time they drive. It's almost impossible not to. When was the last time you saw everyone on the road obeying the speed limit. That means that enforcement becomes an arbitrary choice of the office. I would wager that the enforcement is weighted against people of color and is especially dire in towns such as Ferguson MO, where the city was financed off traffic fines. I'm not saying we shouldn't enforce the laws but let's save the effort for those who are a danger to themselves and others. Maybe we could use a bit more law enforcement effort to look for white collar crime.
99
@Larry Bennett: Complicated enough to take 40 years to open eyes. A procrastinator who could afford fines cannot in good faith give advice to those who cannot afford fines. Such advice misses the issue.
46
@Larry Bennett
I literally don't believe you. You probably don't count the speeding that is accepted by the police. You live near me. The accepted limit on the highways is Posted + 10 mph. I know from experience that the police won't bother me at 74-75 on I-88 (posted limit 65) but at 80-85 I'm taking a chance. At home on city streets speeding by about 5mph is accepted as normal and often the traffic moves at that speed. Police don't bother with that.
14
An acquaintance of mine was recently hit and injured by a car that turned a corner too fast and jumped a car and hit her while she was walking. Her young children were next to her and narrowly missed.
She'll make a full recovery fortunately, but this situation was a hair's width away from wiping out an entire family.
The driver was high on meth, and multiple traffic violations, and no insurance. She spent the night in jail, and then was released with NO charges against her. The rationale is that we're putting too many people in prison, the consequences will make the woman less able to seek appropriate treatment and rehabilitate.
Also, because she has no insurance and no money, my acquaintance has no recourse for recovering her medical bills.
Maybe if consequences had been more severe on her 4th or 5th serious moving violation, this situation would never have occurred.
Yes, we all occasionally break traffic laws, either intentionally or inadvertantly. But they aren't harmless violations--it's sheer luck that people aren't hurt. Eventually, someone DOES get hurt.
11
Many of these commenters that say “just follow the rules” apparently don’t have to worry about the crime of driving while black. You people make me sick.
48
@Paulie
Agree.
By the way, I live near or travel in some very rich areas and the traffic violations the people in BMW and high-end sports car commit is massive. Funny thing is, somehow they just never seem to get a ticket from the local cops.
8
@sjs
Actually, they do get the tickets. Believe me. A surprising number of my friends are like like this. I usually avoid being a passenger in their cars. They regard traffic tickets as minor nuisances, a kind of “driving tax”. They pay the tickets (and the higher insurance costs), which they can easily afford to do, and keep on going. That said, I do believe they get pulled over less than people of color driving exactly the same way. I remember being in a cab with a dark skinned driver that got pulled over. The driver got cited because his passengers (myself and my husband) were not wearing seat belts! Something I really don’t believe the officer could see until after he pulled us over. We felt terrible and gave the driver a big tip to cover the fine and then some. I really don’t think he would ever have been pulled over if he were light skinned. His driving was perfectly fine.
8
@sjs I knew a cop who didn't bother pulling over the high-end cars. He knew they would all get off in court and he didn't want to waste his time.
1
So is this another example of people who are unable to live within boundaries of behavior expecting special privilege? That wouldn't make for as better, safer society would it? What a bizarre article.
7
A ridiculous proposition. Poor people who are dangerous drivers should be above the road rules? Here are a couple of alternatives to consider:
1. Don't break the law. Driving rules aren't designed to oppress poor people, they are to keep the roads safe for all. If you incur lots of fines maybe you shouldn't have a license.
2. Tie fines to income. This will lessen the financial burden on the poor and increase it on the rich.
19
Those of you screeching about race might want to look at the Minneapolis Star Tribune article about Ms. Jackson. She's clearly white in the photo.
8
I see a lot of people missing the point of this opinion piece. "Do the crime, do the time," they say. Well, it's actually "do the crime, do the time, then some added time, and now we'll throw in some additional administrative overhead time." All until you've got nothing left.
It's a war on the poor by LE and the judicial system.
7
always an excuse Follow the rules
7
Ho-hum.
This is far down on the what we need to be concerned about.
I'd rather see attention to turned to how to make the typical traffic stop less confrontational.
1
I think most commenters here would agree that it’s lousy to be poor in America. In virtually every area—housing, education, health care, transportation—the poor are served less well than the affluent. These disparities have been getting worse not better.
Any unexpected costs are more burdensome for the poor, because they definitionally have less resources.
Considering the roads, it may be that the punishment and the crime are not well aligned in state traffic laws. They should scale the degree of punishment to the degree of offense. But with the potential for injury or worse that turning left on a red light causes, it would have to be among the more seriously punished offenses.
Poor people deserve decent treatment, but actual dangerous acts cannot be overlooked. That way lies the anarchic “war of each against each” on the roads. Perhaps community service would be a more humane punishment. But I can’t help wondering if it really would be, considering the time burdens and dependent care responsibilities of many of the poor.
Ultimately the problem is that too many people, rich and poor, are driving too much, too carelessly, on the roads of America, killing tens of thousands and injuring hundreds of thousands, every year. We need to build a society that doesn’t facilitate that.
3
@Walker 77 We should. And in the meantime, I guess the enforcement should fall disproportionately on poor people? If you actually care about the safety issues here, perhaps you should be advocating for these fines and fees to be scaled to income -- so that you can have a few extra thousand dollars that you needed for your mortgage going to a moving violation.
1
Sorry, but this is a very fake story about so called "systemic inequity".
Lots and lots of repetitive notices are sent out for fines, and payment schedules are also offered. If your job depends on driving, and yet you ignore settling a fine for more than 4 years, then this has nothing to do with "the system".
8
@Gabe I don't think you really understand what it means to be poor. Where do you imagine this money to be coming from? Do you think people are avoiding paying out of laziness? When you live paycheck to paycheck, there's no room for unexpected costs. Driving is necessary -- but so is rent, and so is insurance, and so is food.
4
I live in Portland, OR, where we've taken a "compassionate" approach to just about all non-violent transgressions. The result is that we're effectively not enforcing rules. There is very little consequence for driving without a license or insurance or with multiple violations on your record--and those are the same drivers who tend to cause really serious crashes.
Want to steal a car? Just tell police that you thought you had permission to borrow it, and you get off.
Property theft is basically accepted here. People don't bother making police reports b/c there are zero repercussions for any kind of shoplifting, stealing bikes, or any theft whatsoever.
I understand that a poor person will be more greatly impacted by a consequence than I would be. But you can't just stop doling out consequences--then we ALL suffer.
8
@Itsy
I have lived in affluent neighborhoods and neighborhoods where a large proportion of the people are lower income. Guess who gets victimized by crime more often? Hint, most burglars and armed robbers do not live in affluent neighborhoods.
3
Getting 4 traffic tickets within a couple of months? That's statistically impossible for your average safe driver. She's consistently flouting the traffic rules and is too irresponsible to make sure her tickets get paid. She's no victim.
9
@Max Yeah, it's not like cops are on the lookout for cars to pull over to increase their take from traffic tickets or anything...
4
A better example might be where an individual gets tagged with multiple violations in a single stop. For example, in addition to failure to obey a traffic signal, the individual also get ticketed for a non working tail light and an inspection sticker that expired a few days before.
When one factors in ticket costs and inevitable increases in insurance premiums the costs may exceed $400; the amount of money the Federal Reserve says forty percent of our citizens don’t have access to for an emergency.
2
The Most Recommended comment begins, "That system of suspending a license for non-payment of fees & fines is like a debtors' prison without walls."
Incorrect analogy: bad driving can and does kill people. Not paying off a debt does not do that.
6
If you don't impose fines or suspend licenses, what is the incentive to obey the law? The authors are arguing that poor people should have immunity from quasi-criminal sanctions that arise from traffic infractions. In California, we effectively decriminalized car burglaries by making them a misdemeanor. Not surprisingly, there has been an epidemic of scar break ins in San Francisco where police cannot arrest an offender. I don't want to be killed by a speeder or drunk driver who is driving freely because the law will not allow the authorities to collect a fine or suspend a license.
11
@Christopher Rillo What's the incentive for rich people to follow these laws? After all, a $400 dollar ticket is nothing compared to the money they just dropped on cocaine before getting behind the driver's seat.
1
@spiderbee but wealthy people are virtuous! THey are like orchids! They don't do *cocaine*!
1
After being rear-ended by an immigrant with no car insurance at all but a valid DMV license, I call it a license to rob.
18
Sorry, no sympathy for the subject of this article. Living in S FLA, we have a large number of uninsured drivers who completely ignore the law since because there's no enforcement and no penalties. Meanwhile our accidents, deaths and insurance rates skyrocket. I'm all for enforcement focused on improving safety. Driving is a privilege, not a right.
11
She got pulled over 4 times? She needs to change her driving habits and stop blaming the"system".
11
LOL, sympathy for the idiot driver is misplaced. Notice that after the first ticket, she had "a few months" before the second ticket, AND she had a job during those months, MORE THAN ENOUGH TIME to pay the first ticket.
And then she keep getting stopped by the cops. Why? Because they recognize her face. NO, because she continues doing MOVING VIOLATIONS. Which cause injuries and deaths, OFTEN TO INNOCENT BYSTANDERS.
This fool that keeps getting stopped for moving violations should not be driving at all.
Let her take the bus for a few years until - perhaps - she grows up and is responsible to the community.
9
"Driver’s license suspensions should be imposed for the limited purpose of keeping unsafe drivers off the road, not as a debt-collection mechanism."
I was skeptical when I first started reading this article, but this says it all. People who are dangerous drivers will have their licenses revoked for driving dangerously. But revoking someone's license because they can't pay a fine has nothing to do with safety. The state has plenty of mechanisms to collect debts without suspending poor people's licenses.
4
Without revenue from citations and parking tickets my city would be bankrupt. Just consider it an additional tax burden and pay.
She turned left on a RED light. She could have killed someone.
NO ACLU lawyers, this doesn't "happen to many people,"
because most people are responsible drivers and choose to drive safely. Also, 83% of Americans do not drive multiple trips a week.
According to fhwa.gov 87% of the driving age population has a license.
6
The woman who failed to pay a $135 fine went months after employed without paying. At what point was she simply not paying because she felt no obligation to pay?
The infraction was a safety issue. She operated her vehicle in an unsafe manner. Does operating a vehicle unsafely not require a citation? Perhaps the standard should be that unless a driver is caught causing a collision, there should be not traffic citations.
It does seem to me that the principle being advocated by the attorneys is no enforcement until harm is done in order to save all citizens from fines that could be difficult to pay and produce an economic hardship or just an economic consequence. After all, if poor people are not compelled to pay, the principle of equality before the law would also require not compelling the rich to pay.
6
There is a "behavioral economics" book called "Scarcity" you ought to read. You mistakenly ascribe a conscious determination by the driver in question not to pay, or that doing so is unnecesssary. It is obvious that the person was under continuous financial strain even after becoming employed, or at the very least, was suffering from the lingering effects of the earlier desparation,
In extreme scarcity psychology, people only pay out money to alleviate immediate, urgeng crisis: you pay the bare minimum to avoid phone or utility suspension, so as to still be able to buy groceries. Even if income goes up, many still struggle to change the psychology, which assumes financial desperation is just around the corner. There are probably degrees of PTSD involved, and a sense of chonic insecurity.
2
@Andrew Maltz
Pro bono legal representation or legal aid services could have helped deal with the court on her behalf. There are many other services and charities able to help people with small amounts like $135. So regardless of her psychological state of mind, she could have found a way to address this issue. If she was a disturbed as you describe, the court might just have forgiven the fine and demanded that she get proof from a psychiatrist that she could safely operate a motor vehicle.
2
The "Scarcity" book addresses this, as does my comment itself. Even in the best case scenario, the initial $135 fine sets up a severe gauntlet of challenges and hoops that "scarcity" psychology would struggle to navigate. Though that psychology ("Scarcity" writers emphasize "extremely limited bandwidth" for long range strategic behavior/planning, which my comment clearly points to) impairs finding and using the solutions and resources you point to, that mindset does not impair driving ability, at least not probably.
I'm tempted to say it's disingenuous on your part to assume somebody that focused on bills and keeping utilities running will find it manageable to get letters from psychologists or do the legal research you mention. Many will manage okay, but in a great many cases the financial predicament is too distracting to address the legal situation methodically, as you do from the comfort of your easy chair or the equivalent. The imposed necessity of researching these solutions amounts to a "poverty tax" and should be factored into the "sliding scale."
2
I live in NYC. Some years I got a parking ticket every hour for three hours during the middle of the night and then at 4 am the car was towed. Total cost $500 I complained but it did me no good.
Another time when I tried to renew my license I was told I had an outstanding ticket from 20 yrs. back. The thing is I renewed my license three times during that twenty year period and it never came up. Even the DMV could not reproduce the ticket to show me.
The whole system is corrupt and the people that work at the DMV could care less. It's just a great revenue source for the city.
4
re "...About 83 percent of Americans report that they regularly drive a car multiple times a week..."
Way too many people driving cars and not enough viable public transport. Not only does it penalize the poorest of the poor, but reduces the air quality for everyone.
Take the money from the Military budget and spend it on public transportation infrastructure.
7
Government should fund public services through general taxation, not regressive taxes. If we want to use traffic tickets as a legitimate
deterrent, they should be based on an individual's income. Absent that, they are quite simply, punitive to the poor.
5
first, SAT's.
then- driving violations.
what's next- a sliding scale of punishment for drug violations?
It is a sad situation, no denying. But having different set of laws for different classes is a slippery slope that's real dangerous.
Hows about monitoring the cops as to what type of citizens they give tickets to?
9
See my comment just below. Obviously, we disagree.
But what's troubling is the inconsistency in your own position. Do you disagree that with extreme disparities of wealth, there is always a "sliding scale" with fines to the poor, even when assesed at the same dollar amount, entail grossly disparate punishments? Even if you set aside the "real impact" standard, don't you agree that very often inability to pay results in the the initial fine being compounded by additional fees and penalties, in it is not unrealistic for a $100 fine turning into a $13,000 fine, just because the original infraction was combined with/"aggravated" by only recently securing employment? In most such cases the person would lose their job altogether and be permanently consigned to poverty or the margins of the economy. You don't think this grotesquely draconian, infringement of the Consitutional ban on "cruel and unusual punishment", a life being ruined because of a ticket? You are absolutely kidding yourself if you consider this analysis exaggerated or farfetched. It happens ALL THE TIME, every day. One shock to the finances (like a medical bill or hefty ticket) will permanently derail struggling individuals and families. Usually a chain reaction sets in: a bounced check, a bank fee, suspension of phone service, loss of a job... homelessness... even death. Though for some, death might be preferable to being trapped in that downward spiral, which can mean years-long slow strangulation.
2
Traffic fines should be based on income and wealth. If a poor person pays a week's wages, or 2% or 5% or 10% (or much more: it can be infinity % when the person has zero resources, negative net worth) of net worth, equity demands that it be the same for the wealthy. For the punishment to be equal, the sting must be equal, pure and simple. Any other stance is basically a lie.
Realistically, the poor should have a community service option, and fines should should be computed as a percentage of income or resources beyond minimum wage or resources beyond $10,000.
Fair is fair. A semi-employed pauper paying the same amount for a traffic violation as a real estate mogul or hedge fund manager pays is fundamentally immoral, "cruel and unusual punishment" as prohibited by the Constitution, and an absurd joke. One is a virtual death sentence, the other doesn't even qualify as a hint of a tiny tap on the wrist.
6
There is actually a very simple solution that should satisfy those who insist on tough punishment as an indispensible deterrent to unsafe driving.
The technology to impose house arrest has been readily avaliable for decades. Simply impose home confinement (electronic ankle bracelets) for several nights per week, and entire weekends. And suspended television, internet and radio, lest this become a couch potato vacation. Point is, it shouldn't be hard to impose a punishment that doesnt jeopardize livelihoods.
Truth is, you could even set up school building detentions. Spend 3 Sundays in a classroom. This problem is being made more complicated than it really is, by far.
2
@Andrew Maltz
Finland has such a law in place. This from the NY Times archive:
But consider Reima Kuisla, a Finnish businessman. He was recently fined 54,024 euros (about $58,000) for traveling a modest, if illegal, 64 miles per hour in a 50 m.p.h. zone
That $58,000 fine for the businessman is undoubtedly milder than $13,000 for someone with poverty issues. If that creates cognitive dissonance for you, you're too steeped in upper middle class fantasy. Get some empathy.
By the way, all my comments (about 5) expressing sympathy for the driver's plight only focus on the financial aspects of this situation, ignoring the admittedly overlooked (on my part) SERIES of moving violations involved, which in my opinion, very possibly/likely justify a suspended license. Consistently (in fact, any) dangerous driving has to be stopped/prevented, absolutely.
But if the fines are in effect punishing the poverty or financial insecurity itself, that is a very egregious injustice.
1
"Driver's license suspensions are to keep unsafe drivers off the road"--what do you call making a left turn on a red light?
10
There are places, where two one-way streets intersect, that such turns are allowed but only after a full stop and then proceeding safely.
@From Where I Sit
Entering an intersection against a red light to make a left turn is illegal everywhere. Being in an intersection that turns red while one is waiting to make a safe left turn is a judgment call for the police. We cannot know the circumstances from this piece. However, unsafe driving is very common, and rarely are any unsafe drivers willing to admit that they were in the wrong. Unless they are forced to accept responsibility the most unsafe drivers will not change their ways.
4
@Casual Observer
A quick search finds that 37 states and Puerto Rico allow left turns after a full stop at red lights when both streets are one way. As far as being in the intersection when the light turns red, that varies by state. NY prohibits entering an intersection if you cannot clear it EXCEPT when doing to to turn left. If you are still in the intersection when the light changes, you are required to safely complete the turn and other traffic is supposed to allow that.
Are you watching what is happening across the country in state legislatures? The simple fact is that the makers of the rules do not care about people.
4
While the equity issue is serious, it's disappointing that this piece doesn't engage at all with safety. Tickets are not about raising revenue, they're about discouraging unsafe behavior. Repeat offenders for incredibly dangerous behavior like speeding and running red lights should result in getting the driver off of the road.
5
This driver didn't run a red light. She was in the intersection waiting to turn as the light turned red. This happens all the time.
1
This is only one example of how municipal fees are used as a "tax" on poor people. Fines for traffic infractions are multiplied by court fees, penalties, interest etc. It's an un-legislated "tax" on the poor that's used to boost city and county revenues without increasing taxes. Those of means don't incur penalties and late fees because they pay their fines. It doesn't only happen for license suspensions.
@Mark
If the purpose is to establish a new revenue stream, then deriving it from people who cannot pay would be silly, wouldn't it.
1
@Casual Observer no, because they are the ones least able to fight it. Its the perfect solution. Pay up or lose your license/go to jail is the choice you make, so you pay up, even though it means dipping into your rent money.
Interesting article, but no alternative offered as a solution. So how would you enforce traffic safety? Jail time would be too severe. Community service? Three strikes and then a fine? Lower fines?
I don't want poor people to suffer unduly. However, I am guessing that Miss Jackson could have paid the $135 a few months later and simply didn't. Also, as has been pointed out, poor driving is a controllable factor. That said, we also know that black people are disproportionately singled out in traffic stops. So whatever happens, please let's not take the teeth out of stopping people for poor driving, but stop it from being usurious and applied unfairly. One suggestion is to make the driver repeat driver's ed. I, for one, am sick and tired of people seemingly being unable to use a turn signal.
6
You won't see nary a state in the "Deep South" stop doing this. Especially: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and (perhaps) Texas. This is the status quo in those states. Not only unconstitutional, it is (far too many times) racially motivated.
1
Hey @NYTimes! You should ask Gersh over @ NYCStreetsblog about what he thinks about taking people's driving privileges away and draconian enforcement of traffic laws! I'm sure he'll have something enlightening to say about this op-ed.
1
"Justice" is terrorist enterprise in the US.
Your licence should be suspended for DUI's, or multiple instances of excessive speed and dangerous driving, not for forgetting to pay a 50 dollar fine for something insignificant. That's just ridiculous.
1
The authors of this piece chose a poor example in Ms. Jackson, and it's hard for me to have sympathy for her. Questionable financial difficulties aside, the woman appears to be a careless, and perhaps reckless, driver. Her problem started when she turned left at a red light, and was compounded by being pulled over again multiple times within a short timespan. Basic traffic laws are pretty straightforward. Any sensible, responsible person with an outstanding unpaid ticket would take extra care to follow them. The fact that she didn't, or couldn't, is telling.
I like to say that one of the greatest acts of faith one can undertake is driving a car on public roads. The line between safety and serious injury, or death, is perilously thin, and you're always at the mercy of your fellow drivers (as they are of you). It's a serious public trust. And some people simply don't deserve to participate in it. Ms. Jackson strikes me as one of them. The fewer people like her that are on the road, the better for all of us. To the extent she finds herself behind the eight ball, otherwise, especially on account of societal disadvantages or discrimination, I sympathize with her.
7
Am I the only one who thinks there is nothing wrong with the spotlight story here? She made an unsafe choice, got a ticket, never paid it, and then continued driving on a suspended license. There are consequences for bad decisions or nobody would follow the law. I can understand a process for the poor to show that the standard fine is too great a burden and get it reduced but had she not driven poorly or paid her ticket she wouldn't have been in this situation.
7
A number of years ago, my license was suspended then reinstated after a required DMV visit. Someone did not process the information correctly, and as a result, my license still showed as suspended. The interesting part: I was pulled over on a busy interstate (for which the officer had to cross three lanes of traffic to get behind me), not because I driving unsafely, but solely because my license was suspended. While I expressed confusion over the license status, I asked the highway patrol officer how he knew. He pointed to his vehicle. Bristling with antennas and sensors, "we are scanning license plates the entire time we are on the highway." (I had to get a ride, and a later call to the DMV resolved the issue, along with later getting the ticket rescinded).
I present this situation to let you know that even if you are driving safely and within the rules of the road -- you can still be pulled if your license is suspended -- with the advanced tech employed by law enforcement.
2
What's described punishes the Poor and rewards the Rich. That's the way of the Right and it's wrong.
1
Because Republican-run municipalities refuse to increase real estate and other taxes they rely on traffic fines for income. Their police forces go on high alert looking for broken brake lights and other very minor infractions. Poor people get caught and end up with a mountain of debt. The 2014 protests in Fergurson, MO, weren't just about the police shooting Michael Brown. As NPR reported, "In 2013, the municipal court in Ferguson — a city of 21,135 people — issued 32,975 arrest warrants for nonviolent offenses, mostly driving violations."
2
Allow community service as an option for unpaid community debt and you solve the problem. This of course should be based on a few things:
A. Inability to pay the fine and a process by which this is verified.
B. That the litigant isn’t a “Sovereign Citizen” who doesn’t believe that the states can regulate the right to drive “Travel” with appropriate things like a license, registration and insurance.
C. And the litigant recognizes the courts jurisdiction to adjudicate the case.
1
Many robotic cops issue tickets as per well hidden mandate to meet that "quota" in every PD, County Sheriffs in America. Californians suspect of such practice. And let's not even get in to racially related police stops. They deny the existence of such mandate but they do not dispute that the ever increasing revenues have been welcomed news to tight City budgets never mind the severe punishment however unintentional the violations were. Many easily paid for their reward-kinda department picnics. I drove an all expense paid company car for 17 years. One year I incurred 3 moving violations in three months. All failure to stop at stop signs all were during working hours. My employer's insurance firm covering 15 company cars on the west coast refused to insure me anymore. The Owner came down and told me after feeding me a good breakfast that I was a lead foot. But did not want to lose me. So the insurance firm advised and I bought a rider off my home policy which my employer paid. The circumstances maybe immaterial but that employer should have helped the woman somehow and avoided added costs due to her financial hardship.
OK, so I consider myself a reasonably liberal person, but this one made my blood boil. You committed a traffic crime (a misdemeanor really, but a crime), your penalty is a fine. You ignore the fine because you're too poor to pay it. You get pulled over again and get another ticket and another and another.
You shouldn't be driving. You deserve $13K in tickets.
I'm all for leniency and second chances. But at some point people have to take responsibility for their mistakes. When you commit traffic crimes, you get consequences. Removing these consequences, however well intended, is a very bad idea.
Driving is a privilege, not a right.
10
@Will
Follow up to my comment: I understand that poor people would struggle to pay a $135 ticket. But here's the thing: paying a fine from the gov't is important. It is more important than getting your nails done, buying new shoes, going out to eat, etc. And I'm sure the lady in the first example indulged in at least one of these things. She was simply irresponsible. Now can the judge show her grace? Sure. But is she the victim of a racist class conspiracy? No, she is a victim of her own very bad decision making process.
1
Many of these laws are intended to be repressive and are administered in that manner. They keep the poor poor and in a heightened state of paranoia. When people are in that state of mind they are unable to focus on the policies or the policy makers who conspire to constantly exploiting them. From the comments you can see how easily many in the public are brainwashed into believing in the validity of this form of persecution. They have been socialized to see anyone who is accused of an offence as criminal because at the end of the day many of theses traffic citations are initially accusations but once the accused fail to show they are convicted. The only way to beat accusations is to show up in court and also sacrifice that whole day of work. It once took over a year to fight a citation in NYC traffic court, it was dismissed in less than 5 minutes before the administrative judge but required more than half my working day, luckily I am not paid by the hour.
It is apparent that so many people have been accustomed to living under repressive laws that they become accustomed. Many of those same people will also express dismay that people in North Korea or Iran put up with the conditions in their countries but don't realize that those who suffer are often those deemed to be the ones who deserve it for their "criminal" behavior.
1
@AC Persecution and brainwashing? She failed to pay a parking ticket then continued to drive poorly. Puh-lease.
1
Sorry to intrude with a fact but in every courtroom I've been in, when a judge stated the amount of the fine, a reasonable payment plan was always consistently and simultaneously offered- sometimes for as little as 5 bucks a week. There are often negotiable options available and sometimes as easy as checking the municipality's website.
People need to be responsible for every cent of the fine that they incur, regardless of their income. Stop devaluing people by robbing them of their sense of responsibility and self accountability.
7
The "just follow the rules" crowd is hopelessly out of touch. In the DC area it is not just probable, but likely, that you will be fined and have no idea that you have been fined, until you get pulled over.
The change is all of the automated eyes out there and the massive revenue potential of these automated systems. Cash strapped municipalities will eat whatever criticism they get on the administration of these systems because the payoff is so big. They will usually argue safety as the stated reason for the system, the actual reason is financial.
3
This Op-Ed raises important issues. We should decouple license suspensions from fees/fines but definitely tie them to traffic violations of which there are many cited in this article.
Unfortunately, the authors picked a wrong example to make their case. This person needs a very long suspension for endangering the lives of everyone else on the road and then claiming to be a victim herself. Whatever happened to individual responsibility?
8
According to other articles I've read about this situation, only $900 out of the 13K was actually traffic fines. The rest was due to huge increases in her car insurance costs, based on the number and type of tickets she received in such a short amount of time. I would imagine that anyone getting so many traffic tickets would see a spike in insurance premiums.
Honestly, $900 when you're getting stopped multiple times in a matter of months/weeks doesn't seem that unreasonable to me.
13
Driving dangerously? Parking in a place that you shouldn't? Leaning on your horn unnecessarily?
I'm sorry, but if you can't use your car properly, then you shouldn't have the right to drive a car.
35
@Mike The woman in the beginning of the story had 1 infraction for $135. She now owes over $13,000 because she kept getting pulled over for driving with a suspended license because she couldn't afford to pay the fines. It wasn't bad or illegal driving, Her crime was being poor and having to use her car to work. That is the point of the story. The story wasn't about letting bad drivers drive.
22
Or, her crime was continuing to drive with a suspended license.
6
@Mike
Seems like the entire point of this article (found right in the first paragraph) got completely past you.
16
Look at the laws, look at the fines, if one looks unfair or unreasonable the State should fix it. Do not get rid of accountability because some people are breaking the law repeatedly.
9
There are several non sequiturs and inconsistencies in this opinion piece.
1) We are informed that Ms. Jackson was employed as an office manager at the time she was cited...repeatedly. Yet the article on the Minnesota House website suggests she was employed as a "restaurant server and dance instructor". So, which is it?
2) Being a server and instructor would suggest hourly wages and, thus, a legitimate reason for not being able to spend "an entire day [in traffic court], only to get 12.5 seconds to present your case." However, a management position is usually salaried. She could have taken a vacation day to clear up the issue.
3) Despite an apparent sympathetic ear many of the commenters seem willing to offer, it is illegal (at least in my state) to even enter the intersection, unless one is able to clear it before the light turns red. If she were guilty, there would be no reason to attend traffic court; just pay the fine and get on with life.
4) It would appear that Ms Jackson is not a terribly good driver, as she was apparently stopped at least twice more within the span of four weeks! Unless LEO in Minnesota make it a practice of routinely running license plates for outstanding wants and warrants of registered owners, she was likely stopped for other traffic law violations. Perhaps she *needed* to lose her license.
Operating a motor vehicle is a privilege, not a right.
9
Not to blame the victim, but what kind of driver gets pulled over 4 times in several months?
12
Tough luck! As long as there are traffic laws to be obeyed, remember the Latin saying, "dura lex sed lex", grind the teeth, but pay up.
5
Don’t pay the fee, it gets doubled and that’s it...
Do it again and of course you get fined again.
You want to make it really fair?
Tie the fines to the offender’s income...
That $280 fine for a store clerk becomes $100k for the wealthy businessman...
$280 will serve as a lesson to someone who can ill afford it, to someone with deep pockets, it’s a joke.
Will this ever happen?
No.
Because the people who stand to lose the most are the people who pay our dear politicians real salaries and they like things just the way they are.
Sounds like a good campaign promise. Vote for me and I'll absolve everyone of their unpaid parking tickets!
4
Wait. She turned against a red light; putting other (legal) drivers at risk. She didn't pay the ticket--then, a few months later, ignoring the warning, did it again. Apparently, she felt that she didn't have to follow simple traffic rules.
Isn't this the definition of scofflaw? When did being a scofflaw something to ignore? This isn't jaywalking; this is driving without a valid license.
And she worked at a bank? Why should the manager keep the job? She seems somewhat unreliable.
12
This is so important. This is exactly the story of what happens to poor people- punished for being poor. And yes it absolutely it is a disgrace that tickets have become revenue raising and nothing, dressed up as road safety. It is part of the insincerity that makes people hate government.
4 tickets? She's either a horrible driver or the cops are targeting her. It's probably the latter.
1
@Aaron
The “former” is the first item in your list, while the latter is the second. Given your initial statement, you likely meant the “former”.
2
Interesting abstract theory, poor actual application in reality. Look at what just happened in Miami.
"Driver who killed 3 teens was exotic dancer with suspended license and alcohol smell, sources say"
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article230878914.html
8
Here's what everyone who gets a ticket and can't afford to pay it needs to do:
TAKE ACTION.
DO NOT PUT THE TICKET IN THE PILE OF BILLS.
DO NOT IGNORE THE TICKET.
Borrow the money if you have to and pay it, or plead not guilty, go to court and tell the judge (If you're found guilty) that you need time to pay. Payment plan, please. Everyone knows tickets stink, but the very worst thing you can do is ignore one. Jump on that ticket, take care of it and move it out of your life.
Also, don't speed, don't make improper turns, don't run red lights or stop signs, don't wobble all over the road, don't drive your car with a busted tail or brake light, don't drive without putting on your seat belt, don't smoke weed while you drive, and don't be a jerk to the cop when you get pulled over, if if he or she is a jerk.
7
@Zellickson And definitely, most certainly, don't be black and not do any of those things. And still get pulled over anyways.
1
@Kelly Traveler
This woman, while making a lot of excuses for not paying, doesn't even deny making the infractions. And we don't know that the cops were white. So this is what they mean when complaining that black people get pulled over? I knew it was overblown.
1
The solution would be a payment plan based on income. To all you “ just follow the rules” racists you obviously never committed the crime of driving while black.
@Paulie
A pet peeve can lead people to see it affecting everything that is annoying or unjust. The poor are not just people of color. They aren't even people who were not raised in affluent circumstances.
1
What's described in this op ed is an effective method to keep poor people and minorities from becoming uppity.
1
She made a left turn on red. That's not legal anywhere! She got a ticket and couldn't pay it. Then she got pulled over several more times. The article doesn't say why she was pulled over, was she making more left turn on red infractions? Driving is not a right. If you're an unsafe driver and keep getting tickets and not paying them, what is the state supposed to do?
While I agree that the justice system is harsher the poorer one is, that is not what is described by a person who keeps getting pulled over and ticketed and not paying.
I'd like to add that her insurance should be going up. SHE"S MAKING LEFT TURNS ON RED!
11
@zakb
I think the piece just doesn’t do a good job of describing what she actually did. When taking a left turn with a lot of traffic and no left turn arrow a common driving maneuver is to pull into the intersection when the light is green and then when the light is yellow continue the turn. It requires a fair amount of confidence and if the oncoming traffic doesn’t stop at the yellow light you might be forced to continue the turn after the light has turned red. It also takes a certain amount of judgement. If traffic is so backed up that there is no room for you to complete the turn you will end up blocking the intersection and have everybody mad at you. Notice that the infraction was for blocking traffic, not for turning on a red light.
What I don’t understand is why they didn’t come up with a payment plan for her when she said she couldn’t pay right away. I also don’t understand why she didn’t pay the ticket as soon as she got her first paycheck. The piece says it was a couple of months later that she was pulled over again. My guess is that some friend or relation told her that she didn’t need to worry about it and she believed them. Years ago I was with a boyfriend who walked me back to where my car was parked. It had a parking ticket. My handsome friend said he would take care of it. The idiot then proceeded to tear the ticket into little pieces and scatter them all over the road. It’s a common attitude.
1
Out of control traffic ticketing fines are only a small part of many government's policy of Policing For Profit.
What the article leaves out is police will ALWAYS look for an excuse to have your car towed and to go rummaging through your car.
Fortunately, I have never had my car towed. The few tickets I ever had were frivolous and I beat them.
3
It’s as hard for the issuing officer to find the time to appear in court as it is for you. Most of the time they never make it and the judgement tends to go in your favor regardless. It doesn’t happen often but being a cute little white female I usually get a talking to by the officer rather than a ticket. Doesn’t mean I didn’t deserve one.
1
I was a public defender in misdemeanor courts in my home county many years ago. It seemed half the docket on a given day were people charged with Driving on a Suspended License, Failure to Pay Fines and Costs, Contempt of Court, Failure to Appear (for a Show Cause hearing), all associated with a basic inability to pay.
I had numerous hearings because it required a showing of "willful failure" to convict, not mere inability to pay. I lost most because if the prosecutor could show that the defendant had any disposable income, no matter how little, the judge would convict. One lady was found guilty because her HUSBAND chewed tobacco! She had been ticketed originally for expired tags and no insurance (the two most common offenses for poor folk). Her fines were about $400. Three years later I was representing her and she now owed $3500, and had already paid $1500.
The point is this has been going on a long time, all over the country and has become totally ingrained in our system. Good luck turning that tide.
6
Suspending a driver's license should be done only to protect public safety, not the government's purse.
4
There are several core issues in this piece, and hidden in the many comments (one of which will be me), are some very valid points.
Ms. Jackson is one of the many in this country who are in a class that might be called "the working poor". These are those who are living paycheck to paycheck. Between rent, food, utilities, transportation and school/child costs, a mere $135 has hidden costs, connected by the act of going to pay the fine or even dispute the ticket. How many have been to traffic court, it can be an entire day, only to get 12.5 seconds to present your case. Some of those running the "court" are Administrative 'judges' with only basic civility towards those who come in. (But that is yet a horse of a different color). One loses a day's pay, plus maybe bus fare, sitter charges, (unless you wish to test your sanity by bringing the child/ren).
IF the statistic quoted from NJ (A 2011 study found that in New Jersey, 42 percent of drivers who lost their licenses also lost their jobs. ) is accurate, it seems the state is biting that hand that feeds it, and could better be served with a different plan.
Someone posted that she went thru the light, the original citation was for obstructing traffic, meaning she made the turn legally, but (due to others in front of her), couldn't complete the turn to allow other traffic to pass. That was the first piece of poor judgement on her part, but if you have ever commuted in NYC, you will see far worse then that.
5
The state could introduce a "fine options" program. Person's with low incomes truly interested in paying off their fines could do so by getting involved in community service. Those who have no interest in helping the community would see their fines continue to accumulate. This would help to weed out the "bad apples" who are continually issued fines due to continual dangerous driving practices and do not deserve having their fines forgiven.
2
It is a civil fine - so treat it as such. $135 ticket, if not paid by X date, is doubled, and that's it. It is a debt to the municipality, and the municipality files that $270 claim with your credit rating agency. Then when you want to buy a car, rent a car, or lease a car, you have to pay the $270 first.
6
Blame it on anti-tax Republicans. These municipalities cannot run on the revenues they have so they tell the police to go out and ticket, ticket, ticket.
Of course, the cops (who get carve outs in all the anti union legislation, heroes and all that), know to pull over the rusty and the old cars (i.e., the poor).
This is by design so the very wealthy can accumulate more and more. Middle class Republicans think they are beneficiaries, but in the end, they lose too. Only the ultra-rich flourish.
4
@Almighty Dollar Because, of course, you would never blame it on the person who broke the law, right? That's what everyone says when they drive like a daydreaming fool and get yanked over. "This is all about extorting the public" or, in your case "Republicans." "I have the right to disregard signs, run red lights, speed and weave in and out of traffic! IT'S NOT FAIR!"
4
Can this system be anything but intentional when you see multiple vehicles exceeding the speed limit, but one gets pulled over? This is a ticket lottery where the winner gets to make an extra contribution to the county’s tax ledger because politicians don’t have the guts to tell their constituents they need to raise taxes to pay for services.
Sounds to me like yet another good reason to support the rapid development of autonomous vehicles.
4
I live in Imperial County, California, the poorest in this State. a few years back I stopped by the Highway Patrol and ticketed for speeding (guilty).
The base fine (bail) on the ticket was listed as $120.00 but when I received my notice from the traffic court I was stunned to discover that the total fine "with assessments and fees" came to a little over $500.00.
A plethora of local agencies and/or programs were able to use my speeding ticket as a revenue source. They all wanted to be self-sustaining through the contributions of bad or unlucky drivers.
I was angry but at least I could afford to pay whereas most of the people around here most likely could not. There was a payment option but that had its own additional fees. This could wipe out a working-class person's budget for a month not to mention the increased insurance premiums for 3-5 years.
I view the assessments and fees as back-door regressive taxes. Our traffic courts should not be used as strawman tax collectors.
Also, I've learned over the years that it's much easier to get into "the system" than it is to get out.
9
@Rob Vukovic Indeed, supplemental “fees” and “assessments” often are outrageous, and I would like to see the ACLU take on that issue. The legislatures set the penalty for an infraction. It should not be constitutional to set one number as a penalty and then add other fees that the legislature perhaps has chosen to disguise as something other than an additional “penalty”, when that is exactly what they are. These fees often have the effect of requiring that the accused pay to be able to exercise their right to adjudication by a court, with the accusing officer present. How is that fair to anybody, rich or, especially, poor?
1
While I agree that taking away driving privileges for people who don't have the economic means to pay that fine doesn't make sense because they won't be able to go to work, there's no proposal for how to change the system. Essentially what the article is saying is that people shouldn't lose driving privileges if they don't pay their fines and they shouldn't be fined for not paying their fines. So...why wouldn't everybody just not pay their fines and break all the traffic laws that we have in place? If there're no consequences--no fines, no loss of driving privileges, etc--why wouldn't everyone just blow through red lights and stop signs and park in front of fire hydrants? Has anyone heard of what an alternative system would look like?
3
@thisisme You get points on your license for unsafe driving. And when you accumulate enough points, your license will (and should be, for safety reasons) suspended. And your debt does not go away. It's just that not being able to pay one ticket wouldn't trigger a suspension.
1
A lot of judgmental posts about the motorist used as an example here. Considering a New York City driver can run over and kill a pedestrian and NOT have their license suspended.
A lot of drivers shouldn't be. Cautious old folks and reckless hasty young (men) in enormous pick up trucks can sometimes be a fatal mix, or at least expensive ($5,000 in Damages for a minor fender bender, his fault); The individual automobile is such an essential part of our "Infrastructure" that we allow a LOT of marginal motorists. But that's another subject.
That system of suspending a license for non-payment of fees & fines is like a debtors' prison without walls. The old debtors' prison always made no sense since no one can pay what they owe when locked up. Neither can workers earn their wages and hope to pay their fines/fees unless they can get to work. One more example of the system skewed against the lower socio-economic classes.
351
@Anne-Marie Hislop US laws are still in the dark ages. used to be that every New Year there was a list of 'strange laws' still on the books in the various states. Somethings like: "People may not walk their peacocks in the middle of the street on alternate Wednesdays of months with a letter R." [S] But seriously, this escalating ticket penalty thing really is bad. Perhaps tickets should be x times a person's hourly earnings rate. [tRump would have to then disclose his tax return].
42
@Tamza
The problem discussed here is not the amount, it's the punishment. However, your suggestion has merit. I have heard of wealthy people to whom a $135 or $500 ticket is meaningless.
23
@Tamza
Canada has identical laws. In regards to bankruptcy laws and credit bureaus, they are far more draconian.
So comparatively speaking, the US laws are quite enlightened.
8
"Leah Jackson was ticketed for obstructing traffic...", "A few months later, she was pulled over...", well no kidding. This is not a good example to use for a legitimate story.
Her excuse for not paying the $135 ticket right away was she had started a new job as a retail MANAGER, and not received a paycheck. Okay. All the more reason to show for the court date and plea with the judge, or, to call the municipal court and arrange a payment schedule. Simple communication. She must be a young person.
She chose not to do anything; ignoring both the fine and the numerous letters warning her of impending license suspension if she did not contact the court or pay the fine(s).
So no surprise, "months later" she is pulled over again, after ignoring the original ticket, ignoring the letters, thinking it's going too go away (I am familiar with the feeling), she receives a ticket for driving while license suspended. Shouldn't that compel, at the least, a call or appearance at the municipal court? No. She continued to drive and received 2 additional tickets for the same offense. This is beginning to seem as an issue with an irresponsible driver: Leah Jackson. When does she become responsible for contacting the court?
My guess is after the $13,000 additional costs to her she will not make the same mistakes again. This will happen to anyone who CHOOSES to ignore a traffic ticket an the accompanying letters of warning. How does this constitute a systemic flaw?
15
@LaPine, agree with you on this point. I understand what NYT is trying to illustrate, but Ms. Jackson appears to have had ample opportunity to have sorted out the problem once it was brought to her attention (2nd traffic stop). I have sympathy for someone who may not have the money to pay for a ticket, but ignoring it/not doing anything about it, is not the way to handle this.
6
@LaPine
You ask the question, "How does this constitute a systemic flaw?" Because it's unreasonable and excessively punitive.
The purpose of traffic regulations - originally a ticket for obstructing traffic, in this case - is to promote and ensure safe driving.
From the account given in the story it appears that, in every other respect, Leah Jackson was a reasonably safe driver. Was she subsequently ticketed for other traffic violations, let alone serious traffic violations? No.
She became a victim of a government bureaucracy preoccupied, less with the public's safety and more with the imposition of harsh consequences for a "failure to comply" when it came to debt collection.
The point of the article is that these types of practices threaten public safety through the loss of driver's licenses and properly insured drivers. This is an instance where there is a divergence between the form of punishment and the public good.
The fact that something is legal does not mean that it properly serves the broader public interest. Hence the entire point of the article - change the law. This is not an advocacy of anarchism. It's the promotion of a more intelligent approach designed to achieve enhanced justice and safer roads.
1
@LaPine
$13,000.00?? Really?
1
It's interesting the number of commenters taking the position that "she broke the law and deserves whatever penalty she got". One person stated that she not only deserved to have her license suspended, but she should be jailed for not paying her fines. I suspect this attitude correlates with a preponderance of authoritarian personality traits, not a good thing for a democratic society such as ours purports to be. Sure, let's have harsher punishments for everything because...land of the free and all that.
4
@Jackie
I, just follow the rules and act like an adult.
Consequences, bad decisions have them.
4
@Jackie, Or, we've seen one too many accidents caused by an aggressive driver. In March, I was behind a motorcyclist who was hit and thrown. I can't tell you how relieved I was to find him still alive. The paramedics had pretty much the same reaction. I have no sympathy for terrible drivers. I want them off the road.
When paying that first parking ticket means, not paying your rent and risking eviction or not feeding your kids, what would you choose?
3
@Heidi I get it. But why continue to drive in a way that causes you to get more tickets? If you can't afford to pay these tickets, why not be more careful. I drive carefully: I make every stop, don't run red lights, follow speed limits, etc. I haven't received a ticket in more than 12 years. The fees may be unfair, but Ms. Jackson should be more careful.
4
@Heidi: Settlement before matters get out of control. Go to court for her appointed date. Stop being an ostrich and face the situation.
3
@Mighty Kasey Sure she should of driven carefully and not ignored the problem. However when the total fines total more than the annual take home of a minimum wage worker it is a big problem. Even a $20 fine hurts a low income worker, why not sets fines to incomes.
This is just another example of taking from the poor to give to the rich.
We are basically running this once great Nation on the cheap. We don't want to raise taxes necessary to fund our governments, especially local governments. So we raise traffic fines and parking fines and license fees to collect the basic funds needed to keep the lights on.
Nationally the republican party has refused to fund the infrastructure upgrades and repairs that are crucial to keeping the economy running and keeping people in good jobs.
If t rump and his republican party are still in power in 2021 we will see the quality of life and our democracy basically disappear into the sunset.
6
Why end such a brilliant practice, that has worked perfectly since the middle ages? [I'm being slightly ironic here]
In the dark ages, debtors used to be sent to debtors prison where they'd serve time, until they had paid off their debt, though very few ever did, because they obviously had no income while in prison, hence ......... well, you know!
I hope we'll finally stop disenfranchising the poor and maybe, just maybe, get out of the dark ages!!
4
Really?
This woman runs a red light, while turning left, which could have easily taken someone's life.
She ignores the ticket, when she could have easily appeared in court, told the judge she couldn't pay, and she would have gotten a reduction, a deferral or a payment plan option - all courts do that.
Then, she ignored all the notices that she received that her license would be suspended and was suspended.
Then she continues to drive, and continues to commit violations - that is why she "was caught 3 more times".
And she is a "manager" of a store. So, one can assume reasonable education/understanding of procedures.
She not only should have her license revoked for life, she should be doing time in jail for complete disregard of our laws.
16
@Baron95
Hey, Baron - she did not "ignore" the ticket - she couldn't afford it(. AND ps - you don't know how/why that left turn occurred. Did she jump the light? Was she distracted? Was it turning as she went through? (one can see your "note name" is entirely apropos.)
1
@Baron95 With a new job, she probably could not take off to go to court. But it can take 5 or 6 DUIs until someone is finally sent to jail.
1
Leah is a bad example of a real problem. It is a pity this article was published - a much better one could and should have been written about the devastating and disproportionate effects of court fines on the very poor.
The problem could be alleviated by court systems allowing those it fines to substitute community service for cash payments.
That would be helpful for the poor, but it would force all of us to recognize that our judicial system has to be funded by all taxpayers and not only by those it punishes.
9
@Max Davies: Hallelujah!!
The story about Leah says she had just started a new job and was unable to pay the ticket then and right away. But she was caught the second time "a few months later". What gives?
12
It sounds like she had "a few months" to pay the original ticket before being pulled over again, surely she received a pay check in that time?
Don't run reds I guess.
13
Classism, and racism. How the wealthy and powerful stay that way, by targeting the most vulnerable, keeping these people standing on one foot. Republicrooks promote this system. Vote them out, and never vote for them again--they will never change. There's too much moola to be made. My dad used to say: "there's a lot of money in poverty." He was right.
5
I have no way of knowing the share of responsibility of Ms. Jackson in this sad story, although it is likely that she might have made some better choices. However this does not change the thrust of the concept that people should not lose driving privileges solely due to debt. I am however struck by the massive lack of empathy exhibited in many of these posts. And I can only wonder if these come from the same people who continue to deride any charges made against Trump campaign officials as nothing but “process crimes”.
7
@Chuck Burton
I agree. Sadly, there seems to be little understanding of people who just cannot afford to pay a fine - maybe because they have to choose between paying the fine and feeding their children. Desperate people make desperate choices.
5
@Chuck Burton Driving is not a right. She lost her right to drive because she kept violating traffic laws. I'm tired of liberals turning poor people into helpless infants unable to make rational decisions. If you have a problem like this one, don't drive and if you do be extra careful on the road. It's not that difficult for most of us.
Here's a thought completely off to the side: Why do we need a driver's license to begin with?
Oh, I remember, to make sure that we're all qualified and fully competent to safely drive a car. Those of you who have driven anywhere in the last 10 minutes I'm sure are now rolling on the floor laughing. Has there a ever been a license, in all of history, that had less to do with assuring competence?
Of course, a driver's license, like so many other "certificates of competence" is little more than a revenue device. In this regard, suspension of that revenue device and then charging ever increasing fines to get it un-suspended is quite logical. It is also quite absurd, and profoundly unfair, but both these qualities are inherent in a system that pretends to be one thing, while actually being something completely different.
Some will say that if we did away with driver's licenses the roads would be filled with bad drivers, as if the licensing system we have in place now is doing the job. It is not. All it is doing is generating revenue. Police officers pull people over for violating driving rules, not because they can see into their wallets and purses and determine whether they have a suspended license.
I know this is extreme, and probably unreasonable, but it points to the problem we have of mis-directed effort and energy, expended to supposedly enforce one set of rules, while causing a whole new set of problems. This is governmental dysfunction at its core.
2
The most dangerous activity in driving is the use of a phone especially for texting but also for adjusting GPS. Why is this tolerated while relatively benign activities are crushed?
5
@s.chubin - solution: mandatory technology in new cars that disables your cell phone SMS and email capability while in the car with the engine running
Applaud the idea that debtors' prison (jail 'cause no bail) or license suspend 'cause unpaid fine are bad ideas. How 'bout a practical alternative that doesn't look like a free "get out of jail' card for ne'er do wells?
2
Let’s see, Leah Jackson broke the law and received a ticket she was unable to pay. Then she continued the break the law and received even more tickets she could not pay. Well, I guess she couldn’t get an advance on her salary or didn’t have anyone to borrow the money from to pay the original ticket, so breaking the law over and over again made some sort of sense. Maybe if she had thought the consequences through before continuing to break the law. The odds are she had some experience with this situation but had never been caught before.
14
@Philip
You are, unwittingly of course, quite correct in your sarcastic "guess". Many of the people that Leah represents in this article CAN'T "get an advance" on their salary, and DON'T have any well-off friends to borrow from. For many, especially in rural areas with no public transport and where people have to travel way too many miles to walk, yeah - continuing to break the law (translate: to continue to show up for work, to get to the nearest store, the Dr's office, ETC) "makes some sort of sense."
2
Keeping the poor in their place--poor--is certainly half the goal of this sort of police activity, but the other end of the story is finding a creative way to pay for government employees (like the police, judges, court officers, etc.) after tax cuts make it impossible to pay for government payrolls. The usual strategy is to tax the people who have the least power to effectively complain.
Considering that 40% of American's can't scrape together $400 and still pay their monthly bills means that a lot of people fall victim to this strategy.
5
This is a biased article, frankly, I have found the legal system flexible provided you stay with it and take responsibility for your actions. Ignoring it, is what causes problems.
15
This is like jailing parents for unpaid child support. Like putting someone in jail is good for the child. How's the support to be paid when you took money out of the child's mouth in legal fees and court costs? And that's IF the parent doesn't manage to lose their employment.
5
I can't recall the last time I was pulled over for a traffic infraction. Why is Leah Jackson being pulled over so many times in such a short timeframe? It sounds like she received four tickets in about three months - it sounds like her license should be suspended.
If Leah can't afford to pay the tickets she shouldn't be so careless with her driving. Since when is it legal to make a left-hand turn on a red light in the United States? This story should be about teaching poor people reasonability - if you can't afford a $135 ticket then be respectful to the rules and follow basic traffic laws!
It appears Leah drives recklessly and now has $13,000 in debt for being arrogant and thinking she was above the law. I feel sad for her but she caused this to herself.
15
@Social People making a left on a busy street often have to wait until oncoming traffic stops as the light turns yellow. Even if there's a left turn signal, it's possible to get stuck in an intersection when the car ahead of you stops. As the article says, it's something that happens to a lot of people. The subsequent tickets appear to have been just for driving a suspended license... in a small town (Otsego has a population of about 17,000) it's very possible that the police recognized her car and pulled her over for no other reason than the license issue.
5
@Social "teaching poor people responsibility?" What about those that can pay, but keep on "acting like they are above the law?
1
It's amazing how this story glosses over the fact that Ms. Jackson "could not pay the $135 fine right away"
What does "right away" mean? She could not pay it...when? In a week..a month? Ms. Jackson, knowing she needed to have a clean license to keep her job, did what, exactly, to take care of this fine? Did she go to court to fight the ticket, did she try to get a payment plan?
And then a "few months later" she was pulled over again. I'm guessing in the interim between her first ticket where she couldn't "pay right way" and this second infraction, she would have had a recurring paycheck where she could have begun to pay towards this fine (through a payment plan had she elected to do so), and keep her license intact and active, and effectively, kept her job.
But she did....nothing.
So now, let's get rid of financial penalties for traffic infractions and have no suspensions of licenses.
Nonsense.
10
@DB should people who cannot afford a ticket drive especially carefully and try just a bit harder not to get tickets? Uh ... yes.
Politicians and much of the public will heed the cries of excessive and costly regulation by businesses--even when reducing regulation imposes dangers to workers. This is what is happening here. The poor and others should be given a real hearing on their grievance of excessive fines and possibly unnecessary regulation.
It's been documented ("Suspect Citizens," a book based on NC traffic violations data) that blacks are twice as likely to get pulled over for traffic stops than whites. And black people are much more likely to be poor than whites. Put those two facts together and you have people who can't afford to pay traffic tickets being given more traffic tickets. And too often there are much more serious repercussions. Remember Sandra Bland? She was pulled over for failing to signal a lane change. Walter Scott? A broken brake light. Samuel DuBose? A missing front license plate. They all ended up dead. Every police department in the country needs to take a hard look at how their officers enforce the law.
7
@Green Pen They know how they're enforcing the law.
1
@Yves
Indeed and in many cases not very well.
1
A lot of pretty cold people on this thread.
5
@Alan Chaprack
Don't they! So glad they have everything figured out. And clearly NONE of them do anything WRONG ever. Yuck.
2
@Lisa
And they cannot image what it's like, not being able to pay a "small" fine of $150. Not much empathy here !!
3
@Alan Chaprack A lot of silly people defending reckless drivers here.
I got a fix-it ticket for my registration. I never was informed about my registration expiring because the DMV never sent me a notice because they screwed up the paperwork in the transfer of the car to me from my dead father. We have spent a day so far at the DMV getting the registration fixed. I have ot been able in two weeks to contact the courthouse to find out how to pay my notice. The issuing agency cannot tell me what to do. When I called the courthouse I am told I am number 14 in line on the phone and an hour later I’m still number 14. I suppose eventually I’ll have to take a day to go to the courthouse where I live, which is not a pleasant idea since it is in a bad area and full of, well you know, criminals. If I were not retired I would have to take time off of work for this. Something is wrong. In the state where I live, California, these kinds of things are not uncommon. The system is definitely set up to punish poor people. The last time I went there for the car transfer the website said that they accepted credit cards, but of course when I got there they only took checks which I don’t carry with me. I couldn’t afford to lose my space because otherwise I would’ve ended up parking miles away, so I went to a nearby liquor store where I had to pay fees to get cash out to take care of the problem. The only thing that went right that day was that the woman felt sorry for me and let me skip the line the second time. The system is broken.
5
What about moving toward a wealth-based system for setting fee amounts for moving violations?
3
@diane A number of years ago, Alaska adopted a law allowing for this -a day fines law - but it was never implemented and finally repealed. I'm not sure why, but I can imagine the problems with creating such a system, requiring proof of income, then facing all the tricks and games associated with disguising income and wealth. It would be a mini IRS, and become unwieldly. Or maybe the wealthier a person is, the more they want to stick it to the poor.
I can see not being able to come up with $135 right away, if one has not yet received one's first paycheck. However, not paying it at all is not an option. A few months later, it was still unpaid? Putting aside $10 a week for a few months would have had the fine paid off.
Driving is not a right, it is a privilege. It is earned by testing and retained by obeying the traffic laws. When one does not do so, there are penalties which must be paid to retain the privilege.
20
Seems to me like the problems are related to going after people for unpaid child support.
Maybe if you let men get financial abortions you might not have this issue, but uh no, we can never have women be responsible for their actions so that won't work clearly.
2
We know this is about revenue, but what about allowing community service in these cases? For someone poor or lower middle class to have hundreds in tickets lead to a spiral into welfare3 or worse just doesn't make good economic sense. Please no moralizing that it's your fault because you sped or made an illegal turn. Every!! every person has committed that crime and most have not been caught.
4
I think this case would be more sympathetic if we knew what she did to deal with the first ticket. Did she offer to pay a smaller amount until she had the rest? Did she request an extension on the time when she had to pay? Did she go to court to contest it? Or, as I suspect, did she just ignore it for the interim few months?
Perhaps the lesson is here is don't ignore matters hoping they'll go away, because they may turn into the perfect storm of problems.
9
@Shelly...you are correct, this sounds like a maturity issue, yes I’ve gotten tickets, and paid the price, when I was younger they were harder, my finances didn’t allow for such expenses, so...I went without, learned and drove better. Please, turning this into a issue other than, you broke the law, pay the price, only perpetuates the real issue at heart...ya broke the law! Too bad. Life is filled with consequences, learning to navigate around them is part of the solution, not changing the law to accommodate behavior? Sigh......
4
Equal protection is violated by policies that disproportionately punish people because they are poor.
ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the employer of the second author of this article, has made a name for itself getting legislation passed that ensures disproportionate impact.
I have to wonder what their end game is with promoting ideas as progressive as those outlined in this article.
3
Following the traffic laws is free.
Perhaps she should just become a better driver? I've been driving for nearly 40 years and have been pulled over 3 times. The point of the article is valid, but not in this persons case. They appear to be a threat to other drivers if they are getting stopped so often for traffic violations.
14
@IamMe This ignores the reality of profiling based on many factors; including an inability to afford repairs to the body, etc., which then create the 'appearance' of a potential 'bad egg' driving that is not reality.
More obvious is racial profiling and gender profiling (they are real). Keep in mind also that often times police will pull a car over without probable cause. In the last two months, I have been stopped twice in a 'check point' situation where I did not commit a traffic violation, yet I was stopped by police who were blocking the road and checking drivers licenses and plates randomly on random roads.
Also this presupposes that there is not a 'notice' about the suspended driver (there is). In Oregon they used to put zebra stripes on the registration tag of anyone whose license was suspended and could pull over that car at any time without a reason to check the drivers license.
Multiple tickets does NOT mean bad driving.
7
@Scott Reed "Multiple tickets does NOT mean bad driving." Nonsense. Multiple tickets,especially over a short period of time,is the very definition of bad driving. Keep these people off the road. We will all be safer,
3
As a wise person told me a long time ago, your actions are your priorities. I'm just thinking about that original $135. I remember a time when that would have been ruinous to me too. I also remember that I still managed to get my hair done. Your actions are your priorities.
10
@Anonymous
Wow. So getting your hair done was necessary for you to keep your job?
I suspect that at the time you refer to, you could actually live on your salary and put something aside for your hair. News Flash: wages have not kept up with inflation, and most people are one small expense away from disaster.
The woman was being fined repeatedly for the same offense, the fines multiplying until there was no hope for to pay. In some states, her car might have been impounded, she would have lost her job and been destitute. What is the societal benefit of this punishment?
It is hardly fitting to congratulate yourself for surviving the 1970s with your hair in place. In THIS era, in THIS United States, people are slipping into poverty, while their smug elders "remember when."
5
@D F
Wow. Wrong on all counts. And you missed my point entirely. I'm saying that I didn't act responsibly and that I should have paid expenses before getting my hair done.
14
@D F She was fined each time for deciding the law didn’t apply to her, repeatedly. Failure to respect the law should be fined heavy enough so that obeying the law becomes a priority.
This woman earned every ticket and fine when she made that left turn, knowing it was unsafe.
Respect the law and stand up for your actions.
We are quaranteed EQUALITY which includes equal responsibility for adhering to safety laws and paying the price for breaking and or ignoring them equally.
4
Millions of people seem to be able to drive on a regular basis and not violate traffic laws. Giving someone a pass because they can't pay the fine is surely not a good reason to make the laws even less a deterrent.
11
@minidictum The fines don't deter. That's the point. No one says, don't ticket and fine. It's about not losing one's license solely on the inability (or choice!) to not pay. And how that can spiral out of control.
1
Everyday law has been monetized.
Now it's how much can overpaid, overstaffed government officials get out of every infraction?
Maximizing profit on public services is not government: it's business.
The two are entirely different. Entirely.
6
And what should be done about the fines earned in the first place? Speedy or overparking produces tickets and fines.
1
Should say: speeding not speedy
The U,S. legal system is a complete joke. Judges routinely “find” arcane new laws and legal rights in the U.S. Constitution but seem to have lost all track of the 4th Amendment and its prohibition against illegal searches (domestic NSA surveillance) and seizures (civil asset forfeiture). The 13th amendment and its prohibition against debtors prisons likewise seem to have disappeared into some judicial black hole, never to be seen again.
5
the unfair nature of our traffic court system is not new. in 1973 I got pulled over for having a taillight out on the Eisenhower expressway in Chicago. my registration was expired as well..... what did in know? I was just a broke musician.
I went to court and I noticed all of the lawyers hanging around taking random clients, basically anyone that would pay for representation. I saw a white guy, about my age, get off Scot free for driving 120mph in a 35mph zone. I saw a black man with the same problem as mine go to jail. the difference? the kid could afford one of the court house lawyers and the black man could not. by the way? the judge was in on the entire scam. Chicago in the 70's? probably a nice little side hustle, old school.
4
Sure seems like she got pulled over a lot for essentially being a crummy driver. I mean, she got pulled over more times for minor driving mistakes in a couple of months than I have been pulled over in 25 years. Maybe her not having a license has some merit?
5
@Songwriter...Maybe she was only pulled over because of a traffic camera or a cop's scanner read her license plate number and showed her license was suspended. Cops don't need a reason (an actual violation) to pull drivers over, they make up excuses all of the time to meet their "ticket quota".
3
@Songwriter Maybe law enforcement needs to drop the quota? The QUOTA monetizes law enforcement.
2
@Songwriter Having a license revoked because of perpetual bad driving can be done via the point system. But to lose one's license just because of money is different.
I know that sometimes it's hard to read well.
1
I've begun to think that the number of lives made hellish by police and prosecutors is actually greater than the number of lives they save. A lot of people believe all the TV shows that make cops and prosecutors out to be heroes in search of the truth -- till they actually meet one, and find somebody who only cares whether they can shove you through the series of hoops that leads to a charge or conviction. They have zero interest in finding out what actually happened, or how anything they are doing will make the world a better place. As Tolstoy said, "No one who has not sat in prison knows what the state is like." Maybe the so-called libertarians who support a so-called minimal state -- that still has police and soldiers and prosecutors and judges -- should think about that.
3
@Jeff White you had me until the rip on libertarians. One of the underlying pillars of libertarian philosophy is the Non aggression principal (NAP), which basically means no victim no crime.
So this police state would be vastly smaller/nonexistent and the police wouldn't be the revenue generators they are now. Traffic violations wouldn't put people in debtors prison.
Also NAP puts most libertarians against most/all the wars. So there would be much less need for soldiers.
For prosecutors/judges, back to the NAP, since less things would be criminal (hey look at that, people would have liberty!) there would be fewer prosecutors/judges.
I think you're very mis-informed on libertarians.
1
@Dave No victim no crime? What about women who get men out of their and their children's lives after a breakup by calling 911? There's (supposedly) a victim there, and in many jurisdictions a zero-tolerance policy that leads to the arrest of the man without even speaking to him.
1
How about those photo speeding tickets. If you don't pay in two weeks, they double, then double again. If you try to argue inn court, they add points.
The photo speed traps are money grabs that hurt the poor most, and do nothing for their purported goal of improving safety.
5
@Liberty hound I got a red light violation in California on one of those cameras. I was able to mathematically prove that the stills did not match the video, which clearly had been altered because the acceleration necessary to get from one spot to the other in that amount of time would’ve been physically impossible. When I looked into it I was told that the judge who handles these things in our county never goes against the police. When I called to try to talk to the police they were at, of course and sympathetic. Even though the camera company has been Kicked out of many cities, they are still in this area. It’s all about making money.
4
@dj Putting traffic lights at an intersection is “all about making money?”
Ever been in a T-bone accident?
I’m fine with cameras watching over safety and I have even adjusted to being more cautious at intersections where I know I will be certainly caught. Sounds like they have achieved their safety purpose with me. The premise of your complaint is what?
@Ken Wall There is so little evidence that intersection cameras reduce accidents that Texas just made them illegal. You are parroting the theory that the camera companies use to justify them. The facts over time show they are ineffective.
They exist to make money, for both the jurisdiction and the camera companies. You should have heard some of the police departments whine about the loss of revenue that have gotten used to when this bill came up in the legislature.
2
After the Ferguson case, the state of Missouri moved to limit the share of income a municipality could get from fines. If there are abuses of this kind they should be stopped. If drivers are being wrongly ticketed, that should be corrected. I used to live in a then mostly white Bay Area suburb, and saw the police mostly stopping non-white drivers, which made me wonder.
Better transit and bicycle facilities would help some people.
But not enforcing traffic laws is not a good solution. There are already thousands of crashes causing injuries and deaths, with pedestrians and bicyclists being particularly vulnerable. There needs to be a way to hold drivers—all drivers—accountable. I’m usually with the ACLU, but driving dangerously on the public roads is not a civil liberty.
2
@Walker 77...Courts could wave fines in favor of community service...they could make extended payments available, so people could pay their fines over time, instead demanding cash in full right now...they could require traffic school for repeat offenders rather than fines...too many local governments use traffic violations to fund debt...
2
I wonder if payments are allowed. Of course, that ups the cost of collection, but if someone paid, say, $10 per week or $20/ month and they do so faithfully (questionable!) they could get the fine paid and not accumulative more punitive fines.
2
This doesn't just hurt the poor. For a family living paycheck-to-paycheck, a "typical" $500 ticket (where I live) for a minor (if not imaginary) traffic violation is an arbitrary hardship that means the family needs to do without something else. It might be a necessary car repair, a needed minor home repair, a child's Catholic school tuition (which non-Catholics incur, too), a kid's birthday party.. Tickets often are actually priced far above the "face value" once you add in associated "fees" that come with it. We need a much, much lower cap on what is charged, and not just for the poor.
It is well known but rarely admitted that many police jurisdictions impose ticket quota's on their officers. This results in excessive ticketing especially at the end of the month or quarter. Instead of a possible warning a ticket is issued instead to count towards the quota. With surveys showing 50% of Americans cannot meet a $400 unexpected expense it is easy to see how this could become a problem. License suspensions should only occur for major violations or repeated minor violations, and the courts should eliminate quotas and make a wide array of payment options available.
4
As a retired judge who has served in traffic court, I recognize the need to motivate compliance with traffic laws. However, there are so many more effective enforcement alternatives to suspending driving privileges (or worse, incarceration) when fines aren’t paid. How about credit for community service projects (of the violators choice) at $15/hour against the fine? How about an essay on safe driving with credit at $50/page. How about watching a video made by families of traffic accident victims about loss of their loved-ones? How about writing letters of support to elderly nursing home residents? If people really want offenders to reform, they must help connect them to the community they live in, and understand their actions’ effects on others, not just make them write a check. A judge can be a lot more effective if they will be more creative and thoughtful.
15
@V DicksonYou sound like a reasonable person. Unfortunately that type of person doesn’t exist in our traffic court. Come back!
3
You can also have your driving privileges "recalled" if someone reports you have a "cognitive", "consciousness", or other medical problem and they won't tell you why or who make what report.
I live in Silicon Valley. I got a fix-it ticket because I had an outdated insurance card (the insurance was current and if I had known I could have pulled out my phone and proven I had it). The next week I went to the clerk's office and waited i line for 2 hours and left because it would have been another 2 hours to get to the front of the line. I came back the next day and waited 2 hours and got to the clerk, who told me the cop had a year to enter the ticket into the system and that I had to check back every month. I did so for a couple of months, then I let it lapse for a month. The cop had entered the ticket and since I had missed the 30 day window my 'bail' had risen from $25 to $900. Yes, it went up 3600%. I called a ticket fixing lawyer and they are going to charge me $199, which will include the bail that they expect to be reduced to $25. It's an outrageous system designed to get the most money for the cops and lawyers at the expense of the average person.
10
Sounds like she needed drivers ed before getting a job and driving a car.
8
Years ago, we would take turns driving. More than once, my fellow worker was stopped for basically "driving while black". It happened more than once. I was sitting in the passenger seat witnessing it happen. When I went to renew insurance, the pother driver learned his license has ben suspended for not paying the fine. It cost over $600 to reinstate his license when he should never have been stopped in the first place.
3
Suspending someone's license because of an administrative failure is about as dumb as bureaucracy can get.
If someone's license is suspended because they put theirs or others' lives in danger, I am all for it.
But for failure to pay $135 fine? Get real. (And for those commenters who are salivating at the thought of a person's life being ruined over an unpaid fine...your resentment is showing.)
10
A tax on the poor by cowardly politicians.
I remember getting a parking ticket, a nuance now, but when I was just starting out - it was half my weekly grocery money.
3
In Las Vegas, where I had the displeasure of living for 2 years, they arrest you on the spot if you don't pay a traffic ticket on time. Not only do you get more tickets, but you have to miss the day of work and grind through a day in jail with felons and the like. Talk about trying to bury people.
3
It's called cruel and unusual punishment something our country excels in
4
She got a job as a manager and couldnt afford the 135$ fine within a month? She had a month to put aside 45$ a week thats it, to top it off she then proceeded to get several other tickets within that same timeframe before they suspended her license. I have sympathy for her in the sense that yea that sucks majorly to lose your license over such a small thing but seriously how do you get that many more tickets in such a timeframe without being a comepletely reckless driver
8
I’m not sure what you think this individual was making, but let’s assume it’s $10/hour, or $400 a week. Subtract out what your monthly expenses are and could you put aside enough money to pay this ticket?
4
@JWyly i make a little over 500 weekly working a full time job and driving for doordash i got a speeding ticket for 124$ i paid it and then paid another 20$ to avoid points going on my license i also got a red light ticket via camera i paid it within the month long time frame and it was 160$ my car insurance is 225 monthly if i can afford that budgeting so can she
2
There's a flip side to this issue, which this column ignores. While I have great sympathy for people facing license suspensions and agree that in many cases the punishment is disproportionate to the offense, any discussion of this problem must include a proposed solution to this related problem: how do you get people who don't pay tickets to actually obey traffic laws? I don't know how it is everywhere, but in Chicago a license suspension is the last step when a person has run up multiple violations and has ignored lesser penalties (e.g., fines). If Illinois does away with suspensions, that will provide relief for a lot of people, but in that case, why would they ever bother to follow the law?
5
@Vermoulian
What is the societal value of continuing to fine this woman for the same offense? It's like adding to a prison sentence while a person is out on bail. "Oh, you are out on bail - your two year sentence became three. Still out on bail, it's five."
An imperfect analogy, but the truth is that, because, in most jurisdictions, it is impossible to support community needs with taxes, fines and fees are how municipalities get by. The town wants a police force, but taxes won't pay for it, so the cops have ticket quotas.
This is what comes from running a community "like a business." It has to pay for itself.
The answer requires a systemic change beyond traffic court - such as, rethinking why we need so many municipalities, counties, districts and other governmental units? You can have a good police force, if the entire county shares the cost. Same for schools, EMTs, public works.
That, however, will not get a fair hearing until the current model crumbles completely.
1
@Vermoulian
I disagree on the fact that Illinois is lenient in these matters. I got a fix it ticket in Nov 18 for my registration being 2 days late. I got it fixed 1 days later and was told to take it to the court and show it was paid on my court date and it would be thrown out. However 2 weeks later I ended up having to have surgery, and moved from the Moline to Chicago so I could stay with family while I recovered. I paid $700 to the hospital for surgery and wiped out my savings. I was not paid during my leave. I was unable to pay the ticket at the time, missed my court date due to being 3 hours away, out of cash, and recovering from surgery. 30 days after the ticket was written my license was suspended. I called to try and straighten it out. It was a ticket that would have been thrown out had I been able to make my court date. I ended up paying almost $300 to fix it doing without food for days at a time and selling things I owned on craigslist. If I had continued to drive I could have been pulled over just for the suspended license had an officer been driving behind me and happened to run my plates. (I have had this happen before. My registration was current at that time and so was my sticker, it was a computer error. All I had to do was show where it was paid already. They can pull you over without you committing any other crime or driving infractions. They don't have to be mind readers. I think there should be some consideration of circumstances.
Trying to survive in this day without a car is like being on a cattle drive to Dodge City without a horse. Also, why don't we get rid of laws that punish people for behavior that is unrelated to their crime? Like suspending the drivers license of someone convicted of dealing drugs or preventing someone from voting who is convicted of a crime unrelated to a violation of election law? But that would mean dismantling the "New Jim Crow."
8
This article resonated with me. In 2010 my (now wife) and I went to Lambertville, NJ on a Sunday to look at antiques and put 3 quarters in the meter, none of which registered. We came back 15 minutes later and had a ticket; they'd recently installed new digital meters and we'd put in the quarters 5 minutes before the quarters were "needed" according to my research a year later. I paid the ticket online late one night before we moved from Hoboken to NYC. It was the perfect storm of disasters. Within 30 days I got my NY license, but a few months later I got pulled over in NJ for driving with a suspended license. I tracked the issue down to this unpaid parking ticket, called Lambertville who confirmed they'd had issues with their 3rd party online ticket vendor and no longer used them, but I still had to pay the ticket (plus penalties) then the ticket for driving with a suspended license. I found out that NJ non-payment notices do not get forwarded which was why I'd never known that the payment did not go through. Because I plead guilty to driving with a suspended license I then had to pay hundreds of dollars in penalties every year for 3-4 years (oh plus a license re-instatement fee at the end!), and when we went to buy our first house I had 2 years left to pay for penalties and the titling agency required me to pay the penalty in full. It really is a disaster. Thousands of dollars in penalties for a parking meter THAT WAS PAID IN THE FIRST PLACE.
38
@Josh O Why DO citizens have to put up with this nonsense?
4
@Mike McGuire It puts the lotion in the basket...or else it gets the hose again.
My sympathy ended quickly. I can understand not having $135 immediately after starting a new job. But the next ticket was several months later. Choosing to ignore consequences of bad behavior is not an excuse.
18
@Rick
Perhaps, sir, you should think a little on it. 'Bad behavior' is often better described by 'Desperate behavior'.
3
@Rick @James F Traynor Ms. Jackson had 26 traffic infractions with convictions, in 7 Minnesota counties from 1/18/12 (when she was 17) to 2/20/19. 3 of the infractions are driving with a suspended license. They're all accessible online. Her obstructing traffic ticket occurred on 1/30/13. I don't think her license was suspended until 2/20/15. She was ticketed for Intersection gridlock - Stop or block traffic on 10/9/14, and not given a suspended license ticket at that time, so presumably her license wasn't suspended then. In Minnesota, as in many other places, if you ask for a payment plan on a traffic ticket fine, and you have actual need, the judge will give you time to pay it. If you get a "Notice to pay or appear" on 3/4/13, and don't, then your license is put in jeopardy. I listed all of her infractions and dates in another post, but I don't think she's desperate when she's speeding, parking too close to fire hydrants, parking on the wrong side of the street during snow emergencies, exceeding parking meter time.
8
They are called Motor Vehicle Safety laws. There is no amended definition of safety due to income, the act is either safe or it as not.
If you can’t afford a traffic ticket you need to be way more cautious about making a left hand turn against the light. Making that illegal unsafe left was a conscience decision. Why didn’t the threat of a ticket deter this driver especially since she couldn’t afford it?
Why didn’t the driver show up in court to prevent a suspension instead of dismissing the law on her terms?
If you can’t afford a Camery and still have a reserve for broken tail lights maybe you need to buy a Carolla so you have money to keep it safe for everyone else.
Should there be income based fines for unsafe driving or will the poor be absolved of the requirement to be safe for everyone around them?
There are remedies already in place for the poor. Make the conscious decision to be safe and respect the law especially if can’t afford the fine.
11
@Ken Wall Sorry. No tickets for broken tail lights. Pull me over, tell me it's broken (since I don't have eyes back there to know) and send me on my way. With computers the police should know that I was pulled over for a tail light on X day and if pulled over again within a month, then I'm a scoff-law, but the next day means that I just haven't gotten to it yet, or have the money at this time. Somethings happen. And as far as safety is concerned, I'd prefer a cop pull someone over for failure to use a turn signal than a tail light. One is dangerous, the other is annoying (Don't drive so close)
2
@Ken Wall
Yes, the poor must know their place. Above all!
6
@newyorkerva To my knowledge most equipment violations are erased if you show the court you have corrected them. Having lights out is not a violation of decor or symmetry it’s less safe, which is why they made the laws, with fines, so they would be obeyed.
1
Wow! There are a lot of perfect people in the comments. I think that’s nice.
I did all my bad driving when I was younger and could still beg my parents for money if the fine was too high. Now I just don’t drive much.
The point missed, i believe, is that a single mistake (that a lot of American households can’t afford) can completely destroy your life. And for what? Being stopped for a suspended license and then let go, to literally continue to break the law, is ridiculous. Point made. She won’t do it again.
2
@Kate Ms. Jackson had 26 traffic infractions with convictions, in 7 Minnesota counties from 1/18/12 (when she was 17) to 2/20/19. 3 of the infractions are driving with a suspended license.
4
why did she keep getting tickets after the first one? she had to be violating traffic laws serially.
10
@john You're right! Minnesota cases are easily accessible online. Ms. Jackson is a recidivist. Speeding (1/18/12). running stop sign (4/12/12). Minor Consumption of Alcohol (3/6/13). Her obstructing traffic ticket came with a unregistered vehicle ticket (1/30/13). Speeding (4/1/13). Stopping/standing/parking where signs prohibit stopping (11/20/13). Speeding (11/21/13). Snow emergency parking (12/9/13; 1/3/14). Parking within 10 feet of a fire hydrant (8/5/14). Intersection gridlock - Stop or block traffic (10/9/14). Then she quickly got 3 driving after suspension tickets (2/23/15; 3/5/15; 3/6/15). More than 2 years after her initial trouble started, giving her plenty of time to take care of the outstanding tickets. Parking expired meter (10/27/15). Speeding (10/29/15). Expired parking meter (11/14/15; 10/10/16; 4/5/17). Speeding (5/11/16). Speeding (6/21/17). Unregistered vehicle (8/3/17). Expired parking meter (6/25/18). Improper snow emergency parking on wrong side of street (2/14/19; 2/20/19). Apparently she eventually got the license suspension resolved sometime between 3/6/15 and 10/29/15 because she wasn't cited for it when she got her speeding ticket. She is not a very sympathetic case. In Minnesota, if you cannot pay a ticket in full, courts are very accommodating with payment plans, but you have to ask and let them know you're not just ignoring the ticket. The problems get overwhelming when not addressed. The bulk of her penalties were likely waived.
16
@AB Were her penalties waived, or not? "Likely" wouldn't do her much good. Perhaps we could cut her a very small amount of slack on the expired parking meters? Most of us don't see that as criminal activity.
It bothers me when fines and the like are used as revenue enhancers.
5
Then you must be bothered a lot. When the local government want more money they increase traffic fines. Ask anyone in local government.
Just as no man should be above the law, no man should be under the law. Laws that unduly punish a class of people need to be rewritten. That's one of the reasons that we have continuing legislatures.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
1
Drivers Licenses are suspended when the driver doesn’t pay child support. If Ms Jackson didn’t make the illegal left turn but failed to pay child support, we would have the same end result.
Would people still be offended in this event?
20
@DB. Suspending a drivers license for not paying child support is absurd. If the person loses their job where will child support come from? There are other ways of collecting support.
22
@DB
The wealthy would never submit to having 10% of their before tax income sacrificed for surface mobility. They'd let their drivers become impoverished and just hire new ones, lickety-split. Or in Trump's case, threaten the arresting officer with a libel suit on the grounds that the officer was slandering him by insinuating that he had done something wrong and that he was suggesting therefore that he was the kind of person who would do something illegal. Government should be in the business of keeping people safe, not in the business of inflicting cruel and inhuman punishment on those who simply broke a traffic law. Or is a Presidential Pardon in the pipeline?
6
@DB
I would still be offended.
7
Agree with the premise of the article. These fees collected by these towns across the country to sustain operations should be taken off the books. I remember getting cited in Fort Lee, NJ. The police conveniently obstructed traffic with a series of cones to entrap drivers who failed to yield navigating morning GWB traffic. When I went to fight the ticket, the negotiating began with the DA. Their offer, all points will be eliminated if you paid the negotiated fine. All a money grab by corrupt local governments. As if taxes weren't high enough!
5
This is the first time in 40 years that I have taken exception to a NYT article.
Did Ms Jackson “turn left” at a red light or did she “run” a red light? So benign until it is not. Traffic violations should never, ever be trivialized. Just because Ms Jackson was fortunate enough not to have done any physical damage does not mean it should be treated dismissively.
Ms Jackson disregard for the law was flagrant. She got a ticket and not only did not pay it in a timely fashion, she pushed the boundaries of what are reasonable expectations.
Alter this scenario slightly. Ms Jackson was walking to her new job when a motorist made a turn after a light turned red and struck her. I suspect that Ms Jackson would have the reasonable expectation that the driver would be penalized in some fashion: Fines, court dates, insurance increases etc. She would be outraged if the motorist ignored the fines.
Driving is a privilege; not a right. The rules of the rode are clear and never open to interpretation. No one can pick and chose the laws they wish to obey and which to trivialize. Ms Jackson wants adult responsibilities (like driving) she should act accordingly.
If Ms. Jackson’s story was meant to garner my sympathy it did not. Implying victimhood to Ms Jackson is appalling.
12
@Leslie Driving is an economic necessity, not a "privilege," in most parts of the country.
2
@Leslie
I’ve seen lots of people “turn left at a red light” as it has just changed from yellow to red. I’m sure you must have also.
At the first read of the headline I was expecting something about appropriate fines for the super rich. At a favorite local restaurant we often see a Bentley, or occasionally a mere Mercedes, parking in a spot close to the door in what is intended to be a walkway. While a $13K parking ticket would be too much even for these folks, for a lot of somewhat more serious violations it would be just enough to catch their attention.
2
Cops love Trump. We lose.
2
They really do, which is hilarious because most cops are socialists. They are in employed by the government, have unions (why do government employees need unions, who is the bad owner, the state?), get healthcare for life, have pensions and get to retire at a very young age after 20 years or so. Great disability benefits as well. Better than living in Greece. Yet, heaven forbid anyone else gets those benefits. They actually support the party of more guns. Hard to believe.
6
@Billy Bobby I know, right! They are socialist, text book style.
1
Suspending licenses of drunk drivers is one thing, But suspending licenses of poor people just because they are too poor to fully and promptly pay a fine is shameful.
It is as dumb as debtor prisons were.
8
Don’t do the crime if you can’t pay the fine or do the time.
There is such a thing as free will.
6
Serious question: how does someone get pulled over 4 times in one month?
9
@Jstring
Modern police cars automatically scan license plates. It’s also possible that they are just looking for her.
If she’d broken other laws, they would’ve probably arrested her for the license.
1
@Jstring Once the license is suspended, the license plate is suspect if the cops run the plate. And if the community is small enough, the cops know the car.
2
@Jstring
Some cops are bullies. When you get on the radar of someone like that he will use his position (read, abuse his position) to try to make your life miserable. If you are a minority you will see rather more of this than if you are white. They seem to get off on being able to do this to people.
In my experience such cops tend to run in packs. If they see you they will stop you, they have the gun and the badge and you don't.
If you don't object you'll just go to jail. If you do object to this kind of abuse you can quite easily go to the morgue. Don't reach for your waistband, don't make any "furtive movements".
Welcome to America.
1
Did she ever go to court to develop a payment plan? The reporter only works the sympathy side of the story.
But seriously folks. $135 (including costs) for an illegal left turn? That's not even a criminal matter, it's a civil matter, yet it sounds like the state is turning traffic fines into a money machine. Bad!
6
@Gary Misch Actually it wasn’t $13k for the unsafe traffic violation. It became $13k because of the motorists disregard for the law. There has to be some teeth in the penalty or the Moror Vehicle SAFETY laws will be unsafely disregarded.
2
I agree. Shoulda paid the fine.
6
Turning left at a red light could have killed somebody. Yet, it is minimized in this article in order to make a point.
If people don't have a consequence for failure to pay fines, then why would they ever pay fines? They wouldn't really fines, then. Instead, they would be "suggestions."
11
by your reckoning, people who make illegal left turns ought to be give life without parole or at least 25 years to life. The law somehow doesn't see it that way. Instead, it (amazingly) recognizes that sometimes people make mistakes reading the plethora of confusing and often contradictory signs at so many intersections and, often after looking for other traffic and for pedestrians, determine that it is safe to make that left turn. Most especially in cases where no harm results from the error, it seems draconian to throw the book at the driver rather than point out their error and release them with a warning. Oh - that's what happens to most white drivers driving reasonably nice cars. Like me.
3
@d ascher
If someone can't figure out an intersection, then they shouldn't have a driver's license. If those signs confuse you, then maybe you should think about this.
When I see an "argument" where someone stretches another person point beyond all recognition ("people who make illegal left turns ought to be give life without parole") then it is clear that the "stretcher" has no real argument. Instead, they have to create what the other person said so they can then rant against what they have created.
Maybe you are and maybe you aren't, but I would venture a guess that most cyclists would disagree with you. Cyclists see traffic in a much more real way than motorists do. For example, they see how often traffic laws are violated--someone on a cell phone is not just an accident waiting to happen but is death waiting to happen.
We are cyclists. We see traffic violations nearly every ride we take (and we are GOOD at stopping at all stop signs, red lights, etc. ourselves when on our bikes). We never see traffic violations where there was any chance of misinterpretation or confusion because of traffic signs on the part of the driver. They do dangerous things because they believe they can. They are sloppy or just don't care that much.
Traffic fines serve a purpose of making driving much more orderly and safe. If all people got were warnings, then your life and ours and our grandchildren's would be in much more danger from 3000 pound vehicles traveling at 60 mph.
6
It seems to be a travesty. It is only going to get worse with the advent of artificial intelligence, speed cameras, traffic light cameras and even school bus cameras. It's a venue for these municipalities to make money. It is so hard to get to the court and when you get to the court for a minor offense you literally have two minutes to plead your case. Its basically a defacto added tax and although I am lucky enough to be able to afford it, I feel badly for the poor, indigent and sometimes semiliterate who are unable to manage not only the tickets but the nuances of paying them without penalty. I got a ticket once from a school bus camera with the school bus four lanes away that was passed with the flow of traffic after a back up was released and if I had stopped for seeing the school bus I would have caused a six car crash. There is no review and the camera just took picture after picture of about 30 cameras and sends us the link to the video. It's a total money making scam. Thanks NYT for bringing up this issue.
4
The entire operation is a money-grabbing scam to pay inflated salaries to grossly overweight court officers, long brain-dead minor court justices, and a myriad of useless, expensive employees of the police and courts. ALL with health insurance the public can only dream of and legacy pension costs that will bankrupt whole towns. If any of you contribute to this idiocy through paying taxes, fees or fines, you deserve your enslavement.
6
It is the avarice of the capitalist system that begins the systemic money grabbing of the poor. What ever happened to "Give me your poor, your tired, your weak"?
1
The point is exactly to bury the poor in debt. It helps to reassure the "haves" that the poor are lazy, poor and stupid...The "haves" don't want the poor to learn much in school, they prefer to continue ridiculing the poor for exercising poor judgment. An inflexible legal system is a key requisite - we can't have our judges deciding what's appropriate, they might exercise common sense and that would be too liberal...
3
@SW
Not feeling guilty about being a have and having an education,
Nice try,
1
There are two problems here: the automobile is a dangerous necessity that needs to be regulated; and the American public declines to fund a decent level of public transportation. Losing your car can mean losing your livelihood and your access to medical care. When I was teaching at a community college, the number one reason students were unable to finish their course of study was “car trouble”. Still, suggestions that driving be recognized as a right are terrifying. Consider the number of people who die in traffic accidents every day! Support public transportation, demand that developers pay for it when they increase urban sprawl. Set up sensible methods for fine collection and limit the use of traffic fine funds to driver education. Never enshrine driving as a right.
7
These Fines are Outrageous...here in California its terrible....500 for running a red light/ 250 for being 20 mph over the speed limit on a wide open 4 lane road with zero chance of hitting anything.....they should offer a pay on the spot to the officer that is HALF the ticket if you make it go thru the system.....and yes I agree drivers license should NOT be suspended because you did not pay its like taking away someone's tools and ability to work and earn money!
1
@There for the grace of A.I. goes I... 20 miles over the speed limit! What do you think the limits are created for? Sounds like your license should be revoked.
3
@There for the grace of A.I. goes I
You have to be kidding! Running
red lights is a very dangerous pastime that results in many accidents. Leave earlier, stop being so selfish. If you don’t run a red light you won’t be fined.
2
@IZ I can see a New York City resident , given wondering how someone could physically get up to 20 miles an hour over the speed limit. In much of the country, though, it's quite possible. This is particularly when the speed limit is set much lower than one would reasonably expect and isn't well posted -- which unexpectedly low speed limits tend not to be. By the way, no speeding tickets personally in recent decades.
1
Again, another story where the example case undermines the central argument. This woman got multiple tickets independently, not as a direct result of the original. She clearly is not a good driver. That’s the fault in her case, not the justice system. Please, oh please, authors— pick a good case study, how ‘bout it? I couldn’t help but laugh at the preposterousness of the story with this woman as the poster child.
13
Four citations within a month? Please. Spare me the lecture on injustice. Articles like this—rife with alarms of an unjust system-make a mockery of those instances where real injustice exists. $135 over “...a few months”? How many months? These authors just want to create an outrage where one doesn’t exist. I
14
@LB Several of those tickets beyond the first one were for having had the first one. The apparently superb interest in safe driving in Ostego, Minnesota (at least by the authorities) makes me look forward to driving there some day!
The Deep South states with their low income taxes are a a disgrace in this matter and the profits they make off the poor are appalling. South Carolina is just one example. Shameful Republican legislators looking out for the middle and upper classes and the richest. Disgusting reps there.
3
Commenting should be open on the climate science story.
Now that ticket writing has been privatized here in Chicago, the express lane to prisons is in full rush hour mode.
4
If you have the money to operate a car, then you can pay a $135 ticket. Most courts will give you a payment plan. But you can't blow off a ticket and act surprised when you get suspended. And a ticket is not something that "happens" to you. It is the product of your own behavior, as are the known consequences of ignoring responsibility for that behavior.
8
@mfh33 It's an article of faith int his comment and others that courts are oh-so-reasonable in offering you a payment plant. Has anybody reading this article actually accomplished this in real life?
@Mike McGuire
Is it? The alternative to fines are jail time and jail time is very expensive for municipalities.
Is the point that people are poor because they exhibit bad judgement, or that poor people exhibit bad judgement?
8
Leah Jackson was stopped again and again and again for various infractions. She probably should not be driving at all.
10
No surprise here. America works for the 1% only. It's a great country.
And if you're part of the 1%, laws don't apply to you.
1
Here in NYC the new hassle is tickets by camera, Speed cameras and red light cameras, miss the it in the mail and the price begins to escalate. Who ever gave these people the right to jack up fines in the first place the whole thing is racketeering by another name.
3
@Lonnie the Texas legislature (oxymoron alert!) just passed a bill outlawing red light cameras with just a few exemptions.
For once, they did something right.
1
I am a therapist and I see this all the time with my clients. They tell me these stories about how one ticket lead to another and another and before long the license is suspended for a couple of years! It’s ridiculous and another way this country and its united states penalize the poor. Please don’t get me started on how we treat our elderly population!
2
Someone should introduce Ms. Jackson to a little thing called personal responsibility. I suspect she has not been acquainted yet.
12
I’m such a geek. I follow all of our laws. It’s not difficult. Unless you feel you’re above the law or entitled to special consideration for various reasons.
10
Leah Jackson must be a pretty poor driver to get pulled over so often. It might be best for everyone else if she isn't driving.
7
Wealth-based suspensions are a clear abuse of power, affecting the poor disproportionately, adding injury to insult. This may be similar to having to pay bail to get out of jail, another shameless practice.
1
Steven Cohen, founder of SAC Capital settled insider trading charges by paying $1.8 billion, but got to keep the other $9B he made through illicit transactions. It’s said he learned to take chances as a teenager playing card games. Likewise, Michael Milken settled criminal charges paying $1B, but got to keep the other billions - he did go to a low security jail for a bit. How’s this relevant? If you’re poor, as illustrated in this essay, there’s no justice for you and any minor infraction will be the end of your life.
4
This is more than class warfare, it's repression.
I have to pay my fees and follow the law. Why can’t others?
6
Virginia, with their reckless driving misdemeanor/taken to jail for going more than 10 mph over the speed limit, is famous for this...
1
In my first week in LA in 1985, I got 10 parking tickets in Westwood, before I could get a student parking space at UCLA. At times, I had to sleep in my 1972 Lincoln Continental with SD plates, because I couldn't afford to make a 11-month deposit for housing. I also couldn't pay for the tickets and pay for gas for my guzzler, which I finally sold for $150. I ended up paying my tickets, but only years later, when a cop pulled me over in my (then) new Japanese car and told me there was a warrant out for my arrest.
It doesn't look like any of this has changed in 35 years. If anything, with greater surveillance and continued mutual suspicion between the police and the poor, and, of course, worsened inequality (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/opinion/income-inequality-upper-middle-class.html).
1
I agree with the opinions expressed in this column but annoyed that in this well-established digital age that the author neglects to, and the Times does not require, writers to provide links to support such claims as:
“A 2011 study found that in New Jersey, 42 percent of drivers who lost their licenses also lost their jobs.”
2
It's almost as though a person was being put in debtors prison.
1
“Speed Traps” are the way most poor communities in rural America make money to support their police forces, fire departments, and local mayors. We cannot take this necessary source of income away from them!
We could however, force these podunk places to warn drivers that the rural town you are about to enter has a much lower speed limit than the state road you are getting ready to leave AND we could maybe force them to actually post the new speed limit on an actual, easy-to-see road-sign!
2
In Finland, traffic fines are prorated according to income. Therefore, it's much more expensive for a wealthy person than a poor one. I recommend that the United States adopt this policy. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/world/europe/speeding-in-finland-can-cost-a-fortune-if-you-already-have-one.html
5
Why is the Times just waking up to this? I was jailed in 2011 for driving with a suspended license. I had no idea my license was suspended. All the notices and tickets were sent to the wrong address. Unfortunately it was cheaper plead guilty and to pay the fines than to hire a lawyer. Fortunately, I was able to pay. Many, mostly poor people of color aren't so lucky. Being jailed for a traffic ticket can destroy a person's life, make them lose their job, prevent them from paying their rent. It can send a person into a downward spiral. I'm glad you're bringing attention to this but where have the journalists been up until now?
1
Another way the poor of this country are treated so unfairly.
A LONG time ago I ran into a suspended license conundrum. It goes a little like this; while I was in the Marine Corps, I got very drunk one night and fell breaking my two front teeth in half. I was honest with the dentist and my CO - I was referred to alcohol rehab.
After a few weeks, I was discharged as a mis-referral (in the doctor's words "You're not an alcoholic, you're just young and stupid.")
I went on with life, got out of the Marines a couple of years later. One night just before heading to college, I was out with a girlfriend; she had a couple of drinks - I had water. The next morning we could not find our driver's licenses.
I went to DMV to get it replaced and at the bottom of the form there was a question: have you ever been admitted to an alcohol rehab facility?
I answered honestly - and was promptly told I needed a full physical (blood test, urinalysis, etc) to get a new copy. That was well over $1000 I did not have... so my licenses was suspended.
It took me three years and 250+ phone calls and letters with my state congressman to get it fixed; they ended up changing the state DMV form as a result, but not everyone has the time or money to make these phone calls.
We need better solutions to getting the working poor to and from work and we need better solutions to fines against the working poor.
114
@Scott Reed You may have been "young and stupid" once.... but you've recovered, Thank you for your efforts to correct the injustice you endured. We are all in your debt.... not because we have all suffered the same injustices, but because our unjust laws oppress the weakest in our midst. Thank you!!!
2
I believe every sentence in this article is prima facie true and obvious and lawmakers and enforcers failing (as I fear) to take heed of it ASAP will be dereliction of duty, if not worse.
Gosh. I guess poor people shouldn't have to pay traffic tickets, and god forbid that they should be asked to show up for court appearances.
10
Why was Ms. Jackson getting pulled over so much? I've driven daily for twenty years and gotten pulled-over exactly three times (and yes, I was speeding every time, and yes, I got a ticket all three times).
8
A simple (and fair) solution is to lower fines for those with limited means. Municipalities could more than make up the difference by raising fines for those for whom a $200 ticket is barely a slap on the wrist.
1
This is unfortunate, just of one of many systemic problems in the USA. Politicians and lobbyists don't represent poor, so what they need is made difficult at best and criminal at worst. Let's hope all the states reform the laws.
Some of these policies were put into place with full knowledge of the effects they could have. This is sadistic, and represents just another brick in the wall of sadism many parts of the country erect towards minorities and the poor.
"If you dont want something bad to happen to you, then just dont have done what you did" is one conception of justice, and it has often been found in the Bible. (If God can bar people from Heaven because they were born too early or in a part of the world the Gospel has not yet reached, then anything can be construed as just.) Women who get pregnant and want an abortion hear this reasoning, too.
Other times, the policy results from neglecting to put the pieces together. Governments want to raise money without raising taxes, and this is a way. Some people will manage to pay the fines and fees, because they know what happens if they dont, and others will have their lives and the results of hard work to better themselves crumble, and find themselves having to begin again from the starting square.
3
I've learned long ago that I would rather spend my money on other activities than paying fines. Totally up to you, it's not that these people are poor, it's that these people do not know how to drive.
5
The House of Representatives of Minnesota is controlled by the DFL
"The Minnesota DFL supports and elects leaders who embody the ideals and principles of the Democratic Party and the people of Minnesota"
So , how could , and can this happen ?
1
This country has become a debtors prison, one way or another.
Great article. Thank you for exposing another example of policing for profit. This practice should be systematically eliminated from all levels of government.
1
So if a driver can’t afford insurance, so what? Never get insurance, a ticket means nothing. Where I live, you get a ticket for driving without a license, and they tow your car. You need proof of insurance, a license, and to pay for the tow to get your car back. The ticket is the least of your worries. Where is driving without a license a ticket police let you drive away from?
6
I kept reading this column to the very end to see what the author was proposing as an alternative to fines for traffic violations. I got to the end of the article and there was nothing. Apparently her position is that if you're poor, you can't be punished, at all, for traffic violations. You can't be sent to jail and you can't be fined. This strikes me as ridiculous. Either come up with a better alternative or stop complaining about the fact that punishment is harsh and painful.
7
America, the home of the brave. "Land of the free" is gradually eroding.
Obey laws and there is no problem. If you can't do the time, etc.
7
In my city, you can go to jail for not having car insurance-and many do. This has always felt a bit like something out of Dickens to me-like the poorhouses of Victorian England.
1
In America, you may be honorable, law-abiding, and still be arrested, hand cuffed, perp-walked, held in a jail cell for hours, sexually harassed, photographed and fingerprinted -- and end up with a lifelong arrest record -- for a paperwork error. I know, because it happened to me.
I will never forget the sad trail of poverty-stricken, financially exploited, systemically abused, vulnerable souls I witnessed at a "traffic court" in one of the wealthiest, most picturesque towns in America. It is a shame awaiting, begging for exposure.
A world of for-profit debtors' prisons, cops trawling streets with tech license-plate scans for paperwork "scofflaws," and a money-laundering criminal for a president. This is what has become of the US Constitution.
Thank you, NYTimes, for taking it on.
3
$135 is how many hours at minimum wage in the US?
In three months she couldn't get the money together. I'll bet she had plenty of Starbucks on the way into work.
7
See the judge at first ticket and arrange payment. Take driving lessons.
4
I think a lot of low income folks who get these tickets view them as long term debt...in other words, no one is coming after me right away, so I'll deal with it if and when the police make a stink. So utilities, rent, food, and even discretionary spending takes priority over that citation, and the more time elapses, the safer I feel (as in, I'm in the free and clear). But that ends up just digging a deeper hole.
3
The story's sub-head says, "Suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid fees buries poor people in debt."
My sympathy is tempered by the fact that bad driving buries people, including many who are poor, not in debt but six feet under.
10
So let me clear on the logic of some of the commenters here: people who have adequate disposable income should be able to flout traffic laws while those who do not (they actually do exist Scott--you should meet some of them) are descended upon by a progressively dire existential threat with serious consequences? Why do you hate poor people? Don't you think they have enough bringing them down already? The answer is not to "suspend all rule of law" for poor people, it is to find a punishment borne equally by rich and poor (% income might be one).
1
@SHJ No one said that. People said obey the laws like everyone else. She had a few months to get that fine in order. She chose not to do so.
2
Those guilty of petty violations should always have the option of paying their debt in jail time. Speeding? Check into jail 8pm sat night and out at 6am sunday morning and it's done. A very unpleasant evening that doesn't have any other detrimental impact on your life. Any use of the justice system to generate revenue is an outrage.
I don't get this. It really is an example of one sided thinking, and kinda typical of left leaning philosophy, which I used to be very much in favor of, having grown up in a much more liberal minded country, England.
What I learned from living in Texas, however, is something else. And it's a powerful motivator. It's that old fashioned idea of responsibility, which people seem to want to pass over nowadays.
When you understand that there are consequences for your actions, it doesn't push the burden of your inadequacy or laziness over to someone else. It teaches you, sometimes painfully, that you have to sharpen your habits or lose what you have.
Thing is, why should someone else be expected to make efforts to follow the rules, knowing that there are consequences, yet you don't have to? Because you're "poor"? What is "poor"? I've known poor, and what got me out of poor was getting my act together, and it wasn't easy.
Nobody is served by making their lives easier. What makes people get over these kinds of things is understanding priorities, and dealing with them.
Fact is, it's grossly irresponsible to let a small fine rise to $13,000. It smacks of not paying attention, and not caring. If you lose your job because you can't drive, then deal with it. Get another job. Declare bankruptcy. Work it out.
Passing the responsibility to others is just the actions of a child, and you will never learn from it.
5
Do the crime.....pay the fine. Otherwise don’t drive. I get that drivers make mistakes. Set up a payment schedule, keep to it,
drive safe. Driving is how you get to work, school, the doctor. Pay attention and pay the fine.
Citizenship 101. If you can’t pay...don’t play ( drive)
5
Pay the $2.
2
The sub-head to the story says, "Suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid fees buries poor people in debt."
I'm disappointed that many of the Most Recommended comments ignore the fact that bad driving buries poor (and other) people not in debt but six feet under.
40,000 or so killed each and every year in crashes, the large majority the result of ticketable offenses. Discrimination against the poor can be remedied by making fines proportionate to income, as some countries do, and/or community service. That said, I am all for much greater enforcement of traffic laws, arguably the most reasonable and public-benefit set of laws we have.
Have a sense of proportion: you are in much greater danger from a bad driver than from a random terrorist attack.
Many states have adequate legal penalties for bad driving, but the problem is lack of enforcement. Probably 1% of drunk, gadgeting, or just plain dangerous drivers actually are stopped and get a ticket, because people are not willing to pay taxes to hire enough cops to do the job. And, depending on the state, people busted for D.U.I. (and other driving offenses) are often cut loose by the courts, which is why you see people in deadly crashes who have had a half dozen D.U.I.s, meaning they were probably drunk hundreds of times.
6
Many, perhaps most, of the comments here seem to be blaming the victims of the system; the vicious circle they find themselves in is their own fault. In fact, they apparently form a whole antisocial "subculture". One example: "There's always an excuse. Obey the traffic laws, or get a ticket. Go to court if you feel it was unfairly issued. Or pay the fine and move on." Another: "[T]hey have drugs and they have outstanding warrants. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a subculture. These people are not above the law. These people are not above the law. Do you want to give them a free pass? Are we a nation of laws that we are not going to enforce?"
I would like VERY MUCH to see that principle applied to the current occupant of the White House and those close to him, some of whom are now saying outright that they don't care about the law. Yet somehow his supporters (a group which probably overlaps to some extent with the "law-abiding" commenters here) seem to admire him for this all the more.
1
The person deserved to keep getting these tickets. When you don’t follow the rules like we all do you reap what you sow. She needs to walk now and get her act together.
4
Turning LEFT at a red light happens to a lot of people? I guess you learn something new every day!
If you don’t break the law you don’t have to worry about fees. She couldn’t pay the ticket on time. Did she go to the court appointment? Did she arrange to pay it later? Did she pay it when she did get a paycheck? In all likelihood she just ignored it. Sometimes that doesn’t work out.
4
Is it Ostego or Otsego?
Never mind.
[[She couldn’t pay the $135 fine right away.]]
OK, but what happened after she got that first paycheck?
[[A few months later, she was pulled over, told her driver’s license was suspended for an unpaid ticket and cited for driving with a suspended license — a new $200 ticket.]]
I don't believe her license would be suspended for one unpaid ticket and not in a few short months. But even if it were suspended under those circumstances, there is an online process that helps people pay their fines. https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/dvs/Pages/driver-diversion-pilot-program.aspx
Did she not get any notifications in the mail before the suspension?
[[Lawmakers across the country should work to eliminate wealth-based driver’s license suspensions.]]
Despite my questions about this particular case, I agree with that statement.
2
The traffic scam is one of the worst offenders of both the poor and middle classes. Huge penalties on missed taxes (income, real property, personal property, etc) are another.
When a private citizen misses a governmental deadline, the penalties are huge. But, when it's the other way around, there's no penalty and a simple cry that the agency involved is understaffed - justifying an increase in taxes!
I think that it's time that we took most governmental employees off their pedestal.
A cop kills a kid and s/he's given paid administrative leave while the cops coverup the truth. A clerk in the assessor's office siphons money for her drug habit and she's sent to rehabilitation and then given her old job back with a minuscule deduction from each paycheck.
Do private employers give paid leave if an employee kills another employee? Are embezzlers given a slap on the hand and a weekly deduction from their pay?
In the case of this woman, driving without a license (the story said nothing about driving violations) was just trying to get by, she had the misfortune of being pulled over and given an outrageous fine for a non criminal act.
If Jessie "what's his name" gets off because he didn't commit a violent crime, the same treatment must be given the poor.
1
Sadly I have noticed that many poor people are bad drivers. I don’t know if it is a cultural or racial thing or maybe because life has been hard they flout the law. But, some people don’t do themselves any favors here in Philly.
2
OK, this isn’t about me but I’ve been driving regularly and in the last 8 years have had no driving violations. The last was a radar gun for speeding - guilty. How is that someone who is on the edge, driving with an illegal license isn’t extra extra extra special cautious? I’m thinking the issue is valid, poor people are getting the shaft in so many ways but the Leah Jackson, described in the article should not be a poster child for these attorneys trying to make a point on her behalf.
2
What I don’t see addressed in the article is what the punishment should be for the violations? If it is not a fine, or suspension of the privilege, what is to prevent continued ignorance of the law?
3
This is what happens when society privatizes prisons. Like usurious credit card rates the gambit is clear. Squeeze juice from a stone, step on the neck of your neighbor, be the worst you can be, and be proud of it.
That’s where we are, and if the we includes the bottom economic half of us, then we’re a ticket or two away from jail. If you can feel ok with this, there may be a job for you at the White House.
1
Unfairness is the unique staple that constitutes American Life and sabotage of the "pursuit of happiness".
In 2004 I got a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. I paid it. In 2010 I got funneled into a random NYPD checkpoint whereupon the cops claimed my license was suspended for not paying the 2004 ticket. I spent 18 hours locked up downtown. It was freezing in there. I had to pay the original ticket and fines. It was midnight by the time I was released. Years later I found the receipt for the original fine I'd paid in 2004. When I was moving. Out of NY.
Thanks NYC, for the cheese sandwich and chocolate milk.
60
@Billy I'd be dead. My blood sugar would drop and I'd go into cardiac arrest. Who cares, right? Its a little scary how casual the machine really is. I would never call the police for *anything* under any circumstances, nor would I go to the ER--if I actually am dying I'd rather do it at home. The beast is never satisfied. It wants and wants and wants.
3
@Billy Buddy, keep that document that says you paid in the glove compartment for as long as you have the car in the future, ok? Next time. And, also, let us know: Did you then arrange to get a refund of one of the tickets you paid? Because if you didn't, your story is suspect. Or you're wealthy and money means nothing to you.
1
Why was the lady in the beginning of this piece pulled over so many times? I have been pulled over exactly twice in 35 years of driving. Speeding each time. And I was.
Once is a mistake. Twice..... not so much.
3
License plate readers. The police know your record before they turn on their lights.
We seem to believe in punishing people for being poor.
I've read of some countries doing income based fines. I think we badly need to switch to that.
$135 - that's trivial to me. I can ignore that ticket, keep driving stupid.
To others, who have almost nothing left of a paycheck after the barest essentials are paid for - it's an insurmountable amount of money, an inability to pay rent.
Add in that there are documented places that ticket trivial or invented offenses for income or racism based reasons, and we have a system that can create some massive discrimination. Ticket based on income, suspend licenses for reckless or drunk driving, not for a few miles over the speed limit and an inability to pay.
Oh boo hoo... Obey the rules of the road, drive with respect and you don’t get tickets. Here in Los Angeles any daily commute or a simple drive for an errand bears witness to a litany of aggressive, incompetent, distracted and uncivil drivers and that’s pretty typical all over America. News Flash-driving on our roads and highways takes some serious respect and responsibility and if you don’t understand that you don’t deserve to have a drivers license.
5
And Another thing...She "claims" she can't get $135...so...how is she getting all of these cars to get pulled over in?! And what kind of boss let's his "employee" drive around as part of their duties, without a vaild drivers Lic?!
3
How did those $400 grow into $13,000? If you can prevent this, you might have solved the issue, aside from wrong behaviour on the driver's side, of course.
In Germany a new law is about to get passed to limit the fees of debt-collecting agencies. Why are they allowed to fee $70-100 per letter, for the sake of the letter, for instance? Even if the debt ist just $50-100. That law targets the poor, of course.
Another point worth mentioning is perhaps how Germany regulates driver's license loss. There's a centralized point system in place. If you constantly fail as a driver, your driver's points go down, with the exception when you do car races or kill someone as a driver, then you might lose all points. Interrestingly, when your points reach 0, you do a so called "idiot's test" to prove your sanity, but if you succeed, you are allowed to do another license for approx. $3,000 and roughly 40-80 hours of theoretical (laws) and practical lessons (driving).
Last week a report said 40% of Americans would struggle with a $400 emergency expense. Traffic fines shouldn't prevent people from earning a living.
https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-household-finances/index.html
13,000 reasons to shout "Cruel and unusual punishment!"
After reading many comments , I had no idea the U.S. is full of such responsible,law abiding drivers.
2
@Tim Lynch I had no idea this was a concept liberals didn't believe in until now.
On the one hand, I really feel for people who are actually poor, who are POC, who are struggling to make ends meet after a period of unemployment, because I've been there!
On the other hand, there is my son...
* He is a menace on the road. Always has been. Irresponsible. Lead foot. Never learns.
* He had his license suspended, at this point, I forget why, but it was righteous.
* He drove anyway. He got caught once and the cop let him go with a high priced ticket.
* He got a Reckless Driving ticket, which is a Misdemeanor in our state. Being his feckless self, he didn't read the ticket, or look up the law. He didn't even ask us for a lawyer. Now he has a Misdemeanor on his record... basically forever. Harder to get jobs with that.
* He CONTINUED to drive and then he had an accident and totaled his brand new car.
At this point, I am RELIEVED that his car is no more. Even though it means he is unemployed, without transportation, without a license, his insurance is SO expensive ($8000/yr) neither he, nor any of us could ever hope to afford it.
But he didn't kill anyone, thank goodness! He's alive himself.
This is not a hypothetical, "What about the people who deserve it?" There really ARE people who deserve it. He does. He should not be on the road. It doesn't mean you don't love him--hapless, feckless, awful driver, he is. You don't want them on the road... but I wish we could keep my son OFF the road, without ruining his future AS WELL.
2
It is a "privilege" to drive ... LOL ... but the roads are a mess ... signs, what signs? These driving laws are meant to keep the poor in their place. Cops are out to pull you over for a seat-belt infraction but that only pertains to those without dark windows and if you are not on a motorcycle. Those speed traps and other traffic tickets are meant to keep the peons in their place.
Punishing the poor is the American way.
1
The authors of this piece have chosen a poor example in Ms. Jackson, and it's hard for me to have sympathy for her. Questionable financial difficulties aside, the woman is clearly an unsafe and irresponsible driver. Her problem started when she turned left at a red light, and was compounded by continuing to get pulled over while knowing she had an outstanding unpaid ticket. How much more careless can a person be?!
In the 40+ years I've been driving, despite the fact that I'm not an entirely unaggressive driver, I've been pulled over just a handful of times, and I honestly can't remember the last time. I've also never caused an accident. Driving is not rocket science, and the rules of the road are not hard to understand, or follow. Generally speaking, people get pulled over for a reason.
I have often said that one of the greatest acts of faith one can undertake is driving a car on public roads. You are never more than a hairsbreadth away from serious injury, or death, and always at the mercy of other drivers (as they are of you). It's a true public trust. And some people simply don't deserve to participate in it. Ms. Jackson strikes me as one of them. The fewer people like her that are on the road, the better for all of us.
3
@jr
Yeah. Where I live, there was a very wealthy woman who would drive completely wasted. Instead of arresting her, a police officer drove about a block in front of her (so as to not offend the lady) and another drove a block behind.
Let me see, living on one of these streets and waiting to leave/praying my house isn’t plowed into OR that lady who failed to clear that intersection promptly that one time?
Perhaps traffic fines should just be done away with, for many reasons. The first is abuse of power by the police. A search in NYT of "fines as extortion" turns up many articles. Here's one example
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/us/baltimore-police-corruption.html
The second equally compelling reason is the fine places undue burden on the accused. Again here is one of many examples from the NYT (on bonds, not the same but related)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/31/us/bail-bonds-extortion.html
Third reason is it's just really messed up. People already do many strange things to avoid jury duty. I know people who don't register to vote and even one who delays getting her US citizenship. If jurors, who are basically playing God with people's lives, dread the legal system, imagine how many orders of magnitude worse it is for those on the receiving end.
1
Driving while poor and or black also causes excess pollution, frustration and angst.
People with suspended licenses must drive at the speed limit so when 100 affluent drivers want to go 75 on a wide open freeway, they are often stopped by one black or poor driver who cannot exceed the 65 mph limit.
We should fine according to net worth as in Finland and let all the people drive.
And maybe even build for the future. You know, fast trains like in China. The Chinese could teach us! After all, they did build out outdated railroads a while back.
1
Being poor is very expensive.
Poverty doesn’t exempt you from driving laws.
2
Here is an idea. Pay your fines on time and be a law abiding citizen. I have never had my license suspended. Because I pay my speeding fines before beer, whiskey and cigarettes.
2
Yo! Something is amiss here.... How many tickets in a given amount of time??? Also, and perhaps even more importantly, did she have auto insurance - not only protecting herself but others..?
Nope, no sympathy here....
2
Several years ago in upstate New York, I pulled into a roadside picnic area to stretch my legs, and also deposit some trash -- a mix of auto debris and leftovers from a weekend in my country cabin -- in the large picnic receptacles. The whoop-whoop of a police siren began just as I was ready to leave. A sheriff's deputy ticketed me for "putting household trash in a public receptacle," which carried a $75 fine. I thought it was so idiotic that I decided to ignore the ticket...forever. Getting fined for tossing trash into a trash can? Absurd! But two months later, a highly formal letter arrived threatening to both suspend my driving license and cancel my car registration if the fine, now well over $100 with a late penalty, wasn't paid within about two weeks. I paid, of course, but have often considered in subsequent years how much cheaper it would have been to drive down a quiet country road and toss my trash out the window, like so many others.
1
@Robert Garrett--How right you are. I used to live in a town that was in a major recreational area--skiing and hunting in winter and fishing and boating in summer. After a holiday weekend, or just any warm, sunny weekend if it was summer, I'd see bags of garbage left by the side of the road that led to the freeway entrance. City people would just drop off their weekend trash for us country bumpkins to dispose of. We had a tiny police force that could barely deal with all the visitors we could get in summer, so they couldn't spare an officer to just park on the road to discourage these inconsiderate jerks, so not many were deterred by getting stopped and fined. What slobs people are.
"she had just started a new job and hadn’t yet received a paycheck, so she couldn’t pay the $135 fine right away. A few months later, she was pulled over, told her driver’s license was suspended for an unpaid ticket."
There's a caesura between "right away" and "a few months later." Did you realize that?
4
I agree with the authors.
Sorry...But...I can assure everyone that this person has had an "Attitude" throughout this entire process.
Sorrry...But...that has not helped her - at all.
2
@Thomas And you know that how?
I saw an article yesterday in the Providence Journal that said that RI will no longer be sending out the reminder that a car's registration is about to expire if you owe fines. Another way to punish the poor for being poor. They don't realize their registration has expired and then get stopped for it (RI license plates have little registration stickers in different colors for each year). Then they get a ticket and their car likely gets impounded and they can't afford to pay the new ticket or get their car back.
A lot of the fines are excessively stupidly High
Thank God Manafort didn't get one or he'd be in real trouble.
4 tickets in what sounds like roughly a 6month time frame suggests this person has difficulty following traffic laws which then lead to being pulled over. People like this should have their licenses suspended until they learn to not drive in a manner that gives a traffic officer cause to pull them over. Crying over the consequences when you break the law is just another reflection on the growing sense of entitlement and blatant disregard fr rules.
2
@boohoo
Just for the record, after a stop like that, your plate is flagged. Any police officer behind you is running your plate and will pull you over.
The woman in the story received her first ticket for turning left at a red light. But she was then pulled over at least three more times (according to the story) for driving with a suspended license. How did the police know this? What was the reason for being pulled over those times?
3
“In less than a month she received two more tickets for driving with a suspended license.”. That’s the part that bothers me here. Why was she stopped?? Something is missing.
4
"Union County, Ohio, found that driving-while-suspended violations cost an average of nine hours of officer and court time."
I flat don't believe this, and if any jurisdiction anywhere fritters away nine hours of officer and court time on a single driving while suspended citation, then everyone in the police department and the courthouse needs to be fired and replaced.
Get real.
2
I don't disagree that poor people are disproportionally affected by these kinds of fines and fees, but I can't help think that some responsibility lies with Ms. Jackson.
After her first infraction, you would think that she'd be a model driver, knowing that another infraction would cost her. Yet according to the story, she was repeatedly cited, which means that she drove in such a way that attracted attention from police.
That's just not smart, and while I don't agree that she should be fleeced and I do agree that fee reform is warranted, people like Ms. Jackson also need to help themselves.
4
Lets face it folks:This country is often a mean and destructive place. We should dispense with illusions about ourselves. We need to stop being like this as soon as possible.
Resurrecting our humanity is the work of this culture.That is if we are going to have a future, or one worth being a part of.
"Look, we aren't raising taxes! Look, your tax rate is low!" - but then the various governments proceed to increase the costs of public transportation, food and fuel. The police are mandated to maintain a quota of traffic tickets monthly - and as such ticket (sometimes fraudulently) everything they can. And if you can't pay your fines - that's great! Extra fines. Extra extra fines. And they hope you can't pay that either, so that the for-profit-prisons can make a few bucks off of the system too.
Capitalism! Works great! (if you're rich).
1
Steve Bullock is running for President.
Maryland is one of the regressive states. They will suspend your license for a variety of petty reasons.
This is one of the most worthy opinion pieces I've read. Traffic fines are crippling many. it's even worse than this in some jurisdictions. People are arrested for parking fines. The harshness of these systems is especially unfair for many people of color because the tickets compound the hardships of race-based policing and discrimination in employment. A job can already be hard for a black male, for example, to secure and maintain without struggles around transportation. In jurisdictions where blacks are targeted, whites can't really relate and bosses extend no understanding to those caught up in the cycle. The system is also unfair viewed both as a racial and a regressive tax. In some areas, traffic fines are the second or the third leading source of city revenue. Police are released into communities to ticket for the purpose of raising revenue. The Justice Department found just that when it reviewed the policing practices of Ferguson, MO after Michael Brown was murdered. African Americans were being ticketedl for the expressed purpose of squeezing money out of them to fund an oppressive city government and police department. There is also the unstudied problem of the fines at least seeming arbitrary and not in line with costs imposed on the society or the system. A fine of $200? Why? Why not a fine of $100 for a police interaction that may last 5 minutes?
Anyway, long since been time to shut this ravenous regressive route to the pockets of the poor and people of color.
Tickets and dimes need to be scaled to income. Speeding ticket = .1% of annual income, for example.
" lost an average of $36,800 of annual income"...and they won't pay a $135 fine? Maybe running a red light is not a good idea for them.
4
There’s another thing going on here. Two things, really.
First, I get that it sometimes can be absolutely necessary to drive without a license, but in a city with lots of public transport choices this strains credibility more than a little. Get a bike, take a bus, grab a cab or Uber. All are cheaper than a fine, especially one for driving illegally. When one of my kids lost her license she got a bike and rode that for 6 months. She was not happy, but life goes on.
Second, the people mentioned in this story are apparently terrible drivers. Cops generally don’t pull people over for kicks. So it’s maybe good that these people get pulled over for a conversation with New York’s Finest. And if it turns out their license was yanked, well, the cop and judge just have to do their job.
3
Hi Noley. Please don’t assume that all cops are angels. Thank you.
Cops, after they ticket you they see if you didn’t pay it, they check your name and if you didn’t they can pull you over for being suspended, you don’t have to be a bad driver-read the article. It’s not about bad driving. It’s about hitting people while they’re down. Cops can tell if you’re struggling. A clue is if your car is a dilapidated 2001 Chevrolet or Honda. Sometimes the poor motorist will tell the cop, I’m broke, I won’t be able to pay this. They know your car, your route to work, your face. Everything. So, they in effect target you. Please, have a little sympathy for the poor. Please.
The sub-head to the story says, "Suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid fees buries poor people in debt."
I'm disappointed that many of the Most Recommended comments ignore the fact that bad driving buries poor (and other) people not in debt but six feet under.
40,000 or so killed each and every year in crashes, the large majority the result of ticketable offenses. Discrimination against the poor can be remedied by making fines proportionate to income, as some countries do, and/or community service. That said, I am all for much greater enforcement of traffic laws, arguably the most reasonable and public-benefit set of laws we have.
Have a sense of proportion: you are in much greater danger from a bad driver than from a random terrorist attack.
57
The absurdity of the people that don’t know what poverty is like really saddens me and confounds me. I’m so glad you’re not stuck in poverty, I’m happy for you. But my heart as an American is with these people, my fellow citizens, that got stopped for basically being poor. If you read the article it states that nobody was killed by these people trying to get to work to eat and feed their families and pay for shelter.
16
Many have scolded Ms. Jackson for not paying the $135 a couple of weeks later by saving $2 a day or skipping her morning coffee. What many may not realize is that by 2-4 weeks later the ticket has probably increased exponentially. And it must be paid in full in order to satisfy the summons.
One thing I didn't see mentioned is that I know is true in NY is that the State tacks on a fee, on top of the violation. And it's a lot, over $50 I believe. That's an administrative penalty of sorts. So you get the ticket, you have to go to court and they charge extra for it.
I believe a payment plan would help a lot of people and possibly bring down the number of unpaid tickets. Of course there will always be people like the video store owner who just parks where he wants and doesn't pay anything until it's too late, well that's his choice.
And don't pretend that we can suddenly build a public transportation infrastructure. Nonsense. We live in a world of private automobile transportation. Too late to change that now.
It's not a horrible thing to give people who really don't have savings a chance to pay down a ticket over time. Seems like an easy first step.
1
I really can't muster any sympathy for people who don't think they should have to pay traffic tickets.
5
Allow people to drive to work and work only until the ticket is paid off. Problem solved.
2
I agree with the ACLU. Suspending a driver's license for failure or inability to pay a traffic fine discriminates against poor people who often lose their job if they can't drive. These geniuses who write the traffic laws should at least allow a person whose license is suspended for failure to pay a fine to drive in the course of their employment.
Is it common in the US to be pulled over so regularly for traffic infractions? So many tickets within a few months seem excessive.
1
@Jake
She was pulled over becasue her plate came up in the police cruiser “suspended.” It wasn’t driving infraction.
1
We’re in a mad rush to eliminate any accountability for low-income lawbreakers, without replacing it with a new system of accountability. Not all poor people are saints; there needs to be a way to hold lawbreakers accountable. Otherwise, we can return to the good old 1970s and 1980s of lawlessness in our cities, people seem to have forgotten what that was like.
7
it is not only traffic ticket. similar situation exists for parking ticket as well. enforcement officers get bonuses based on number of tickets they can issue for traffic as well parking tickets. few second parking violations would cost you more than $10 in some cities. penalties escalate more than 10 times for such unpaid tickets. technologies are available to reduce enforcement cost as well as to automate ticketing with no penalties. automation in ticketing will generate automated invoicing for payment which is is simpler than complicated court appearnace, etc.
According to Ms. Jackson she could not immediately pay the $135 ticket because she just started a new job and was waiting for a paycheck. Yet she did not get pulled over a 2nd time till a few months later, at which time she was told her license was suspended. Now this is a woman with a job, as this piece makes very clear. So the reason she didn't pay her ticket was simply because she disregarded it or forgot about it.
Yet even after being cited for driving while suspended, a $200 ticket, she still disregarded it. This time not because she was waiting for her paycheck, but for the same reason she didn't pay the 1st ticket months after she received her paycheck, because she didn't see what would happen to her if she didn't. And so she kept getting pulled over and getting cited over and over for driving while suspended and she thought she beat the system, just keep getting tickets and don't pay them. Till she woke up to find that the reason normal people don't simply disregard suspension after suspension the way she did is because there is a system in place to prevent that. And this came as a shock to her because she was clearly under the impression that there were no consequences to racking up ever more tickets and simply ignoring them.
So far from serving as an example of a person who was too poor to pay her initial tickets, Ms. Jackson can serve as exhibit A for why people cannot be allowed to drive as if the laws do not apply to them.
16
@Michael Stavsen
Well, yes, it is Ms. Jackson's responsibility and there should be consequences but suspending your ability to drive for failure to pay is not the best way to tackle this issue. Adding more fines is not the answer either.
2
@Matthew Please tell us; what is the best way to "tackle" this issue.
1
@Matthew Then what is the answer? No penalties? Continue to drive? No consequences? This is absurd.
3
We have judges perfectly willing to give a chronic alcoholic, convicted of drunk driving, a conditional license to go back and forth to work. Why not for this person? It doesn't cost anything and if caught on the road when not provably at work then pull the license. There are reasonable middle positions here.
6
I agree that license suspension should be used for the purpose of keeping unsafe drivers off the road. However, this story is a story of making many bad choices. She couldn’t pay $135 ticket. Really? How much is her cable bill? How large is her 4K tv? How much does she spend on meals she has out instead of cooking her self? She is a victim of her own bad choices. If continuing to drive was so necessary, then she should have had the $135 in the first place. She is living irresponsibly. None of us would have extra money unless we live below our means. We could all not have $135 if we chose to spend all our money and didn’t deny ourselves every whim. She must own her series of bad choices.
17
@Biffnyc You have no basis to say that this woman made poor choices in eating out, having a TV or cable. You do not know her circumstances, nor the circumstances of any person the proposed laws seek to protect. Until you have walked a mile in a lower income person's shoes you have no right to pass judgement.
2
@Roxanne Pearls Sorry, but we must all live within our means. Our lives are the choices we make every day. Choices have consequences.
1
I thought the A.C.L.U. position was to follow Europe's lead and greatly reduce the use of prison sentences but instead make use of steep financial fines for even serious crimes. Doesn't the authors realize that many of these criminals will have financial issues and poor records for payment? This editorial seems to undercut a lot of momentum for more progressive approaches to criminal sentencing in the US.
6
@DoctorRPP
We are talking about traffic tickets that affect poor people because they have no money to pay them unlike wealthy people who just pay.
Ms. Jackson's case does not inspire my sympathy at all.
But the larger issue of states' suspending licenses for reason of debt is valid. Just as Jackson herself should have used normal remedies to resolve her financial problems, the state's criminalization of unpaid traffic tickets is a misuse of government power.
The state should have utilized customary and ordinary collection procedures like any other creditor. The state is inappropriately using its police power to transfer its obligation to the accused.
6
Not a fan of the just don’t do it solution. Personally, because of the necessity to drive in so many areas, driving should be a constitutional right. Maybe the solution is to have fines based on net worth or annual income with a allowed maximum of 0.1% per violation. Also, proceeds from these fines needs to be separated from the local municipality to remove the temptation of over zealous enforcement. Lastly, there should be an option to perform public work in lieu of paying money.
4
I suppose forcing drivers to have liability insurance they can not afford will be the next "unconstitutional" policy to be attacked by the ACLU. Protecting innocent people who obey the law has never been their concern.
12
@Hank
We pay our police departments for that. The ACLU serves a different end.
@Adam
The police can only do what the law allows them to do. Organizations like the ACLU are obstacles they have to overcome when it comes to sensible laws that protect us all.
1
The whole USA needs public service messages to teach people driving basics like zip merging, avoiding rubbernecking, and keeping right except to pass. It would be better for the public than prescription drug ads.
16
You can suspend sympathy reading after "a few months later"
So the subject did not have $135 at the time she was fined. How about making arrangements to pay the fine over time? No? How about paying it after a couple months in the new job? No, it was out of sight out of mind. As others have noted, a lot of people feel this way. That is why the penalties escalate.
22
Put people on a payment plan - the fines are there for a reason - and don't suspend until the person is demonstrated to be a scofflaw. And let them understand that failure to pay will result in a revocation of privileges.
Make the suspension a matter of a court appearance, something a judge must rule on. And recognize that a judge can put limitations on how and when one can use a car.
There are very few tools we have to maintain order on the roads: fines and fees are it. But we can be wiser about how we enforce them.
9
Institute payment plans to those who do not have the immediate funds and if it can be proven that they require their license for work . In some instances, people who live paycheck to paycheck cannot afford $135 even if spread over the usual 30 day grace period, but almost anyone could afford $10 or $20 a week.
Cap any traffic related fines at 2X the original fee.
It's actually a sticky topic, because I know some people who have been fined and continue to use their money for all sorts of other incidentals they could do without instead of paying their fine. My son was one of them until he realized he had to MAKE it a responsibiility if he wanted to drive. As we were reminded so often in the state of NH - "Driving is a privilege, not a right.".
4
Every day I work with individuals in a substance use disorder program who have lost their driver's license for one infraction or another. Public transportation in the area is poor, and getting to a job or searching for work takes an undue toll on these individuals. So, I agree wholeheartedly with the authors of this article. However, what's missing in their equation is the role individuals can often play in getting entangled in a morass of fees and fines. The story the article starts with seems a good example. Ms. Jackson could not pay her original fine right away; that's understandable. But, two months later she was still working and still had not paid the original fine. And she continued to not pay until her original fine ballooned tenfold. The criminal justice system definitely disadvantages the poor, but until it can be overhauled, individuals must be careful not to make the system's vise-like grip hold on them even tighter than it already is.
9
@joel cairo I meant to write "ballooned one hundredfold."
@joel cairo it is very hard to get legal advice even if you’re educated and can take time off during the day. It probably never occurred to her to seek remedies. Legal literacy is low even for people who have more life experience and education than this lady.
Many of the comments are scolds about bad drivers. Others are concerned about the hypocrisy of charging the poor a disproportionate set of fees.
But they ignore the big picture of the ACLU and ALEC agreeing to anything. The fact that these groups are willing to cooperate on this issue is a huge deal—and suggests that the divides in our society can be narrowed.
They are not outlining a policy prescription, but noting that the current policies are not working. They are doing so by agreeing on the scope and nature of the problem.
Such small steps are our true path forward.
7
The injustices of fines would not arise for many were they able to reply on public transit. Benefits of better public transit systems are getting the poor to jobs, keeping traffic law violaters off the road, and keeping the uninsured off the roads. Of course we don't want children and old folks riding about in buses or trains either. Let the valient fight against socialism continue.
3
The writer here is clearly very naive as to the mindset of many people who don't want to abide by traffic laws, in particular as they pertain to speeding. And so the sole way to get them to abide by the laws is to issue fines to those who get caught breaking those laws. However because of the same disregard they hold for laws pertaining to traffic laws they will also see no reason to pay those fines, and as a result will violate traffic laws to their heart's content. And so the only way to enforce traffic laws, most of which are for public safety it to force drivers to pay the fines. And the way in which this is done is by suspending their licenses.
In fact there are drivers who don't even mind the consequences of getting caught driving while suspended, because that is usually pleaded down to a violation of failure to produce a valid driver's license. And so the law is structured for the penalties to get ever more severe based on the number of suspensions, so that sooner or later people take their traffic citations seriously.
However here we have a proposal that there be no consequences at all for ignoring traffic tickets because no court will garnish wages, let alone foreclose on property for a few hundreds dollars.
If a person cannot afford to pay a ticket in full perhaps a provision can provide for them to appear in court and demonstrate that they need an installment plan, and then enforce that payment plan by suspension of their license.
12
I have worked with and met many serial ticket recipients over the years. Typical was the former owner of my video store I worked in as a student, he was arrested one day when he came to town from one of his other stores and owed some $20,000 in tickets over the years. He was a wealthy guy, but refused to park legally or concern himself with the tickets issued. Ironically, he later lost this business and became impoverished. I just am not sure the Times has the causal order right on the victims of traffic tickets. Do their frequent violations reflect some other attribute that also often leads one to poverty?
6
This article is misguided. Careless and reckless driving kills. When a person drives they are taking other peoples’ lives into their hands: it is an awesome responsibility that should be taken much more seriously. Drivers should be fined heavily for moving violations, and they should have their license suspended if they don’t pay.
The problem is not our criminal justice system; the problem is our automobile-dependent transportation systems that force people to drive. Instead of allowing scofflaws to drive anyway, we should be creating alternatives to driving such as high quality, high frequency public transportation and bicycle infrastructure. Yes, we can afford this; here’s how: stop building more and bigger highways.
9
As a young driver I racked my fair share of summonses. Today I never park illegally and went over 30 years without a speeding ticket. I learned my lesson and the fines were my teacher.
Also driving is a big part of how I earn a living so no valid drivers license means no job. Maybe if more people thought this way they'd be better off.
10
The thrust of this article is that life is more difficult for poor people than those who are more well-healed. Who would disagree? Throughout the world and throughout time, in cultures not too different from our own, the poor have struggled under the weight of everything. Food, water, clothing and shelter are considered the most basic elements of human physical needs. But none of these are easy to maintain if you are poor. I, a member of an extinct species--a middle class New Yorker--know all to well the plight of the new poor. It is nearly impossible to maintain a roof over my families head in NYC. Food has skyrocketed. Even the water bill is outrageous. And my kids bide their time and wait for the time I can manage to buy them new shoes. The very idea of a summons, a ticket or a fine is guaranteed to take from my family those things which we humans consider essential. But this is the fault of no one. It is the reality of the world. And it is my reality. None of you (plural) owe me (singular) a thing. My struggle is a human struggle for survival. Your struggle-while far removed from the material constraints--is also a struggle for survival. Most of you just don't realize it whereas I am keenly aware.
10
Think it can't happen to you? Let's recall the shutdown that Trump imposed on the Federal government that dragged on into the early part of 2019. During this time many formerly middle-class Federal workers were compelled to exhaust their meager savings and spend down their monetary cushion. And now they're living precariously paycheck to paycheck. Any big expense such as a trip the ER could put them in financial jeopardy. Tickets and these pricing games are but a modern-day debtor's prison device, meant to permanently denigrate the lower orders.
8
Uhh, so over a period of several months, Ms. Jackson couldn't scrounge up $135? Setting aside two dollars a day, in just over two months she could have piad the fine. Is that an impossibly onerous burden?
10
Do as they do in Scandinavia. The traffic fine is dependent on one's income. Millionaire's pay a proportion of their income as the fine as to common folk. What's $50 to someone like Trump, who can speed as much as he wants as the fine is nothing. But for the same speeding violation for a poor person can be devastating to their lives. Charge according to their income - it's brilliant.
19
Once again the NYT is trying to portray lawbreakers as victims.
It is pretty much the case that no one forces someone else to commit a crime, break the law, whatever you choose to call it.
I haven’t had a speeding ticket or moving violation or parking ticket for more than three decades, and not many before that. And, no, I am not an old fuddy-duddy who drives 10-20 miles under the speed limit; I am your average, law-abiding citizen who knows that crime doesn’t pay, criminals usually do.
If you can’t do the time or pay the fine, don’t do the crime.
There is such a thing as free will.
14
@Mon Ray First, let me give you a sticker! Great driving record. I, too, have an unblemished record, however as a white woman, I know this is certainly not all about my exemplary driving. I often drive over the speed limit and even on occasion (gulp!) sneak through a light as it turns color.
But I am white and drive a decent car. Even though I once sped past a police officer, he decided to give me a warning and let me about my way. I wonder how many times that happens to people of color?
Free will or not, there are clearly other factors at work here, too.
10
@Mon Ray
It's this attitude that the new laws are trying to mitigate or at least scale back. Some people are just tough-minded by nature, and they are responsible, as in the cases cited in the article, for increasing the sum total of human suffering --- and not just in American states or municipalities but worldwide and throughout history. Kafka's book, "The Trial" actually presented a society that had gone off the deep end with this sort of punitive thinking and no longer even felt the need to rationalize its laws to uncomprehending victims.
2
@Trista By using the term “uncomprehending victims,” do you mean to suggest that people who violate traffic laws are unaware of those laws or do not comprehend them?
I have a much higher estimate of the intelligence of my fellow human beings.
1
I am sorry to say this is a much more complex problem. Anyone knows that if someone lets their license and registration expire that there is no way they are paying the much more expensive insurance. It is so easy to get a car in the inner city for a few hundred dollars but the risk of getting hit by uninsured (and goes without saying unregistered and unlicensed cars) is enormous. Many illegal immigrants get a car/van for work which is admirable, but the insurance card mills that give them fake or one month insurance are everywhere. There are thousands of cases of deaths from these drivers. We need better mass transit but don't need to make it easier to get cars, in fact we need to make it harder as the cost of the car is minuscule compared to the cost of running it.
7
This is just the tip of the iceberg for a judicial system that is noting more than a shakedown racket.
Back in the 60's any criminal case, even a criminal parking ticket, entitled a California defendant to a jury trial. The advantage to this was that cases go disposed of on a common sense equitable basis. But then the law was changed, keeping the criminalization of parking but eliminating the protection of jury decision. Result: a criminal bullying racket where the DA hold all the cards.
Traffic regulations are administrative oversight of industrial safety. The whole thing should be taken out of a feudal adversarial court system and regulated civilly with community boards. Nor should traffic stops be allowed to "escalate" into full fledged investigations for drugs or contraband
7
Ms Jackson's first offense was making a left turn at a red light, and then she was pulled over 3 more times - twice within a month. The column does not mention what the violations are for the additional 3 stops, but we can assume, since the cops would not have known that the driver of the vehicle had a suspended license, that she was pulled over for more moving violations.
Perhaps she's not a safe driver and perhaps she should not be driving at all? What if she had hit someone when she made the illegal left?
25
@Karl
Or she was pulled over 3 more times - twice within a month - because she has to drive on a work daily basis in an area where people are targeted for driving while black?
I doubt there is a courtroom or legal jurisdiction in the land that will not work with a defendant to reconcile an imposed fine, be it a traffic ticket, code violation, whatever. Many municipalities allow time-payments, even public service work-offs.
So the system is remarkably forgiving, I should think.
But remember: we are only having this discussion because someone broke the law. No one/nothing else is to blame.
9
@David Bartlett she probably wouldn’t know.
There’ a problem when a someone in a “sales manager” position is paid so poorly that they can’t afford to address a traffic ticket. There’s a streak ok corporate avarice in America that is destroying the fabric of society.
18
A traffic or parking ticket is just another form of taxation. Governments have a voracious need for taxes. Don’t pa your property tax? They take your home? Don’t pay your income taxes, they take your liberty. No business has this leverage in collections. But government can take everything you have to get the money it wants. Suspending your drivers license is the tip of the iceberg.
12
Emily and Ronald - thanks for the article that sheds light on a truly unjust system.
Leah Jackson's additional fines were NOT due to continuous reckless driving, but her financial situation. We can all agree that too many moving violations and you loose your license - period. What we talk about here is that if you have money you can break the law.
The ACLU summed it up very well:
"Driver’s license suspensions should be imposed for the limited purpose of keeping unsafe drivers off the road, not as a debt-collection mechanism"
10
I agree with the ACLU. And too many times these tickets are frivolously written simply for revenue. A friend got a speeding ticket and challenged it, and won. But the judge, who admitted the ticket was not valid, still asked her to pay a portion of the fine. Really???? My friend said "no", and the judge backed off. In Aurora, CO., residents voted "no" on the red light cameras, and now they are turned off. Fines should be applied fairly and reasonably, and costs should be graduated.
8
Let me make sure I understand this.
They cannot afford to pay a fine, But they can pay for gas and car insurance? And they cannot get a loan from friends or family?
Sheesh.
13
@Fatso that's right. Not everyone has friends or family that can bail them out and loan them money. Sounds like your one of the lucky that's never had to live hand to mouth just struggling to take care of their family and survive.
I am a graduate student at New Mexico State University who got pulled over for going 33 in a 25. I go to school full time and my only income comes from my job as a graduate assistant which is a stipend of $6000 a semester. (Yes, I have tried working a second job and saw my grades slip and fell behind on my thesis research as a result). I was unable to pay the fine for this speeding citation on time- I did pay it, only late, because I couldn’t afford to pay it any earlier. The court did not care and issued a bench warrant apparently and the next thing I knew about seven months later I was driving to pick up some of the students I TA for and was pulled over for not slowing down enough when a cop was stopped on the side of the road. He ticketed me and then arrested me, handcuffs, jail, fingerprinted, the whole deal. He informed me the court could not care less if I pay my fine if it’s late. I was lucky enough to call my mom and beg for help, my bail had to be paid as well as both citations.
I didn’t go into debt because of this but I did almost lose my Graduate Assistantship, trying to explain to my professor why I was a no show because I was arrested for a late paid ticket. This is an abhorrent practice that clearly solely affects people without means and they just dig you into a deeper and deeper hole until you do owe thousands or end up in jail for a late paid ticket like I did. This system is inherently unfair and we can hardly say it’s applying the law equally, it’s not.
30
@Kelsey
It's frightening and Kafka-esque what happened to you. I ran into trouble one year when I had lost my job during one of Silicon Valley's "reorganizations" that shrug off thousands of employees into the job market.
The only job I could land in my field was more than an hour from my home over packed East Bay freeways. I had not been able to make my rent, let alone pay my car registration. My friends were as broke as I was and my family believed in learning life's lessons the hard way.
So although the new job paid over $100k a year, I had to drive with an expired registration sticker until I got a paycheck.
I almost made it, but not quite: a CHP pulled me over onto the shoulder in rush hour traffic, where I stood beside cars passing at freeway speeds while he paced around and bawled me out and kept threatening to arrest me, a mother with a spotless record.
I finally said, "then I'll lose my job and my car, and that won't get the registration paid, will it?" He accepted this argument with massive ill will and gave me a ticket instead of arresting me.
I am now comfortable enough to be oblivious, if that were my wont, to the misery of others in my former position. But this incident demonstrated and proved to me the bullying that poor people endure.
6
The local legislatures can start by reducing the fees for parking tickets to something reasonable. Here on Long Island, it's strictly used - along with other traffic laws - to collect revenue in lieu of raising taxes. Not fair; not right.
5
This article is annoying . It appears to absolve this woman from any responsibility for her situation.
If keeping her job was dependent upon her ability to drive, then once her paychecks started, paying that ticket should have been a top priority.
The subsequent three tickets are troublesome. I disagree with but can understand why she drove with a suspended license. But..three more traffic stops is not bad luck - it suggests a disregard for traffic law and safety.
No doubt that the laws for fines and penalties need revision, but personal responsibility seems lacking in this example.
24
If you get a ticket, deal with it ASAP and explain your finances, and ask the judge for more time to pay rather than let it turn to a warrant or for the fine to grow. In California the traffic judges will usually work out a payment schedule if the offender takes a half a day to go to traffic court. If you do nothing the fine will increase, and you may get taken to jail for failure to appear if the cops stop you again. I learned to obey the traffic rules because tickets and accidents are very expensive. Dangerous drivers should be severely fined.
14
In the state of New Mexico, they could care less about your financial situation. You pay it on time or you go to jail like I did. I’m just a graduate student, I did the best I could but the court didn’t see it that way. I was lucky enough to have a parent to bail me out or else I’d have sat overnight in jail for a late paid ticket. The system is clearly broken.
12
Why not an auto-debit payment plan option? $10/month, and debt will be paid off in a little over a year. Don't charge interest, and avoid wasting the courts and officers' time. Individuals will keep their licenses and be able to earn a living.
10
@abc
Interesting idea for those with bank accounts but many of those who get these tickets and can't pay don't have them. There was an interesting piece on the traffic ticket problem on NPR a while back. The speed with which the financially marginalized person can end up in a judicial "death spiral" is mind-boggling. Most NYT readers have no idea of the world in which the truly impoverished and those fallen on hard times live, as some of the comments attest.
3
I live in Ohio - which is the second state in the country - North Dakota being number one - with the most revoked and suspended driver's licenses. That includes people who miss child support payments.
I live in Franklin County in Columbus. I know for a fact that if you drive into the county just north of Franklin County, Delaware County, the police set people up and give them tickets that end up costing them thousands of dollars that they can ill afford. It's disgraceful.
17
As usual, as informative as this article is, we need a complementary article telling us whether the USA or some of its states have policies not seen at all in 21st century countries.
N = 1 example from Sweden. Context: I read often that in some US states a police officer is ready to chase and even kill a driver for driving with a missing light. In Sweden I see cars with missing lights every day. Police stopping them? NO. At annual inspection problem corrected.
In USA why not photograph and give owner 30 days to correct?
And fellow female or male expats, do the police stop and kill in your 21st century country?
Leave today for my 20th century country where I will enjoy the people and my mountains, notably green.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
20
@Larry Lundgren
There is this Bee Gees song I remember Massachusetts, but this comment gifted me with a picture of Sweden that tops the one that song painted of Massachusetts.
My question is where did all these missing lights go? Were they taken only to be put up again as Nordic lights? And do Volvos recognize each other in the dark?
2
@Buonista Gutmensch Great reply - Times should give us a forum where we Could present favorite replies.
IcelandaI is reviewing every USA bound passenger and I had to answer lots of questions. She asked how I like living in Sweden and I said great and write every day including today in NY TIMES!
I told her soon I face problem no. 1 at Logan, poor public transport to Providence (using experience in SE as the measure)
Keep replying. Larry
1
There's always an excuse. Obey the traffic laws, or get a ticket. Go to court if you feel it was unfairly issued. Or pay the fine and move on.
One set of laws that seem to impact all the same: drive poorly or incorrectly and get caught, no matter who you are.
10
@Elysse
That's not exactly what happens in some to many parts of the country.
First, fines vary substantially for the same violation--not just between states, not just between localities in the same state but in some cases, between suburbs in the same county. Some places have found violations to be a significant revenue generator.
It's really hard for middle class folks with support systems (friends and relatives who can help with logistics and money) to understand how these things can mushroom out of control.
It may be a tightrope in the best of times, keeping all these elements (license, insurance, registration, vehicle itself, job). Once one of them goes bad, it can be very hard to both correct that situation and keep the others from cascading into the mess.
38
@Elysse
"One set of laws that seem to impact all the same..."
Does a $200 fine have the same impact on someone who makes $30,000 a year as someone whose annual income is $300,000? Or should the amount be the relatively the same for each person? However, even if the fine for the higher earner were $2,000, it could easily be more affordable than the mere $200 fine would be for the low income person.
That doesn't seem difficult to comprehend.
22
@Ellis6 there is no fine in the first place if the law isn't broken.
Many citizens regardless of age, gender, color or tendency toward social justice solutions for every problem have gone years without a traffic fine. It's not that difficult!
1
The problem: states have no effective mechanism to induce people to pay their traffic tickets – which are usually minor civil infractions. Often, their solution is to suspend the persons’ driving privilege for failure to pay overdue fines. If the person continues to drive, he can be charged with driving while license suspended, which is usually a criminal offense. At this point, the court obtains leverage over the person to force him to pay his outstanding traffic tickets: when he is sentenced for the criminal offense of driving while license suspended, the court can imposes a jail sentence that is suspended on condition that he gets his license reinstated -- which requires that he pay all his overdue traffic tickets.
Courts need inexpensive and effective ways to collect outstanding traffic fees. Some courts allow folks to make payment in installments; or convert some or all fees into community service; some reduce the amount of the fines if they are paid within a certain period of time. For those whose licenses are suspended, some courts have license reinstatement programs that allow individuals to sign a payment plan that results in the immediate reinstatement of their licenses. However, there are still huge numbers of people who simply ignore their tickets.
So we must ask: what creates an effective incentive for folks to drive in a careful manner? Unfortunately, it is the fear of getting a citation. And isn’t that how this whole problem started?
5
@Charles
Perhaps those fees/fines are ill considered to begin with. The flexibility and lack of real oversight for enforcement etc. creates an environment ripe for abuse. They seem to cost as much to collect as they bring in, except they have a funny way of ending up some books and not others - I speak from experience
Yes, I have suffered this very problem, resulting in an offset in time and energy spent, as I had once I cleared it all up, working my way to my current six figure level (sans formal education).
Why, because I had to wait for my next burger king paycheck to switch the studded tires (I hated to use them at all) from my car (Rural Western Pa in the late 80's) which was one weekend later than the deadline. This led to a downward spiral the resulted in no license for seven years. Essentially sentencing me to life on the fringe. No support system. No self determination, and a youth gutted by constant fear of authority intervening any time, for any reason. I cannot imagine how it must be for someone poorer, less white, and less capable of defending themselves.
I do not know what the perfect answer is, but I do know that some stable management of driving privileges for safeties sake, administered to be fair and keeps everyone's best interest in mind, would not resemble our current policies and practices in very many ways.
7
Want to be fair? Then have the fine amount be proportional to income and assets. If a billionaire had to pay a million for a moving violation then ....
21
@redpill
This is the case in Finland, I believe.
Don't often disagree with the ACLU, etc. But live in a very highly congested area of California (Contra Costa County), every other cross town street is 6-8 lanes and the freeways, will not go there, good luck on those at 10-20 MPH for most of the day). A majotity of people do not know traffic laws and that is why they get busted.
Public service announcements should be spread across all media platforms every so often (say 5 minutes). Will inform people of the rules of the road.
They won't get busted and the roads (laugh here in California) would be safer and insurance would go way down.
It's just commom sense.
6
Cry me a river over your example of Leah Jackson. She had more than ample time and resources to solve her outstanding penalties. She flaunted the penalty phase of her violations. I don't have a bit of remorse for her situation.
20
During the 6 years I was taking care of 2 senior family members, I got very little sleep. On two different occasions I went through red lights. Fortunately, no accident resulted, but I did get tickets for $160. I was able to appear in court both times and pay a cash fine to avoid points, which would have resulted in (likely at least) doubled or trebled insurance costs.
That was an opportunity to really feel fortunate - I and my elderly relatives were fortunate I was able to pay those fines. I can't imagine what their lives would have been like if I hadn't been able to be with them at any hour. There was no opportunity for community service; all that was called for was cold, hard cash.
12
You are lucky not to have had a collision driving while impaired enough times to have been cited twice. I understand that you were under a lot of distress and you did not intend to do harm but people in that condition often do.
2
This article seems to ignore two crucial facts:
#1 - people receive traffic tickets for a reason....because they have either been driving dangerously or have broken a law
#2 - cars are dangerous machines
Ask anybody who has had a loved one injured or killed by someone driving with a suspended license how they feel about this.
I would actually like to see much tougher penalties for moving violations like speeding and/or DUI's...
16
@Matt ""#1 - people receive traffic tickets for a reason....because they have either been driving dangerously or have broken a law"".......
Yeah, most of the time. There is also Police error. I got pulled over for running a stop sign, but it was the guy in front of me that ran the sign, not me. Cops are human, and they make mistakes too.
12
@golf pork
And their mistakes can be every bit is devastating to some people.
Changing this policy signals a healthier view in my opinion. I am sure the positive effects won't be easily detected by many people, but those who would be cast into next to impossible situations surely will benefit, even if it is just a reduction of suffering and fear.
It is terrifying to drive illegally, knowing everything you are working to protect can be destroyed in a random event, by a cop having a bad day, needing to fill a quota, or has something against your car or your look.
5
@Matt
Amen, Matt.
Actually, many states have adequate legal penalties but the problem is lack of enforcement. Probably 1% of drunk or gadgeting drivers actually are stopped and get a ticket, because people are not willing to pay taxes to hire enough cops to do the job. And, depending on the state, people busted for D.U.I. are cut loose by the courts, which is why you see people in crashes who have had a half dozen D.U.I.s, meaning they were probably drunk hundreds of times.
As I said elsewhere:
The sub-head to the story says, "Suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid fees buries poor people in debt."
I'm disappointed that many of the Most Recommended comments ignore the fact that bad driving buries poor (and other) people not in debt but six feet under.
40,000 or so killed each and every year in crashes, the large majority the result of ticketable offenses. Discrimination against the poor can be remedied by making fines proportionate to income, as some countries do, and/or community service. That said, I am all for much greater enforcement of traffic laws, arguably the most reasonable and public-benefit set of laws we have.
Have a sense of proportion: you are in much greater danger from a bad driver than from a random terrorist attack.
1
There should be provision for people without means to pay fines over a time that fits their means. However, people who do not respond to legal actions cannot be given exceptions. Because all must be treated equally before the law, such a policy must apply to everyone. The result is a society where the laws become ineffective.
Currently, there seems to be an idea that laws are only enforced against people to oppress them and people in selected privileged classes are never subject to any laws. It’s an anarchistic position without merit.
6
@Casual Observer
I heard that sitting Presidents cannot be indicted. Bigly sad.
There is only one term to qualify this blatant miscarriage of justice : class warfare. The only individuals permanently affected by this war against the poor are the ones who can least afford to commit a minor error, lest they find themselves eternally excluded from mainstream society. In the meantime, a small privileged caste in America can afford such egregious forms of corruption such as bribing prestigious universities at minimal personal cost. Three cheers to the New York Times for documenting this scandalous state of affairs, may this article convince at least a minority of its readers to vote for a progressive candidate in 2020 !
32
@AE
The poor should not have to pay for licenses, insurance or fines period.
Ironic how someone violating a traffic law isn't sent to a mandatory class to better educate them about said laws instead of having to cough up $$ to the government. Apparently some states do this, but all of them should. And that class shouldn't effect car insurance rates other than to lower them when the person graduates from it.
12
In the example, the ruinous fine resulted not from the traffic violation but by repeatedly ignoring court orders. She made no attempt to address the problem with the court, hoping to get to a point where she could pay the court on her own terms and in her own time. No justice system that can work can tolerate that. She will need a lawyer to help her work this out. Had she sought one at the start, she’d never had got into this kind of trouble. There are legal aid services and lawyers willing to do pro-bono work to help people without money.
6
@Casual Observer
If someone doesn't have the money to pay a fine, do you really think they can afford a lawyer?
The woman needed assistance in creating a workable payment schedule based on her income. That should be provided by the government, which has an interest in assuring the woman can continue to work, pay her bills, and remain a productive citizen.
That would not be an unlimited service.
One other point: Fines should never be considered a source of revenue that a jurisdiction depends on to pay bills.
5
@Casual Observer
This is utter nonsense I'm afraid - the problem lies in criminalising minor trafffic violations, and allowing suspension of license as a penalty for not paying a traffic fine. Most countries do not impose a mandatory court appearance on a traffic ticket, which is frankly, rather idiotic and unique to the United States, but treat it as it should be - a civil offence. License suspension is a particularly heinous form of retribution when it directly affects ones ability to earn, and as the article states, is the opposite of common sense.
Watch Live PD on A&E Friday and Saturday nights. See how many people stopped for traffic infractions don’t have a license or it’s suspended, they have drugs and they have outstanding warrants. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a subculture. These people are not above the law. Do you want to give them a free pass? Are we a nation of laws that we are not going to enforce? I’m offended by the suggestion that the poor are immune from our traffic laws.
21
@Bill Are you seriously suggesting a "reality" TV show somehow represents the general situations for most Americans stopped for traffic infractions and found to have a suspended license? I don't suppose it's occurred to you that the show purposely features people with warrants for drugs and whatnot because it heightens its drama?
There is absolutely nothing in this op-ed suggesting that Leah Jackson "had drugs" or "had outstanding warrants," or is part of any "lifestyle or subculture." (One might note that the first part of the op-ed is based on her testimony before the Minnesota House. I doubt a serial drug offender would be up there testifying in any such fashion.) There's also nothing here suggesting the poor should be "immune from our traffic laws" or given "free passes." Might I suggest paying more attention to words on a newspaper page and less attention to sensationalized reality TV that's rather clearly resulted in you stereotyping a broad swath of the American public?
26
@Bill
Immigrants should not be forced to pay for a license, or auto insurance. Many folks in Austin and other sanctuary cities understand this is what their elected officials embrace.
1
@Bill:
You probably don't understand that these live police shows, where they show real police stops of drivers, only show the "worst of the worse". These shows are heavily edited for ratings, and they remove most of the uninteresting traffic stops that don't result in much activity or fines.
You're getting a false sense of the situation -- and so you are assuming that so many "people stopped... don't have a license or it's suspended." If in an evening they stopped twenty cars, and one or two were the "interesting" drug busts with suspended licenses," do you think they would show the 2 boring routine "broken headlight" stops or the drug bust & suspended license?
Don't assume what you're watching is unedited reality. It's skewed, where the majority of boring stops are never shown.
Also, have a heart. There are many poor drivers who are unable to pay high fines, and when they lose their license they also lose their jobs. It's a bad cycle that should be stopped.
13
It is important to understand that government is a business, one which is intended to be fair and serve everyone, but it is a business nonetheless, one that happens to have police powers and the ability to confiscate property and freedom. As such, one goal is to take in a lot of money and provide the minimum of services or only the services that will be noticed by the "influential" people in any community, usually the people with wealth and assets. It is always easier to pick on people who have neither wealth nor influence.
In some European countries, they fine people for speeding or other violations according to their capacity to pay. A fine of $135. is nothing to someone making hundreds of thousands per year but it can be the difference between paying the rent, buying food or fixing a car for someone making 25K. Why do people with next to nothing have to pay the same dollar amount as a rich person?
Differential fining would not work here because of our Constitution (14th Amendment). Imposing the same dollar amount on people of different means is the reverse but the same sort of unfairness.
Governments and enforcers should always remember, or be forced to remember, that the purpose of government is not to ride people's backs and force them to stay in poverty or go lower economically. Ultimately, no one is helped, including the government itself. Like most businesses, however, governments don't bother to figure out the chain of circumstances that hold people down.
4
@Doug Terry
Government should neither be considered a business nor run like a business.
@Ellis6
I agree, especially with the idea that it should not be "run like a business" (a long standing myth) because the laws and rules which apply to government do not apply to business. Furthermore, government lacks, or should lack, the profit motive which is the central organizing principle of business. Govt. can never successfully be run like a business.
When I say above that it is nonetheless a business what I mean is that it has the objective of taking your money and the people who are in govt. often lose track of the fact that the central purpose is to serve citizens, not tax them, fee them and penalize them into poverty. Instead, govt. becomes an end in itself because, as it seeks money to perpetuate it's own existence and success, it becomes a burden to citizens and an instrument of poverty creation.
I've seen this cruelty live. I was in Traffic Court, and the majority of people facing the judge were poor people of color. The Judge had absolutely no mercy. One older African American man in his sixties was there for a banal infraction, when he explained to the heartless judge that he didn't have the money to pay, the judge tripled the fine, and added court administrative costs. A $140.00 original ticket, in a cruel few seconds turned into $1800.00. Neither Kafka nor Bertolt Brecht could have written a more absurd, cruel scenario. Sadly, it's repeated daily, multiple times.
44
@Marc Castle That judge should go to jail for a while.
2
Almost everybody who has unpaid traffic citations is entitled to ask the judge to do community service instead of paying the fine. Often, the defendant is given 90 days to complete between 5 to 40 hours of comminity service at any non-profit organization like an animal shelter, a food-bank, a church, fire station, local hospital, etc. Also, if a person's driver's license is suspended for want of unpaid tickets, that person is often entitled to get an alternative "professional license" which is a limited-use license that allows the bearer to drive only to work. The reason many people end up with a suspended license is often because they do not show up in court to take care of their tickets in the first place and so they end up with a warrant for failure to appear in court, which results in addtional fines. If you show up in court and ask for help, the judge will often help you even if you have no money.
25
@Thomas
For many, showing up for court means taking a day off from work. Not to mention that many simply are not aware that they can convert their tickets and fines into community service. The onus is always on the poor being informed, which is rarely the case.
9
@Thomas
I counted 5 instances of "almost" and "often". Not to mention in Texas, you can get pulled over for a traffic infraction and wind up dead for lack of a $5000 bail.
I'm going to assume said person has the time to perform the service, also assuming the person knows to ask and further, that the judge grants that alternative. What if the person is unable to manage a ride to said location in the time they have available for the number of times required?
Because everyone can just take time off work to "show up" in court and all judges are just wanting to know how they can help.
9
If she got an auto title loan, none of this would have happened. This is exactly what title loans are for.
3
@michjas none of this would have happened if she did not drive poorly! I mean I can understand her getting pulled over for expired plates, broken taillight etc but they dont say that- the original ticket was for blocking an intersection (which was from lack of patience) and no doubt that is what her other tickets were for... speeding etc right? I have no sympathy for people who shoot themselves in the foot.
15
@michjas Are you joking?? Title loans are illegal in many locations, and for good reason: they're the modern-day equivalent of loan sharks. The interest rates on the loans they offer can quite literally be compounded to 10x the original loan amount within the space of a year.
If anything, Ms. Jackson's situation would've likely been exponentially WORSE had she gotten involved with title loans in any way, shape or form.
6
@Bonnie T. Title loans indeed have high interest rates. But for those who are headed toward a $3,000 debt, they make perfect sense. And if someone temporarily out of a job is starting work soon, quick repayment very much softens the blow. If she repaid after a month, the typical interest on $135 would be about $10 (8% APR per month; 96% APR per year). And even if took her a year to repay, the interest would only have been about $135. Eliminating title loans helps put people in situations like what is described here. I think it's a bad idea and so do 32 states.
1
Thank you. This is, quite frankly, an easy way for the State to make profit and I've experienced it several times to the point of losing my composure and having the State Trooper become both sympathetic and apologetic. Ticketing people who are going to work for driving 11 miles over the speed limit on a desolate road- it's remarkably petty and ridiculous. It is simply to raise funds for state government. They bus addicts to methadone clinics but won't give a dollar to inner city boys & girls club programs, it's staggering in it's sense of misplace priority.
15
I was 20 years old, fully supporting myself as a waitress, and attending a community college full time. My “daily free spend” was less than $3. While passing another car on my hour-long commute to class, I was pulled over and issued a ticket for speeding. This was years ago and I don’t remember the actual cost, but it was substantial. I remember being distraught over the sum. But it NEVER accrued to me to not pay the ticket. I knew that if I didn’t pay the ticket, there would be consequences- suspended license, more fines, maybe no way to get to school: poor forever! So I scraped, borrowed a bit, did without (when I didn’t have much in the first place) and paid the ticket. I got through community college, went on the university, and grad school. Got a great job that covers my living expenses. It was a long, hard grind. I have little sympathy for a grown woman who can not make some effort, over months, to pay the original ticket. Time to grow up.
79
Great response on your part to adverse circumstances. In the face of adversity, you thought through the consequences of the various options and chose personal responsibility. It sounds to me that, although this may have happened at a difficult point in your life, you made wise choices.
9
@Eliza
You are lucky that you are so much smarter than Leah. She may not be the brightest or the most responsible person in the world, but the point is, why are we taxpayers allowing the system to be gummed up with cases like this of relatively minor infractions committed by "average" people who make a mistake and then don't follow through with rectifying it? Let's figure out a different way to penalize her that keeps her a productive cog in society while appropriately penalizing her misbehavior.
6
Nothing is ever that cut and dried. People are Not robots. People have different intellectual capabilities and some have very little common sense. They can be perfectly good people but just not be able to overcome adversity as you so very smugly are. These people should never be stomped on just because of these types of differences. So lighten up and be kind. Everyone you see is fighting their own personal battles.
7
Our local Judge recently ran a red light at an intersection with a camera. The vehicle was registered in her husband’s name. She went to court with him and told the Judge (her co-worker) that the person driving was not her husband and could not be identified so the ticket should be dismissed. It was dismissed. She lied to the court knowing full well she was the driver. Her subterfuge was discovered afterwards and all she received was an admonishment from the Council on Judicial Ethics. No punishment, no accountability- just corrupt American justice. True story, just check out the Santa Cruz Sentinel of Santa Cruz County California. The Judge was a former district attorney. Corruption exists everywhere in the United States.
27
Turning left at a red light never happened to me. Here's a thought: drive safely, defensively, park legally, avoid fines. By the way, if you turn left at a red light and cause a traffic jam that not only inconveniences many who are trying to live their lives, but also damages air quality through useless emissions, then maybe you do deserve a fine. Learn your lesson, and next time wait until the light turns green.
26
I had a moderately successful business that required a lot of driving. Between 500 and 750 miles a week. Because of a mix up in billing for an insurance renewal my license was suspended. But I had to still drive. Eventually I ended up do a month at Rikers and a month in Riverhead Jail, paying over $10,000 in fines and for a lawyer from money after my mother passed away. But when I thought everything was settled and I could get my license back - the NYS DMV had a bill for over $3,000 in fees that I had not money to pay.
So I ended up living on modest payments from DSS,
Food Stamps, MediCaid, then eventually on SSI because NYS decided it was better to prevent me earning a living and employing two or three others and paying taxes than to allow me to drive.
15
There's more to THIS story...
When I saw the headline, I thought, "Well, when does it cost $13,000? It must be for a rich person. Since if you are richer, you're charged an amount that will actually affect you." But no, it's actually for poor people. Then I remembered, this is America.
14
Capitalists and their governments learned long ago that debt was not only the most profitable form of exploitation, but that it served as a mechanism of submission. Entire nations are enslaved via debts to predatory bankers and if they failed to pay...send in the Marines. Today student debt heads towards $2 trillion, mortgages break families under the 'ownership' illusion. Debt demoralises people and has a conservatising impact. Debtors fearful of 'consequences' or retaliation are less likely to say no to a boss, quit bad jobs, go on strike, join a protest. Traffic fines are just another class weapon that seeks to demoralize working people by imposing more debt and the threat of cops and jail. Thus bourgeois "democracy" maintains rule on behalf of the billionaire families that rule. Loan sharks know that squeezing too hard all the time can lead to adverse reactions by their victims, so periodically some pressure is released to prevent a rebellion. I'm looking forward to the rebellion.
9
@AR, Exactly right. So many of the younger millennials I work with hate American style capitalism and want to replace it with socialism. And the wealthy just can't understand why..
Thank you for an excellent and informative article. As a result of reading this I have changed my perspective of what is "fair" and, surprising myself, have come to agree with the author's point of view.
7
I'm chagrined by the number of commenters who appear to be missing the entire point of the op-ed. Absolutely no one is suggesting poor people should somehow "get a pass" on traffic tickets, or that people who can't afford to pay them should be let off scot-free, without penalty. What *is* being suggested is that poor people shouldn't have their driving privileges wholly suspended -- and, in cases like this one, subjected to thousands of dollars in additional fines and insurance premiums -- solely *because* they can't afford to pay a ticket in full by its due date.
Emphasis on "can't" (as opposed to "won't"): this op-ed also has nothing to do with scofflaws who can afford to pay traffic fines but refuse to do so. It has everything to do with the millions of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, and for whom not immediately paying off a traffic fine results in tangible hardships stemming from not being able to legally drive to work or to pick up one's kids at school. (And before anyone suggests "they can just take the bus," note that a large majority of the American population outside of its top-five metro areas has *literally* no access to public transit of any kind.)
22
@Bonnie T. Roughly half of America (much, much higher in certain communities) can claim they "cannot afford" to pay fines related to court cases. So, that group gets a special privilege that their license can never be revoked? Huh? They should be more likely, not less likely, to get their license revoked than stable, responsible more affluent people, in a fair society, based on long run averages. These bizarre calls that people should be punished equally regardless of the crime rate are baffling and alarming.
5
@rjs7777 Yet again, absolutely no one is suggesting that poor people should "get a special privilege that their license can never be revoked." In this particular case all the driver wanted was the opportunity to start receiving paychecks from her new job before a ticket was due. While the op-ed doesn't explain what precisely happened next, I would assume at the very least Ms. Jackson got hit with a substantial late fee for failure to pay the original ticket on time -- on top of having her license automatically suspended, the fees for which were likely several hundred more dollars she couldn't afford.
"They should be more likely, not less likely, to get their license revoked than stable, responsible more affluent people"
Are you seriously suggesting there's some sort of correlation between socioeconomic levels and the likelihood of receiving moving violations? If anything, most social science as a general matter suggests the opposite: affluent people are more likely to believe they're "above the law." (See, e.g., the president of the United States.)
7
Seriously folks, "Lawmakers across the country should work to eliminate wealth-based driver’s license suspensions." This is just scratching the surface.
A good number of local Governments are funded by these tickets, outsize parking and towing fees, regressive sales taxes, user fees. Why? I'll just pick one outrageous cascading example. In my county an administrator retired. Her pension was over $500,000 a year! how? apparently she worked late nights, did not take vacations, accumulated it and her sick leave and the retirement system is engineered in such a way that he last paycheck or the last years paycheck informed her retire income.
This was nit all, her supervisor who explained this without shame also gains, along with his colleagues. Their retirement calculations also go up because what this one person did.
This, obviously, is just one example of an unaccountable system gone wild. A $13k fine? ha! I can see that.
4
Gee, there are millions of retired civil servants. Are they all receiving pensions like that?
You ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait until congestion pricing begins in Manhattan. They’re going to do it by mail. Watch and see what a debacle that turns out to be.
5
@Mike L
"Cars are not green and must be phased out" AOC.
"eliminating a punishment for nonpayment of court debt will result in a decrease in revenue that courts and other government agencies depend on to finance their operations."
This system is subject to abuse.
4
I have been in traffic court on several occasions and observed commissioners who routinely suspend driving licences-- even as such decisions appear to reflect the whims of the presiding commissioner.
One commissioner routinely suspended driving licenses for any speeding violation of 15 mph/posted limit-- regardless of driving conditions.
While arbitrary and excessively punitive decisions can be appealed, that path typically requires an attorney and fees in the range of $500. For many defendants, this is not a realistic option.
Of course, you can avoid traffic court- and its dismaying power imbalance- by obeying the prevailing motor vehicle code. Still, will those motorists who always come to a full and complete stop at a Stop Sign, who unfailingly signal when turning or changing lanes, or never exceed the posted speed limit, please stand up... I thought so.
In California, issuing traffic citations has morphed into a cottage industry-- supporting the bureaucracy of county courts and legions of traffic schools, while generating revenue for local governments.
As with the bail system, the deck is stacked against people who live paycheck to paycheck. Yet, for decades on end, substantial numbers of Americans managed to remain either unaware or unconcerned that our oft-praised judicial system was, in fact, riddled with discrimatory practices.
Christy Vaile
9 Agatha Court San Anselmo, CA
9
@Christy
In Santa Monica the parking fines are a major component of the city budget.
2
@Christy
Thank you. Nicely said.
1
When the authors mentioned "unconstitutional" that is when I knew they really have no idea how the real world works. In order to obtain a DL one must pass a written and driving test. They pass those tests and acknowledge that they are aware of the state driving laws. ALL drivers must be treated equally. They have money to purchase/rent, maintain and insure the vehicle. If you do the crime then you do the time or in this case just pay the fine.
9
@Donald
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
It's part of the Constitution, in case you missed it.
@LW Didn't miss it. Being from Mtn. View you know very well that $135 is not excessive. Traffic fines have existed since the inception of driving on American roads. Not until this new progressive movement started with Obama have we encountered ridiculous articles like this.
1
My concern isn't how the courts will collect their fees - my concern is what consequence will there be for failing to comply with the law?
I don't feel like paying for license plates - no problem, just keep driving. The tickets will stack-up, but other than the inconvenience of being stopped everyday, no problem - not like they can take my license away, or throw me in jail.
Why don't we just eliminate fines from speeding tickets while we are at it? Isn't that an un-due burden on the poor as well?
We have laws. Not following the law must have consequences.
15
@Tom Stoltz
If not following the law has few consequences for the wealthy and influential (how many went to jail for the 2008 mortgage meltdown?), why must it have drastic consequences for the poor?
If you have money to spend on good lawyers, the main consequence of breaking laws is often having to spend on lawyers. Instead of paying your bills, you sue. Works for the Donald.
3
@ Tom Stoltz Detroit
Yeah. We can see how not following the law works for the CEO of Wells Fargo and the President of the US. I’m sure you’ll find some way to justify that.
1
Set fines as a percentage of a person’s monthly income, as they do in Finland. A poor working guy pays $25, a CEO pays $25,000. The system will work better for everyone.
19
If you cannot afford to pay the fines, obey the law, or at least come close. I've been driving for 42 years. I've gotten one ticket, and that was when I was 24 (in 1985).
15
@AnnabelleLeigh good record, but black people here are still grossly discriminated when it comes to such fines and tickets. Havent we seen enough of cops shooting people in their own cars?
1
@BePostive
Of course. But being poor does not alleviate your responsibility for your own actions.
How a lady manages to get pulled over three times while driving with a suspended license is beyond me. I've been driving for over twenty-five years and only been pulled over once. Why not just drive safely and within the speed limit instead of asking the nation to change its laws so that you can drive unsafely with greater impunity?
32
@Dave I cannot knowingly, one-hundred percent comment as to the traffic enforcement mechanisms used by Minnesota, but in Arizona, police officers often use computer-based systems which scan license plates as they drive on the streets or highways. When the license plates indicate the registered driver has unpaid tickets or previous suspensions, warrants for other offenses, or cause to investigate, these officers will pull over that driver. That is one possible way this individual could have received so many tickets in a small amount of time. At least, if she were driving in Arizona with a suspended driver's license, it would be only a matter of time before she were to be pulled over.
16
@Dave Who on earth do you think is "asking the nation to change its laws"? Allowing indigent drivers a bit more time to pay off minor traffic tickets -- particularly in cases like this one, where the driver had an entirely valid reason for not being able to do so (starting a new job and awaiting her first paycheck) -- is an entirely sensible idea that, perhaps ironically, would result in our existing laws *not* being applied unequally to less-affluent citizens.
6
@Dave I'll bet a thousand dollars you're not a minority or driving a beat up car. People get pulled for "driving while black" and other legally questionable reasons every day. And if that unfortunate soul has a ticket they couldn't afford to pay or a suspended license because of it, they did nothing wrong other than be the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. And many times, they don't even know their license is suspended until they get pulled over...
2
While I don’t doubt the main point of the article, I don’t think the anecdote provided support for the thesis. Was Ms. Jackson actually poor? She said that she couldn’t pay her first ticket ($135) because she was waiting for her first paycheck; fine, many of us have been in similar situations. But, after a few months, she STILL hadn’t paid that first fine. I get the feeling that she just thought the issue would go away. But it didn’t. So, it snowballs. That is the life of an adult; we have responsibilities, and we need to take care of them.
56
@Jared Wood
Why not simply put her in debtor's prison? After all, she failed to pay her $135 fine. This is a serious question, as taking away a driver's license is a modern-day analog of debtor's prison.
Or maybe you can try to imagine a different way to collect a debt.
And maybe you can imagine that she had other needs for her money, like feeding her children -- did you consider that she might be sole breadwinner?
17
@Jared Wood "But, after a few months, she STILL hadn’t paid that first fine."
Actually, by that point she would've been subject to the original $135 fine; various penalties/fees for not paying it on time; and likely a citation for $300 or more for driving with a suspended license -- all of which could've been prevented had the court not insisted she pay the initial fine by a fixed, inflexible due date.
8
Or she could have simply requested a payment plan with the original $135, perhaps with a marginal fee added. Waiting months to pay ANY bill will incur substantial penalties.
5
What the police do to working poor people in our nation is an outrage. In stead of serve and protect it should be ticket and collect.
The Lawmakers need to enact common sense laws the are reasonable in punishment with out stripping someone licensed preventing him or her to pick their kids up at school or drive them in an emergency to the hospital or doctor's office. We as a nation need to work as one not two laws for the Rich and impoverished people.
6
"But, as Ms. Jackson explained to state lawmakers in 2018 testimony, she had just started a new job and hadn’t yet received a paycheck, so she couldn’t pay the $135 fine right away.
A few months later,..."
she apparently neither had paid her fine nor made arrangements to pay it. Just can't catch a break, right.
23
@Jp So easy to point the finger isn't it? Please re-read the article It's not about Ms. Jackson's non-payment, it is about the criminal justice system that keeps poor people poor and robs them of the ability to make a living.
2
I'm temporarily without a car, so I was walking to the grocery store today. I'm enjoying walking, but it does take a lot longer. As I approached the intersection near the store I heard people screaming "Get out of the car!" I saw a car turned on its side after it had crashed into a parked car that was legally parked by the side of the road. The parked car's rear side had been completely crumpled from the impact. The person driving wasn't able to get out of the tipped car. The police arrived in a couple minutes and helped the driver out. He seemed fine. Absent a medical emergency, I'd say odds are high that the driver either wasn't paying attention or trying some shenanigan if he crashed into a parked car hard enough to roll on his side. For the good of all, some people just should not be drivers.
6
Obeying the law is not optional. Pay your fine, or don't drive. This third option, when tickets become optional, and valid driver's license is not required to drive, is a nonsense argument promoting chaos.
To date, maintaining a current and valid driver license is part of adult living. It is absolutely no guarantee that a given adult can successfully navigate adult life. I am opposed to being forced to become a financial parent to grown misbehaved children who can't bring themselves to take responsibility for what they've done.
20
She should have let her employer know that her license was suspended and, therefore, could not make those bank runs.
On the other hand, I also believe that getting a traffic ticket should financially "sting" a bit, but not lead someone to financial ruin. I do believe that great leniency should be extended to those who simply cannot afford to make an immediate payment... and yes, withOUT suspending their license, as driving simply is the lifeblood of many jobs, and to take away the ability for someone to earn income is a far greater sin.
7
AS I SIT HUMMING THE SONG FROM GILBERT & SULLIVAN'S MIKADO, I hum the lyrics of the Mikado: My object quite sublime, I shall achieve in time. To let the punishment fit the crime, the punishment fit the crime. The situation with draconian, financially crushing traffic tickets is scarcely a source of innocent merriment, as the Mikado would have us believe. It is yet another example of the deterioration of the reason our founders wanted to end English rule: to avoid filling debtor's prisons with innocent people whose only crime was poverty. We're there again in US. Should we then rejoin the UK? I think not! We must recall that the purpose of law enforcement is to dissuade and prevent the recurrence of violations. In the case of crushingly high traffic fines, throwing the driver into debtor's prison at the cost to the taxpayer of some $75K per year scarcely meets either criterion. The outcome is neither dissuasion from infractions of the traffic laws, or reform of driving behaviors, but rather, the devastation of the lives of the driver and those who rely upon the income they generate to keep the family afloat. There must be some way that community service can substitute for cripplingly high traffic fines and the avoidance of debtor's prison. Or we can just do nothing and move ever closer to the madness of King George (and the madness of Quack Donald), in destroying our nation.
4
The biggest problem of course is that that the government makes money every time anyone breaks a law. What for? How can this be justified? Why do we owe government monies for making a mistake. Or rather, why should government make money when anyone makes a mistake. It makes no sense whatsoever. Given the huge existential divide in this country, treating everyone equally in terms of the fine they must pay is an abomination. We must discard this system of fines and instead opt for community service.
8
@Indisk - If we did that then you would complain that this poor woman had kids and could not find the hours to do her community service, blah, blah, blah:) That collected money goes into a city/state treasury which then helps a lot of needy people.
The writer is mistaken when he writes, "Wealth-based suspensions are at best ineffective and at worst destructive to the purpose of ensuring compliance with unpaid debt."
His mistake is in believing the suspensions have anything to do with ensuring compliance. The suspensions succeed brilliantly for their intended purpose, which is to keep the poor down where they belong.
6
They may be poor in money, but they are also poor in judgment. Jackson had the chance to attempt in court to plead it down or get it dismissed had she taken the initiative. Then she kept getting pulled over, presumably for not obeying traffic laws. Just how far are we supposed to travel down the empathy road for poor people like her?
27
@Kathy BI believe radars detect and that's how suspended drivers continue to get pulled over. Same for outstanding warants
2
I do think that the consequences for the poor are more severe, since 135.00 is a substantially larger portion of a poor persons earnings, while the wealthy dont have the incentive to avoid breaking the law when the fine is pocket change to them. They dont feel the same consequences for the same misdeed.
However, this article lost me here:
"she had just started a new job and hadn’t yet received a paycheck, so she couldn’t pay the $135 fine right away.
A few months later, she was pulled over, told her driver’s license was suspended for an unpaid ticket and cited for driving with a suspended license — a new $200 ticket"
"a few months later....." So at what point did she receive her paycheck and not pay the fine?
21
@Block Doubt
You might just be surprised how far down the list of priorities a traffic ticket can fall when living paycheck to paycheck.
Get paid, tell yourself "next payday for sure" can go on for years in some cases.
Billions for a useless, offensive wall. Billions prosecuting wars that do not serve the interest of a vast majority of people in the country. Every conceivable break and adjustment of rules concocting a destructive economy and so many seem to unable to appreciate that the little money, and little time people on one end of the scale costs them a great deal to service a system that more often than not leaves their interests unattended.
3
@Block Doubt, Whoever said she was able to keep that job? Most places have a trial period of anywhere from a few days to several months to decide if you are a good fit.
I'll give you another reason, is that if she had been without a job for a significant amount of time, I'm sure she had other debt collectors after her for past due rent payments, credit card payments, overdue medical bills, overdue utility bills, etc.
It takes a long time to dig yourself out of holes like that. I can tell you that a major illness or injury can drastically alter your life and your ability to pay your bills and you have to make all kinds of no-win decisions regarding what little funds you do have.
I've been there, despite having a job with work comp benefits. That company I worked for tried to deny me those benefits for getting injured on the job and I was out of work for 11 months with only intermittent WC benefits coming my way and nothing at all for the first 4 months I was out on sick leave/ WC.
This caused a cascade of bad things happening. I fell behind on my house payments, credit card bills, and utility bills. My house eventually was repo'ed as there was no way I could come up with all of the missing payments and the $400 a month in penalties too. I had to prioritize where the few funds I received went, which was mostly towards utilities, food, insurance, and car payments. There is no way I could have afforded even a $25 parking ticket much less a larger ticket.
4
@Block Doubt So...just let people follow the rules whenever THEY want to?! The roads are bad enough...without people making illegal turns and blocking traffic...Sorry
I agree that we should not let rich people get off easy because they can afford to pay pay a fine or to make it proportionately more burdensome for low income people who cannot afford to pay the same original fine and end up paying additional fees. However, I want judges to have authority to take aggressive steps to stop traffic violations that threaten lives. Too many people are dying on the streets. Let’s use jail, suspended licenses, and other tools not related to fines for all repeat offenders including the rich and poor. Let’s get tough in a way that reduces traffic violations. Fewer people should drive cars. Those who do not follow the traffic laws related to safety should stop driving. Yes, the suspension of driving privileges should be based on the number of violations related to safety not income.
6
@David, Throwing anyone in jail has the opposite effect you would want for now they have no job and a record of being in jail for which many employers will refuse to hire you. Jail time isn't the answer unless it is for something like a DUI/drunk driving offense in which you are putting everyone else on the roadway at risk of death or injury from someone's impaired driving.
But... she broke the law. Maybe she had her reasons, but still laws were broken and the penalties are standard. Not sure how you can treat people equally when you're asking for unequal treatment of cases.
19
@ s.s.c. Trump routinely violates the law and nothing happens to him. That’s because the fantasy propaganda we are fed about the “rule of law” does not apply to everyone.
1
@s.s.c. I am presuming this person has not been making many illegal turns lately.
The wealthy are already taxed at a higher rate. Are they supposed to get higher fines too?
And naive me thought people were supposed to be treated equally in America.
10
@Jay Lincoln
How is it equal to charge her an amount of money that will empty her savings - and charge me an amount of money that I will spend thoughtlessly going to lunch?
It's not equal to have a flat rate, any more than it'd be equal to tax everyone $30,000 per year.
A percentage of income is a fair penalty, that is far more equal.
7
@Jay Lincoln
Either that or we eliminate the fine system altogether opting instead for mandatory community service. Keep in mind that your wealth is dependent upon the a good being of the society which includes poor people. Your wealth doesn't live in a cocoon. It's only fair that you pick up a larger tab since you are far far better off than people who can't even afford to eat twice a day.
1
@Jay Lincoln Yes that would be an excellent idea!
1
The story glosses over the likely fact that this person did not show up for a court appearance or made an attempt to set a payment schedule for the fine. Drivers licenses are not suspended without the matter coming before a court.
A person that took their responsibilities seriously could have taken care of this within the first or second paycheck.
31
@Ryan M "Drivers licenses are not suspended without the matter coming before a court."
This is false: in most states driver's licenses are automatically suspended -- and in many cases a warrant is issued for the driver's arrest -- if a moving violation isn't paid on time.
12
I've represented folks who are in this debtor's prison, but I have less sympathy. There is the girlfriend who lets the boyfriend "put the car in her name" and when he defaults, SHE loses her license...I feel bad. There are also a fair number of people who ARE bad drivers, or toss tickets as a matter of course....until there is an actual consequence. I've seen that enough times with people who aren't poor.. Often I hear "but they never sent me a second notice"...News Flash, the ONLY notice they need give you is the personal service on the side of the road...the system doesn't do "collection agency work". I've seen the folks who can't every pay, but there is also a lot of folks who just won't until they get the misdemeanor ticket. This isn't the same as the bail issue reported elsewhere....
16
Ms. Dindial convenient doesn't acknowledge that the driver who is operating with a suspended license is breaking the law. She also fails to acknowledge that the driver had to commit ANOTHER infraction in order to get caught for driving while suspended!
This is an example of liberal, feel-good preaching that actually endangers public safety. If someone has committed so many traffic infractions that they have incurred $13,000 in debt, his or her license should be suspended indefinitely. This is not penal--it is compassion for all other drivers that have to share the road with habitual offenders.
Many people on the road should not be driving because they cannot seem to grasp or respect the rules of the road. It is maddening to read Ms. Dindial justifying this behavior, and I hope she or a loved one never suffers at the hands of a repeat traffic offender.
20
@Drone
Actually, she does acknowledge the repeated infractions. Her point is that this person either has to drive or loses their job. Her point is also that this person is not a threat to other drivers - the initial error was minor. You and I and every single other person on the road occasionally makes minor mistakes - forgetting to use a blinker or perhaps not stopping at a stop sign for a full 3 seconds before proceeding. Does this make us a threat to society? OF COURSE NOT.
The author is not advocating for people who pose some sort of a threat. She is advocating for the person who loses their license, job, home, car etc. for a minor traffic violation because they cannot afford the ticket.
A better solution would be to allow a payment plan and extensions for extenuating circumstances such as the one describe in this article. This would allow the person to pay the ticket yet continue working.
9
@Drone
The point of this article is that people often do not have a choice whether to drive or not. They must in order to make a livelihood. Taking away their license because of their inability to pay is cruel punishment.
6
@Indisk Driving a car legally is not a right. It is a privilege that is quite expensive. Many people cannot afford it.
If the size of a traffic or parking fine were 10% of one's weekly salary I think a lot of the commentators would suddenly develop a much more sympathetic attitude...
6
Respectfully, I disagree with the subject example. Jackson had the opportunity over the few months prior to her next stop and summons, to pay the $135, noting the necessity for her to continue to drive, legally, and to earn a living for herself and for her family.
Decades ago as a young prosecutor, we had literally hundreds of suspended licenses every week go through the courts. Many were concurrently cited for lacking insurance.
Most of the defendants thought it was a joke. Many to most were repeaters.
I could only surmise that a number of those also had subsequent accidents, and those victimized could not obtain restitution for the actions of these violators.
29
I got a jay walking ticket once. I didn’t pay any attention to it and was arrested for not paying it.
In the courtroom, everyone was on trial for the same thing - Failure to appear. The judge was only concerned about the fact that we all ignored the law and he was sentencing everyone who appeared that day to 30 days in jail. Fortunately, I had a very good reason for not appearing and was released without a fine.
5
The last paragraph of the column pretty much sums up the real root cause of the problem, fines and "fees" are now seen as a way to generate revenue for state and local government, and have nothing to do with actually encouraging people to change their behavior.
Make the comfortable suburban homeowners pay taxes to support the services they expect, and stop trying to squeeze pennies out of the have less.
8
Ever wonder why a very very small percent of the entire population is affected by this? Choices. The majority of the population will not commit the crime because they understand the consequences. Some done and have to learn the hard way. In the end, they made that choice.
29
@J Traffic infractions are generally not considered "crimes."
2
Traffic fines should be 90 pct. redistributed to the citizenry. This would properly place the motive of the fine where it belongs. controlling unsafe or anti social driving habits.
Personally, I’d like to see better enforcement of failure to signal violations. Privacy doesn’t extend to ones turning intentions.
12
The problem is more a lack of graduation in the fining structure. The poster child in this case lost her license after one unpaid ticket (undoubtedly accompanied by a few ignored dunning letters). For those that just ignore the one fine, registration and license renewal can be blocked. For repeat offenders, the judge should have some leeway to suspend a license up to some number of unpaid tickets at which point the person probably should not be driving if they have that many violations.
Another solution that hasn't been mooted is a paid advocate- they take care of the paperwork and the person with the fine pays them (that is, the value of the fine plus some significant payment for labor). You say, how can this help a person who can't pay to start with? For many people, the problem is less paying the bill, then mentally handling the paying of the bill while besieged with other of life's problems.
2
While some might find the notion that traffic citations have become a 21st-century variation of debtor's prisons hard to believe, it's nonetheless a fair description of the problem.
The crux of it is an underlying truth about which many Americans remain ignorant: our country's lower-income citizens -- the ones barely scraping by despite an ostensibly strong economy -- are no longer concentrated primarily in urban "ghettos," as was the case barely 20 years ago. Rather, they're increasingly situated on the fringes of suburbia, where public transportation is in many cases literally nonexistent and families are almost entirely reliant upon personal vehicles simply to get by.
As The Times has previously documented at length, this sorry state of affairs has spurred the proliferation of a new breed of subprime lender: those who target these largely powerless millions who have no way to get to work, visit the doctor, or handle any other quotidian task without access to a car. Such lenders force buyers into accepting loan terms most would view as utterly reprehensible, including interest rates of 20% or more and starter-lock devices lenders use to remotely disable vehicles - with a single click of a computer mouse - if borrowers are even a day late making a payment.
A similar reality exists as described in this op-ed: people among the "new suburban poor" charged usurious penalties if they're unable to pay traffic tickets on time for even minor infractions and for valid reasons.
7
Was Ms. Jackson unable to discuss her status with the "proper authorities" and arrange a payment program? There's something odd about the story we're given....and I do wonder how and why a person fails to take reasonable and timely steps to avoid being complicit in digging a very big financial hole. That said, I also strongly favor sympathetic handling of cases, particularly with regard to payment, on the part of motor vehicle / licensing departments, and courts...
10
@Robert Ms. Jackson's story isn't "odd"; it's derived directly from her testimony before the Minnesota House, to which a link is provided in the op-ed. While I assume it's an unusually extreme example of traffic penalties and fees spiraling out of control, its underlying point is nonetheless entirely valid: America's poor are having their driving privileges revoked for no real reason *except* the fact that they're poor.
I also seriously doubt she was able to discuss her status with any "proper authorities" and arrange a payment program. Such discussions typically require hiring a lawyer for the purpose, and it should be stating the obvious that Ms. Jackson couldn't afford to hire one (nor are public defenders available - anywhere - to handle misdemeanor cases in traffic court).
Finally, you appear to be overlooking the fact that a significant chunk of Ms. Jackson's debt stems from the increased auto-insurance premiums she was forced into paying after receiving three tickets for driving with a suspended license within a relatively short timeframe. Insurance companies don't offer anything akin to the payment programs you mentioned: you pay your premiums, in full, or you lose coverage. Period.
5
@Robert There is no such thing as a 'payment plan" for traffic tickets or fines. Courts will usually adjourn cases to allow a defendant to come up with the fine money, but payment plans are not a language a Court speaks.
2
@Casey @BonnieT I've seen thousands of people get payment plans from the court for all kinds of traffic misdemeanors, though it seems uncommon on the East Coast. And in many places public defenders do handle these cases, because driving under suspension or with no insurance is usually a jailable offense. They're not glitzy cases, but a PD can make a visible impact on someone's life in a situation like this, given the web of havoc that can grow from one traffic ticket (as the article illustrates).
Draconian. It wasn't always like. The media had a frenzy over unpaid parking tickets. The public was outraged and this was the result.
"In 2014, Leah Jackson was ticketed for obstructing traffic in Ostego, Minn., after turning left at a red light. That kind of thing happens to many people."
No, many people do not turn make a left turn at a red light. Unless there is something here that I am missing, I am concerned about Ms. Jackson's judgment/driving ability.
47
@Eileen I'm not sure where you live, or if your local traffic laws differ from the norm, but this kind of people certainly *does* happen to many people. Even if one starts to make a left turn at a protected green light, it's not at all uncommon for vehicles several cars ahead that have already passed through an intersection to stop suddenly. This results in those who began making a turn legally ending up stuck in the middle of an intersection as the light turns red -- thus obstructing traffic for reasons beyond their control.
Regardless of what actually occurred in this situation, do you seriously think your "concern about Ms. Jackson's judgment/driving ability" -- based on a two-sentence description of a given situation -- has anything to do with the far broader issue of her and millions of other lower-income Americans being forced to pay huge penalties and fees for minor traffic infractions, solely because they lack the means to immediately pay for a ticket?
12
@Bonnie T.
I'm just amazed at the number of people here commenting on the issue from a strict legalistic standpoint while glossing over the main issue - that the cascading effects of such fines threaten the livelihood of poor people disproportionately. Many simple couldn't cope with these situations and continue to drive making it worse. I like the suggestion of community service for such offenders instead of a fine.
12
Living in the city of Chicago, I can personally warrant and represent that not getting a traffic violation is close to impossible. From cameras enforcing 20mph limits to parking zones with inscrutable signage, there is no chance that a struggling young person won’t find herself up against a difficult financial crisis due to onerous traffic fines.
10
@RjW - I live in Seattle and up until 10 years ago, I never had a parking ticket or got pulled over. Its really easy.
Never got a ticket when I used to live in Chicago, L.A., San Francisco, Orlando, or even Miami. Its pretty easy to obey traffic laws if you want to.
I say "up until 10 years ago" because I no longer drive or own a car. I hear the planet is getting warmer and we're not supposed to burn fossil fuels.
3
@RjW Only women?
@th. Of course not. Just using him and her alternately, for gender fairness, instead of the awkward, he or she, him or her, voicings.
1
This is an unfortunate fact of life in many jurisdictions. Many communities possess limited means of generating funds from traditional sources such as property taxes therefore relying on fines and penalties to shore up their coffers. The way the system is structured, it amounts to nothing more than state sanctioned extortion. It is no accident that these practices disproportionately fall upon poor and minority communities trapping individuals and families into an insurmountable spiral of debt. Now don't get me wrong, I sincerely believe traffic fines and court costs should be a deterrent to violating traffic safety laws. Perhaps we should institute a proportional system similar to what's used in European and Latin American countries. There the fines are based upon the violator’s income and ability to pay. The state should not have its hand in perpetuating poverty among its most vulnerable citizens.
3
The only two amounts mentioned in this article were $135 and $200. The first one had "months" to be paid but was never done. Somehow this balloons into $13,000 via many infractions, none apparently dealt with in any way, and we're supposed to feel bad and ignore it? Why issue tickets at all for poor performance in traffic if they are to be erased? This makes no sense.
26
@Kim You're overlooking the increased insurance premiums Ms. Jackson had to pay as a result of her multiple tickets for driving with a suspended license -- all of which originated with the traffic ticket she received for a *single* violation of obstructing traffic -- as well as the fact that this cumulative expense grew larger and larger over the course of four and a half years. There's also no indication that her traffic infractions weren't "dealt with in any way"; they ended up on her driving record regardless, and those are what auto insurance companies use to establish annual premiums. (Might I suggest reading more closely in the future before rushing to judge those not fortunate enough to live in one of America's most affluent suburbs?)
Further, no one is suggesting traffic tickets should be arbitrarily "erased" for poor people. Rather, the crux of the argument here is that indigent persons shouldn't end up in situations like Ms. Jackson's solely because of a single moving violation that snowballed into ludicrous extremes.
4
@Bonnie T. - How about going to the Ostego website and checking out their public transportation. This woman did not need to drive. I'm sure if she wanted to she could have carpooled or something. But she CHOSE to drive with a suspended license not because she could not pay but because she CHOSE not to.
2
@tom harrison How about re-reading the part of the op-ed that mentions the following:
"Her job responsibilities as a retail store manager required her to make bank runs and other deliveries, so she kept driving in order to keep her job."
How about also not assuming -- even in situations where one isn't required to drive as a part of one's job -- that the mere existence of public transit in a given location doesn't mean one can readily use it? Ostego is located far enough away from Minneapolis to qualify as an exurb (a primarily rural area one step further out than a typical suburb). I think it's likely a reasonable assumption that its public transportation offerings aren't quite on par with the likes of Seattle.
5
Anyone can rightly say we need to improve something, but without concrete ideas, what it boils down to is just pointless criticism of the status quo. “Make school lunches better! Lower unemployment! Make America Great Again!” HOW do you propose to solve the problem? What's annoying about opinion pieces like this is that they point out a serious issue but have no substantive solutions. We have to have some fines. And they need to sting a little. Otherwise, everyone will either roll through or speed through stop signs. Personal responsibility is important. ANY PERSON who drives KNOWS if a parking ticket is not paid in a timely manner, it will INCREASE and eventually put you on an outstanding warrant list. The Australian system is a good alternative. They fine motorists using a ticket system, but as well as fairly modest fines penalty points accrue. 1 point for low range speeding up to 3 for high range for example. 12 points over 2 years and your license is suspended for 3 months (with possible allowance for use only for work for those who need to drive for a living). At peak holiday times when heavy traffic volumes increase accident risk points (but not fines) are doubled. Most speeding fines come from automatic speed cameras, fines sent by mail. Police focus more on dangerous driving. I would add to this a provision where ticketed offenders can engage in community service work rather than paying a fine. Of course, self-driving cars will make this entire debate irrelevant.
6
@Bill Brown- read my ideas below.
There are many towns that use fines to collect revenue not to control behavior. There have been cases tried where this was held illegal and the fines were taken away. The problem is you need the money to hire an attorney to do this.
Sometimes the mere threat of a law suit will do the trick for cities that know they have done wrong and have been caught in the past.. It is worth a chance anyway.
2
@Areader
I should have added that it is fairly easy to find out what percentage of a cities revenue comes from fines. When the percentage gets to high we all know what they fining citizens for.
1
Two systems of justice in America. One for the well-to-do, who write a check, and another totally punishing system for the little people.
5
@Nancy Rockford -- yes, justice is not blind, but this is not the point of this article.
The point of this article is that if you ignore traffic tickets it will come back to haunt you.
Pay our traffic tickets, people, or drive in a manner where you won't be pulled over.
4
@Don Juan No, the *actual* point of this article is that poor people who literally cannot afford to fully pay a ticket for a minor traffic infraction by its due date -- because of needing to feed one's family and whatnot -- shouldn't be treated in a wholly different fashion than those who do have the means to immediately pay a ticket in full, and subjected to thousands of dollars in entirely pointless penalties as a result.
5
When I was starting to drive, I got two speeding tickets in short succession and incurred a usurious "insurance surcharge" that cost around a thousand dollars a year for three years. Had it not been for parental support, I would have had a suspended license similar to those caught up in these stories. On the other hand, there seems to be no good way to enforce traffic laws and make the roads safer. Thousands of people are dying on the highways and byways of this country due to speeding, drinking and driving, distracted driving, and other dangerous practices. What's the better way to change that behavior?
11
@Ben P
You have to punish people. I drive a lot at night (recreational driving). I don't drink. I routinely see drivers unable to stay in their lane. The police need to drive around looking for lane-straddlers and cars that are weaving. I don't think that can be detected by radar. When I go for a midnight drive north of NYC on a Friday or Saturday night (I have no social life), I'd say about 50% of the other drivers seem impaired. I see drivers slow down to 30MPH to take a gentle bend in the road. Most are driving like they're 85 years old, but no 85 year old would be driving at 1AM. I understand that some people are cautious, but these drivers are clearly impaired, and I mean half the drivers on the road.
4
@Ben P "Thousands of people are dying on the highways and byways of this country due to speeding, drinking and driving, distracted driving, and other dangerous practices."
...none of which have anything to do with receiving a ticket for obstructing traffic at a red light, most likely because a vehicle ahead made a sudden stop for some reason.
Also, no one is suggesting we eliminate traffic citations based on income. The authors *are* suggesting that poor drivers receive unequal treatment simply by virtue of being poor (and thus financially incapable of paying for a given traffic ticket in a timely fashion), and that it's patently ridiculous for anyone to end up being forced to pay $13,000 in traffic fines and increased insurance premiums solely due to a SINGLE moving violation not paid on time.
1
@Ben P- drunk driving is still being treated with kid gloves, slap on the hand. Even running a red light and killing people is treated here ar least, in the same way. That happened about 5 years ago in Springfield Oregon. A guy ran a red light according to witnesses. He wasn't drunk or impaired , stayed at the scene and wasn't charged with any serious crime and had only to pay a $700 fine and a short license suspension. DA said he couldn't charge the driver with anything even though there was enough evidence to show he ran a red light and killed 3 kids in a crosswalk who had the green light. go figure. I wish i could have jailed the driver and kicked the DA out of office myself. i couldn't believe it after i heard about it.
The fines should be based on income. This was in discussion at least as far back as the 80's. The fact that it has not been implemented is in itself a crime.
11
@Anonymous - Where I live $135 is 9 hours of minimum wage work before taxes.
Five days a week for 4 weeks gives 20 days and that means this lady had to come up with an extra $6.75 each of those days to pay the fine. That's one cup of Starbucks a day or a pack of cigarettes.
Once when I was homeless I got desperate and grabbed some cardboard and wrote, "homeless vet needs help". Four hours later, I had $120.
Her city, Ostego has quite the public transportation system meaning she doesn't have to drive at all. I don't. So, cry me a river but she should lose her license for good simply for driving with a suspended license.
More people are killed on the road everyday than by guns. Driving is not a right. And if you are not capable of following our simple driving laws you have no business on the road.
1
Better public transportation would make life better and more free for all Americans regardless of their income level—even those who continued to drive their own vehicles. High speed rail service would make it possible for more Americans to get to work from further away, making housing more affordable and giving people more options.
3
@John Keyser Yes, and personal chauffeurs would make it much less likely for an average American to get stuck paying traffic tickets, but they're almost as unlikely to come about as high-speed rail. The U.S. isn't Japan, and over half of its residents in the southern half of the country (from coast to coast) have no access to ANY kind of public transit, even buses. Rail of any kind, let alone high-speed rail, isn't even remotely feasible in the foreseeable future for most parts of a country largely developed during the postwar years that makes owning a car quite literally essential for getting around at all.
1
@John Keyser - Americans don't want to use public transportation because then they would have to sit near other Americans. They want to drive in their own cars blasting music while texting on their phones complaining about traffic and global warming.
I live in a county that has light rail, ferries, buses, streetcars, trolleys, and even electric bicycles laying all over town yet people would rather sit in stop and go traffic on the highway. And they complain about global warming while buying even bigger trucks.
2
@John Keyser -- great in theory but most Americans prefer their car.
I agree but the real and continuing issue here is that the fines are levied without taking into account the person's financial status. No sliding scale. A $50 fine for let's say, driving while using a cell phone levied against a person making $25,000 or even minimum wage hits that person very hard as opposed to a person making $150,000 per year. Over the years i've heard and read stories where rich people ticketed for that type of offense or for speeding just crumble up the ticket(s) and throw them into a waste basket or out the window. That same rich person continues on their illegal and dangerous behavior. No deterrent. Someone making substantially lower wages stops that type of behavior because they can't afford it, usually. Another example of class warfare, and the rich getting away with breaking the law. From Wall St to the roadways, they get to do as they please. Time for the courts to hold these types of penalties unconstitutional. The politicians need to change these terrible laws and penalties. It won't happen though for the pols rely on the rich for their campaign donations and "gifts". They won't bite the hands that feed them.
9
@lou andrews to add, simply put, raise the fines for the rich, set the fines to a base rate for the average household income, then adjust it accordingly. Say $100 for driving using a cellphone , first offense, for a person making $50,000 per year, gross income, raise the fine or lower it depending on the gross yearly income level. Fines are supposed to deter a person from re-offending, so make the fine for someone making $250,000 per year to $1,000, first offense. Someone making $20,000 per year the fine coud be $40 dollars. Watch how fast the people stop speeding or using the cell phone.
3
@lou andrews
[[That same rich person continues on their illegal and dangerous behavior. No deterrent. Someone making substantially lower wages stops that type of behavior because they can't afford it, usually.]]
So, low income people are forced to drive more carefully? Good!
If I'm going to get hit by someone, let's hope it's a rich guy with good insurance.
3
@lou andrews
Why not just not break the traffic laws?
1
Driving is a privilege, not a right. You pay for your car, your gas, your insurance, and you pay traffic tickets and parking fines if you incur those. If you cannot afford to pay for those things, you find yourself other transportation such as the bus or some other transportation system in your city such as BART. I understand this would be difficult for someone in a rural area, but that's the way it is. I knew someone who received a DUI, and for several months he survived on bus transportation as well as his bicycle. It wasn't always pleasant, but he did it.
25
@DJKC
Yes, that's the way that it is. But it shouldn't be that way, because it is counter to what the state actually wants.
Do you want your fee paid or do you want to just humiliate people?
How is a person supposed to pay a ticket when they have lost their job? The typical commute time for most of the US is between 30 minutes to 1 hour, by car one way.
The majority of roads don't have dedicated bike lanes. How is tripling a person's commute time feasible, especially when people work multiple jobs to make ends meet?
Of course people are going to lose their jobs if they don't have reliable transportation. Having reliable transportation to get to work is what every employer demands of their employees.
Many traffic tickets are issued for bogus reasons and just because officers have a revenue quota. They know that very few people have the time and resources to fight the ticket.
3
@Viv - You should go to a rural area in this country where you can meet the most interesting folks who never drive - The Amish.
Here is a thought. How about you pay this lady's fee because she is so down and out? :))
@tom harrison
I am sure that it's feasible for most people to have no jobs and just live off the land they inherited from their imaginary benefactors.
1
This riduculous policy must end in all 50 states. I agree with the author's conclusion that government services should be paid out of a general fund rather than fining individuals. Too many public agencies are forced to pursue activities that bring in income (ticketing the poor) rather than the activities they are mandated to pursue (stop dangerous drivers, solve crimes). These backwards fee and fine based systems are also behind the backlogs in rape kits, shoddy cause of death investigations, and even poor water and air quality.
5
In Finland speeding fines for more serious infractions are based on your income. The fine for one millionaire for going 22kph over the limit was roughly $58,000.
20
That’s a good idea. Did his universal income cover the cost?
2
@Paul I was cited for making an illegal left turn in Long Beach Ca. The citation had no monetary value stated. I learned later that the PD runs the offenders credit and charges accordingly. Cost me $ 780 I'm not rich but they knew I could pay. They also volunteered that I could pay in installments as did the IRS and California Franchise Tax Board when I had a situation with them. There are alternatives to allowing people to disregard the law due to low income.
2
@Really Just a small amount of it did. But I will say that Finnish drivers are very good at following the traffic regulations. As far as universal income goes, I will say that you’ll have a hard time finding a homeless person in Finland. And all the Fins, I meet are healthy. Not saying that the Finnish model is for every country but don’t make it out to be some sort of bogeyman.
3
Ms Jackson knew she had an unpaid ticket and had already received a paycheck or two before being pulled over a second time. Why didn't she pay the initial ticket? Why is she playing victim?
37
@Lynn in DC Have you heard of paying bills like rent and utilities and groceries? She was not making bank at her job. Easy to say low income people are playing victim when you are in a more comfortable situation.
21
@Anise Woods
There is no evidence Ms Jackson is or was a "low income" person. All that has been reported is that she refused to pay her tickets and continued to drive on a suspended license. People like Ms Jackson should not be on the road. Maybe you want to be the unfortunate person in the intersection when she makes yet another left on red but I don't want to be that person.
4
@Anise Woods - I have been homeless in both Seattle and Los Angeles. I have no sympathy for this woman because if she wanted to, she would have come up with the money.
Oh, and I had my license suspended a decade ago after a grand mal seizure. Guess what? I did not just hop in the car and drive anyway. I respected the dog gone law and learned to take the bus or walk. I was not given permission to use a bike by the doctors because they said it was too dangerous. This lady could manage if she wanted to. But she doesn't give a rip and keeps making lame excuses.
2
My main concern is that if people don't have to pay any penalty for reckless driving, that kind of driving will increase. This will make the roads more dangerous to drive on. It's already a mad rush of tailgaters and speeders, do we need to reduce penalties? I think not.
18
@Jon yes. irresponsibility tends to manifest itself across multiple life tasks. Willing to wager these same folks are disproportionately more likely to text while driving also.
5
Average annual income $36,800 and they couldn’t pay a traffic fine?
Driving is a serious privilege that shouldn’t be taken lightly, I will never forget the day my 19 year old sister was killed in a crash caused by a traffic violator.
35
You should read it again... they couldnt pay it in time. many people do live from paycheck to paycheck, even at that level of income. people have kids in school, student debt, etc
2
@BJ
Condolences re your sister. Dangerous driving is not being discouraged by the police. They look to make money first.
Highly aggressive truck drivers on I 65 between Indianapolis and Chicago cause deadly accidents on a regular basis. The state police enforcement is minimal if it exists at all. Just sayin.
3
Boy, does this ring true. I’ll never forget the day I made the mistake of driving my beloved, hail-dented 1994 Chevy Caprice through Highland Park, one of Dallas’ most expensive neighborhoods. I was pulled over as my inspection sticker was a month out of date, thanks to it getting harder and harder to find a shop with the dynamometer equipment necessary to inspect older rear wheel drive vehicles, not to mention said machine being in working order. I tried to explain the problem to the officer, and they actually laughed at me, nudging the violation in my hand. I’m fortunate to be in the position of having the funds to cover such an event, but know very well that I was seen as an easy mark.
7
@Danielle -- you feel you did not deserve the ticket?
Everything in the United States is rigged against the poor and in favor of the wealthy. Those are the only lessons we are learning today.
28
@DSD -- Perhaps, but when it comes to violating traffic laws, that is something that has to be enforced. The safety of all of us depends on it.
If you can't afford a ticket be extra careful. Don't speed. Don't run the red light. Have your inspection sticker current.
If you are not willing to do that you must suffer the consequences.
4
@DSD...
Absolutely, but: its very easy to get out of poverty in the usa
any one can get e job and if that is not enough you get Two
and work weekends if need be.
Besides, the US tax system favors entrepreneurs ...
self employment ... is the engine of american economy.
ciao.
The big weak gap in this story is the length of time between the initial $135 fine and "a few months later" when she was again pulled over. It's understandable she just started a new job and couldn't pay the fine "right away." But " a few months later" is well beyond right away. There is no mention in this story exhibiting any responsible action taken by Leah Jackson to deal with the fine. Being "poor" does not absolve responsibility for complying with rules that apply to everyone. A $135 ticket is expensive. But there are problems on both sides of the issue, with enforcement by police and the courts, and in compliance by citizens who do not deal with their legal obligations. This story, however, turns someone who maybe has not acted responsibly on her own behalf into a "victim".
68
Who MAYBE hasn't. And, let me guess, the criteria for being "responsible" is set by dominant society as it works for those of a certain demographic.
9
@kbflyre Agreed. But what I also find incredible is that her license was suspended simply for non-payment of ONE ticket (for a not very serious offense). Is this standard in Minnesota? If so, there must be a LOT of suspended licenses. Or has the article failed to mention or look into other influential factors?
4
Here is the story of my son. He had not renewed his inspection and was cited. He lives from hand to mouth but was too proud to ask for our help. This is Nassau County, New York. So, he didn't pay the fine, and then he found out he had his license suspended. He kept driving to go to work and the fine kept spiraling up. And then he found out he had an arrest warrant. That was when we found out. As you may guess, many thousands of dollars later, with our financial help, and a lawyer, he got his license back. All for a $35 inspection that our son decided he could avoid. Did we believe him when he said he wasn't aware of the expired inspection, not really. After that, we entered his expiration dates for his inspection, registration, and license in our calendars. And we still pay his car insurance so he won't have an accident with no insurance. All to keep him from debt he will never be able to recover from, let alone do harm to anyone else with no insurance.
The beneficent answer is to decriminalize traffic violations and simple expirations of license, registration and inspections nationwide.
For now, the lesson, Don't let tickets linger
7
@Ed -- glad you were able to bail your son out but you can't expect society to exempt some while asking others to pay for their traffic violations.
Being on the road one has to rely on other drivers to do the right thing. If they run the red light, for example, or text, they endanger your and other drivers' lives. These people should be held accountable. And if they do not pay the fine let them suffer the consequences.
2
@Ed And Whose fault is all of this?. It not the system's fault.
@Don Juan
Agree with you on running reds, no letting these folks off the hook. But, arresting you for not renewing inspection? How about something less aggregious like attaching a paycheck?
The primary reason why driver's licenses are suspended when traffics ticket are not paid is because it is the best and most efficient way to ensure that the traffic tickets will be paid. If someone honestly cannot afford to pay an entire traffic ticket all at once, an appropriate payment schedule should be entered into between the agency and the offender (as the IRS does with those who owe taxes but can't afford to pay them all at once). But throwing out the entire system of suspending driver's licenses makes no sense.
23
Ok, if you don’t suspend the persons license and don’t arrest the person, since in either case they will probably lose their job and now can’t pay the fines, how do you enforce tickets? Even if you find their employer to garnishee their salary, now they can’t pay their living expenses and will often get fired once their employer is hit with the garnishment. Same result as the suspension. Does paying a ticket now become voluntary? Pay if you want and if you don’t there is no penalty. What do you do to make people pay?
9
@PF59
I think that many readers here suspect that the woman featured in the article probably has a lot of bad habits when it comes to managing money and paying bills, and that she may not be the best driver in the world.
Sometimes it takes a while to get religion on your finances...paying off credit cards in full, setting up autopay or going online to pay bills the same day they arrive in the mail, creating a budget. And, we all know that most people can improve on their driving skills.
This is off topic, but it seems like the more conveniences we get in our cars the angrier we drive. Getting to work feels like Mad Max: Fury Road.
Also slightly off topic, I see many many people driving with one headlight out, a ticketable infraction. I told one driver her high beams were on and she said she knew...she had a burnt bulb and this was the only was she could see. And if/when she gets pulled over I'm sure she would have a litany of excuses.
The key to life is to get organized. First things first, pay your bills, etc.
It just can take some time to learn that lesson.
1
Her license was suspended at some point within "a few months" after she received her first $135 ticket. Setting aside whether she should have received the first ticket, why, in the course of "a few months," was she unable to accumulate the $135 necessary to pay the ticket before being hauled over again?
Moreover, since driving apparently was integral to the responsibilities of her job, why didn't she ask her employer for a short-term advance to pay the ticket promptly. The employer could be reimbursed quickly by withholding a reasonable sum from her paychecks.
Great injustices doubtless occur in this arena, but this case seems to me to be a stretch in the interest of making a point.
Leo Schmolka
30
@DeD Exactly...tickets are not pleasant, but they must be dealt with, rich or poor, and if you neglect them because you couldn't get a ride you will snowball the problems.
1
This is on par with Rent-to-own, payday loans, credit come ons from car dealers etc. Instead of corporations paying taxes governments feed off of the most vulnerable. We all make mistakes but if you do not have the cash it can go downhill pretty fast. Empathy is lacking here in America. So you really think you know what it is like to be poor, guess again. Everyday a struggle.
37
@mr -- it's not at all on par with "Rent-to-own, payday loans, etc" that you mentioned.
Running a traffic light or speeding is not a mistake. It can kill someone. Follow the law, then you won't have to pay the ticket.
2
@Don Juan
Speeding is not a mistake, it is called "keeping up with the traffic". I wonder what universe some of these commenters inhabit.
2
"...she had just started a new job and hadn’t yet received a paycheck, so she couldn’t pay the $135 fine right away.
A few months later, she was pulled over, told her driver’s license was suspended for an unpaid ticket and cited for driving with a suspended license — a new $200 ticket. "
She just doesn't respect the law and figured she didn't have to pay the ticket. This is an old story. I've seen these details before. You mean she still hasn't paid any of those fines?
71
The size of fines should be based on income, so as not to disproportionately burden the poor. A $100 fine would throw some of us into an economic tailspin, while others regard that amount as mere pocket change.
16
@CGS
So, you are okay if the rich demand a separate EZ pass lane because they pay more taxes? Or the income based rule works only when we take money from them?
2
@Kopernnick
No and no, because they are super-citizens who benefit more than most from all those taxes.
2
This issue also ties into the fact that many, many states no longer provide drivers’ ed in their public schools.
12
@bonhomie
That's so the private driving schools can charge a kid 1-2k to get a licence.
1
@Rufus
Yup.
Is there any peer reviewed research on this kind of cascading traffic court debt? I don't doubt it happens, but we always hear anecdotes. What is the real extent of the problem?
3
@Adrienne it is HUGE here in rural/remote Maine. Pretty much every patient I have encountered has stories like this.
17
@Adrienne Huge here in Iowa and not just due to traffic tickets. People have lost their driver's licenses and vehicle licenses for being unable to pay court-appointed attorney fees, in this case for their disabled child to be placed in a residential facility.
15
@Adrienne
It happens a lot. Just spend time in any misdemeanor courtroom. The dockets are always full of Driving While Suspended cases, and a great many of the suspensions are for not being able to pay the initial fine. The problem is huge. I have seen it in courtrooms in four states.
Not only do people have their licenses suspended, often indefinitely if they cannot come up with the ever-increasing monetary penalty, people end up behind bars for driving while suspended. This happens when they get multiple Driving While Suspended charges, or when a condition of the initial sentence is probation and they then violate probation by driving while suspended.
The whole justice system is a method for taking what little the poor have, locking them up and subsidizing the whole (largely useless or worse) judicial-prison-law enforcement-industrial complex.
24
Why was she pulled over 4 times in a month? I’ve only received 1 ticked in the past 9 years following a chain reaction crash where I wasn’t at fault but couldn’t prove it. Otherwise I’m a safe driver because I don’t want to high premiums.
Many moons ago I was a young man who had a suspended license for failure to insure along with violations for driving while suspended. The hamster wheel of constantly trying to beat the system and paying fines, fees etc got old. After learning a valuable lesson to the tune of hundreds of not thousands I vowed to be a responsible driver as I knew driving was a privilege not a right.
My sympathies for some of these offenders is thin at best
24
@Snarky Snarky, literally, the point isn't that she made a choice not to pay. She couldn't pay. There are players, and then there are victims. Big difference that most people, including fools in state legislatures who pass this nonsense into law, should be able to see.
3
@Snarky DWB - driving while black. That's the likeliest reason for why she received so many tickets.
She was pulled over because a lazy cop sat behind her at a red light, ran her plates, saw the suspension, and decided to he could kill half his shift pulling her over. At least that was how it was for hundreds of my clients as a public defender. Then you come to court to try to sort it out, and they arrest you on a warrant for unpaid fines.
4
I have never got a ticket and I am in my 60s. That said, I do understand people do make mistakes and a fine followed by license cancellation is a very harsh punitive measure. I think it should be replaced by community service hours to be done without having to take time off work. It is hard for some one with a good job and house to be able to empathize with someone who lives paycheck to paycheck.
22
An extension of this unfair practice is the Interstate Violator Compact. This compact lets any one of over 40 states suspend someone's license issued by another member state for an unresolved traffic ticket. Of the states listed, Montana is not part of this compact, but the others are.
If a state wants to end suspending licenses for an unpaid traffic ticket, it also needs to do so for out-of-state charges.
7
The article says:
"Stripping people of their driver’s licenses makes it more difficult for them to earn a living and, by extension, more difficult for them to pay off their debts. A 2011 study found that in New Jersey, 42 percent of drivers who lost their licenses also lost their jobs. In Phoenix, people who lost their licenses lost an average of $36,800 of annual income."
Sounds similar to debtor's prison in the old days.
89
@Independent. In Ohio, the Court takes your license away for being in arrears in child support. Child support is paid now at much higher rates than before. It seems people come up with the money when they know they will lose their license.
8
@Jay ~
I suggest you look at the income level and life styles of those who are arrears in child support payments and the people who are being talked about in this article.
In real world terms, your comparison is a non sequitur.
9
@Independent
The power of credit rating agencies is out of control.
In no other facet of American society are private corporations accountable to no one granted this much power of a person's livelihood and well being.
If you have a bad credit rating, you are excluded from a wide variety of employment, the vast majority of which has nothing to do with handling the company's money.
Worst of all, when credit bureaus were sued in several states and had to prove that people with good credit ratings make good employees and minimize company theft, they could not prove that - despite the fact that's exactly what they claim to their clients.
No other industry (except perhaps social media) do you have people become mandatory clients of a corporation without their consent. Thankfully, we haven't yet reached a social credit score system like they have in China.
7
"Yet millions of drivers across the country have had their licenses suspended — taking away their ability to drive to work, school, the grocery store or the doctor — essentially because they are poor."
Essentually, because they broke the law. Don't do that and continue to enjoy the privledge of driving.
32
@Mike Really. You think an illegal left turn should cost $13,000? This is akin to knocking someone down, demanding they get up, but continuing to kick them into submission at the same time. Obviously there are people in this country who fail to understand that paying $137 can literally take food off the table or cost the month's gas budget to get to work. The fact that you cannot empathize with people in this situation says a lot.
29
@Mike ~
While it would be interesting to see the statistics of the demographics and AJI of those who get minor traffic violations and pay for them, the POINT is that of the many more millions who get tickets and pay them off tend not to be punished as harshly in comparison to their daily incomes.
9
@Deb
Actually, I think that if a person truly is concerned about being able to pay for tickets, then that person should truly obey the law.
2
Laws that punish some people more than others need to be replaced. No question, a $50.00 fine hurts someone who is barely making ends meet way more than someone who has disposable income.
21
I know that this is going to sound simplistic. But most simple things generally do. Don't break traffic laws, you won't get tickets. Problem solved.
115
@sheikyerbouti Shameful lack of empathy. An illegal left turn isn't like OWI. It's a momentary lapse. A mistake. Perfect attitude for the 19th century where debtor prisons were common.
8
@sheikyerbouti We ALL break traffic laws everyday. It is just whether a police officer sees you and, most importantly, whether that officer wants to ticket you, which will be more likely if they can see your color.
7
@sheikyerbouti
Really? So you drive 55 on the highway when the limit is 55? I remember getting a ticket on my way to a college night class, for 57 in a 55. (I was driving a Porsche 911). This is where the “law” breaks down. A cop has the absolute discretion to pull over anyone they want, (no one drives 55 in a 55). They can pull over a kid in a fancy car, or person of color driving anything. So your comment is, “simplistic.” Because the reason anyone gets a citation is very, very complicated. The poor are unjustly picked on. They are not going to hire a lawyer, or even fight the ticket in court, so for the police they are an easy mark.
8
It is possible for the police to run your plates and determine that your license is suspended. But, with all the cars and all the drivers on the road, it’s not something that the police do
absent reason for suspicion. Virtually every stop that nabs someone for driving with a suspended license results from a traffic offense or a burnt out tail light.
Anyone repeatedly stopped and cited for a suspended license is either going through a lot of red lights or can’t afford a $5 bulb. Give me a break.
43
@michjas, I would be very surprised if the police in Phoenix do not have cruisers equipped with cameras mounted on the trunk like they do in my town in Vermont where I live part of the year (population under 8000), but maybe not. These cameras read a plate and run it while passing cars in the opposite direction, and bring up a suspended license (of the car owner) or even an expired tag so quickly the officer can make a u-turn and pull the car over immediately and write a ticket. The old days of radioing in a plate number are long gone. Ask one of your local constables if you don't believe me.
34
@michjas
I live on a Florida key with one road going through it and there are now arrays of cameras at either end reading the license plate of every vehicle entering our space. They pull over people based on suspended licenses, etc. all the time per our local newspaper. This probably happens all over the place, since this system was definitely not developed just for us. As a matter of software it is a fairly straightforward application.
5
In Arizona, cars only have to have a license at the rear of the car. But your point is well taken.
2
Driving is a privilege not a right. I have driven all over the world: NYC, San Francisco, Toronto, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Vancouver and parts in between. I have not had a single traffic ticket in the past 20 years. Follow the rules of the road and this is not a problem. Not sure how that aspect is missed.
84
Weird flex but ok.
2
@Al K
If you follow the rules of the road where I live, you are slowing the traffic. That's the aspect you missed.
6
Al K, being white helps a lot too.
3
Over policing, and profiling, of drivers of color by surburban municipalities continues after the Ferguson, Mo. revelations. What I didn't see in the article is how often driving on a suspended license results in municipal jail and an impounded car. More specifically, who bears the brunt of those discretionary arrests.
23
The issue surely is that with America hatred of taxation cities and villages turn to fees, fines and penalties to raise revenue. Then they ensure that these charges function as a pyramid scheme ensuring that people end up in jails that are increasingly privatized. The only beneficiaries are privAte companies, the ones that advocate for low taxes.
54
Driving is not a right - it’s a privilege.
We share a common network in our roads and highways, and we have the right (and duty) to ensure that the people operating multi-ton machines are qualified and entitled to do so.
39
@Jon Another privilege for the wealthy? The key is that one cannot push personal responsibility while making it impossible to become and maintain financial independence. If you think all the tickets are about driving, guess again. Some poor communities hand out high price tickets like candy.
44
@Jon
I'm with you on the first sentence. The other part has nothing to do with paying or not paying a debt.
7
Wealthy? I don’t know about that. I bought my first car at an auction for a couple hundred dollars; I was working in the frozen yogurt industry at the time. I got a speeding ticket and a couple parking tickets too. I didn’t love it, but I paid the fines and modified my behavior accordingly.
20
Finally some movement on this very important issue. Fines are extremely regressive, and poor people are disproportionately affected, spiraling them further and further into poverty and even prison terms. Local governments are particularly guilty of this abominable practice that allows them to raise funds while not raising taxes, thus transferring the burden to those who can least afford. The proposal to not suspend the license is a step in the right direction, but the magnitude of the fines should also be a target for reform. They should be high enough to pinch even the poor to be a deterrent, but at the same time not so high as to make them unaffordable, and above a certain minimum they should be tied to income level because lowering them for the benefit will eliminate all deterrence to the rich if they are not made progressively high for high earners.
21
Not getting a speeding or parking ticket is not a Herculean task. Follow the rules and you’ll generally be okay.
136
@Cass
In a fair world, obeying the rules would mean being okay, but I’m afraid it doesn’t always work out. I once got a bogus ticket. The officer who pulled me over wouldn’t (couldn’t) even tell me what I had done wrong! To fight the charges, I first had to send a certified letter by the next business day contesting them, then I had to take half a day off from work for court. I was fortunate in that I could do both, but even those requirements would not be feasible for everyone.
76
@NM
Those things happen, unfortunately. However, I’m betting that the majority of cases where people wind up losing their license involve multiple tickets. And, with 40,000 deaths on the roads every year, it’s better to err on the tough side.
Losing one’s license weighs ounces compared to losing one’s child, which weighs tons.
13
@Cass
While Los Angeles isn't so bad on speed traps, paring can be very tricky. For example, the signs near the intersection of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, and West Hollywood (each an independent municipality) can be very confusing.
2
Many local governments, including municipalities and counties, fund their police departments and other government services through traffic tickets, civil asset seizures, and other police generated revenue because they don’t want to raise taxes. Whether it is speed traps and traffic ticket quotas or other extralegal methods to generate money for public services or corruption, there is a long history predating the founding of the United States.
Although there are now reforms to stop these sorts of revenue shakedowns, many local governments and agencies rely on such corruption to keep their doors open, with no other funding sources readily available. Ferguson, MO ripped the lid off of such extralegal practices, which began exposing this dirty little secret over the last few years.
83
You’re leaving out some details, numerous court notifications wold have been mailed out and ignored for the operator to get to this point. If you answer the summons and can’t afford to pay a payment schedule can be arranged. I think the amounts of late fees are ridiculous but the vehicles operator does bear some responsibility. In New York even after suspension if you answer the summons a conditional license can be issued for work, school etc
209
@John
"If you answer the summons and can’t afford to pay a payment schedule can be arranged."
That greatly depends on the jurisdiction. There are plenty of horror stories that you can google for yourself where a judge has put people in prison for showing up for a summons but not being able to pay that day.
53
@John Please take the time to read the reports from Ferguson, MO about repeated, near random tickets for virtually anything, VERY difficult to locate temporary judicial hearing sites, overlapping jurisdictions. This is not as easy as it may be in your community or mine. It is a byzantine intentional trap designed to maximize revenues.
68
@John Do you know the process for setting up a schedule? It requires going in front of a judge, and in some major cities that can be a full-day process. If you're a low-wage worker, that means taking a day off work and losing a day's pay, in addition to the fines and court fees. It's a lose-lose.
It's amazing how little empathy is possessed by the finger-wagging scolds in these comments, and how little understanding people have of the precarious lives of low-income people. I'm by no means wealthy, but if I get a $140 -- or even $500 -- ticket, I am annoyed, but I can write a check and go about my life. For some people, that $140 is their grocery budget for the month, or the electric bill. What would you choose?
24
If you don't have to pay a fine and you're not going to lose your license, many people will no longer pay any attention to traffic laws.
Or is that the point? To do away with most traffic laws?
84
@Talbot if you read the article you would have seen that debt-based suspensions are not effective at getting the fines paid.
Also you made the assertion that removing debt-based suspensions results in more traffic violations, but it seems that you simply made up this fact because you provided no evidence.
64
@Badger
I agree, and suggest @Talbot reread the article. People who cannot afford a fine most of us would grudgingly pay cannot afford legal counsel to arrange a payment plan either.
My wife drove my car to Vermont from Florida last year, and missed a toll booth in New Jersey which was unmanned. She had only a $20 bill, and had to drive off without paying as a line of cars built up behind her. The toll unpaid was $1.55, and the 2 week period to pay it had expired by the time I received the first notice (due to mail forwarding delay). I paid the toll due with an explanation (ignored), and the next bill came with a $50 "administration fee" added, which was then doubled a month later. I then started receiving notices from a collection agency, which continued for several months. Were it not for the apparent lack of reciprocity between Florida and New Jersey I would no longer have a drivers license or be able to renew my registration because of my refusal to pay a $100 penalty for late payment of $1.55 toll.
55
@Peter A similar thing happened to me in Texas. I had moved, and a toll bill for approximately $8 wasn't forwarded to my new address. (There are no more cash booths, so you had to either buy a toll tag or be billed.) Since that one bill represented eight $1 tolls, I was billed over $200 in administrative fees ($25 for each unpaid toll), which was sent to a collection agency. And there is no appeals process whatsoever.
4
It’s depressing how hard it is to be poor in the United States. Poor people are treated if not like criminals, like a second class citizen. Getting loans at affordable interest rates are harder. More and more people are living precarious lives, while the wealthy keep moving up and snatching all the rewards. So much for equality....
118
@Thorina Rose This place was never designed to be a meritocracy. It's important to remember that.
6
@Thorina Rose The law system prohibits the rich as well as the poor from sleeping under bridges.
4
@Thorina Rose Uh, this is about scofflaws, not a forum for a tirade about in-equality. If people at all levels of our society don't want to be ticketed then don't break the law. The ladder of law here had no top and no bottom.
3
Traffic fines should be scaled depending on the income of the individual cited. A moving violation should hurt the senior executive of a large multinational in the same way it hurts a part time worker in the service industry. It's time to stem the judicial debt cycle and affect real change.
30
By this logic there’s no incentive for anyone to bother to earn more money. We should all just get part-time jobs at a snack bar.
12
@Jon
I am guessing you have not been around the same poor people I have.
Too many are working two part-time jobs with no health insurance.
They have more costs and time getting to and from two jobs. They are at the mercy of the employers for scheduling.
And companies keep jobs part time to avoid having to provide benefits.
It's not a good life.
27
@Jon
You should always buy more goods and services with more earned money. You shouldn't be able to buy your way out of violating the law.
3
I understand there are laws that make life burdensome on the poor. Perhaps suspending drivers licenses for those with debts, but are otherwise safe drivers, is not the best solution. My only question is, what is the proper solution? Absolving them of their ticketed fines is not the proper answer. They got a ticket for a reason, and it’s not because they are poor. In my opinion, they should be liable for that debt, even if it’s hard for them to afford it- they broke a law, and they must pay the penalty no matter what their income is (whether rich or poor). Criminals who go to jail but can’t pay bail are not allowed out scot free... these people may not be dangerous criminals, but they did commit an offense.
Maybe the right option is to give minor offenders an option of paying a ticket fine, or doing mandatory community service in its place. Then there would be NO excuse for skipping out on a ticket. Plus, it would help better our community. If they still skipped out on that, then maybe they would deserve to lose their privilege to drive.
36
@Adam Levinson
With respect to that part of your comment that says "Criminals who go to jail but can’t pay bail are not allowed out scot free," many DAs, PDs (e.g., San Francisco, Oakland) and courts are trying to change the bail system, too. Incarcerating someone for a minor, nonviolent offense because they can't make bail, is another way the poor are punished. Instead of cash bail, many people who have committed minor offenses are released on various conditions (e.g., regularly checking-in with a probation officer). The CA legislature voted to eliminate cash bail, but the bail industry succeeded in putting the issue on the ballot.
9
@Adam Levinson You misunderstand bail, and its purpose. Bail is not a fine or any form of punishment. Constitutionally, it is intended only to insure that the accused (*not* a criminal) will appear at trial. Bail is not required in all cases. And bail is returned when the accused shows up for, and stays for the duration of, trial. Regardless of verdict.
6
Fair enough point - this was not the main point of my argument, simply a side note. My main point is that these drivers should not be simply absolved of an offense they committed, despite not being able to pay a fine. Maybe there should be alternative ways for them to pay off their tickets, be it community service (as mentioned), or some form of pro-rated ticketing (as others have mentioned), but ultimately debts accumulated from traffic offenses should be enforced in some way. Regardless of socioeconomic class.
12
We've built too much of our country around cars. If you have a decent public transit system in place, and don't spread out into the suburbs so much, losing your car isn't such a big deal. Why should we all be required to invest thousands of dollars in a vehicle just to be able to enter the job market.
Also, how about we prorate fines? For some people, a $50 fine is as much a financial hit as $1,000 is to others.
37
@circleofconfusion
Don't assume a low limit. For some people it would have to be $100,000 to get their attention.
I live in British Columbia, where you cannot renew your driver's licence or re-insure your car if you have outstanding citations. This works very well, in my opinion, because there's no way around legal citations except traffic court. It tends to result in more careful driving I think. If you get traffic tickets, it usually because the risk is worth the convenience. For some. If you can't afford to break the law, don't.
127
@Skew
Is it common in BC for everyone on a highway to drive 100 km/h when the limit is 90 km/h? If so, it's impossible or dangerous to not break the law.
12
@Haile: Haile has seen BC drivers drive. It appears conclusive that Skew can afford to break the law where the risk is "worth the convenience," and risk the danger to break the law. One cannot believe Skew acts alone.
6
@Skew In most U.S. states it's also impossible to renew one's license if one has outstanding violations. (Further, in many cases these violations come with mandatory arrest warrants if not paid on time, so failing to pay one for too long can literally result in jail time.)
As for things working well in BC, one might note it's literally the only remaining place in North America where ride-hail services such as Uber and Lyft remain categorically banned. Putting aside the topic of those companies' profligate spending and mistreatment of drivers, it's impossible to argue that they haven't significantly reduced incidents of driving while intoxicated -- an issue all the more salient in BC, where marijuana was decriminalized long before any U.S. state did so.
3
We need a progressive system for dolling out financial traffic violations.
Put simply, a $150 ticket to levied on a teacher or janitor is disproportionately and unfairly more punitive than a $150 ticket to Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. If the goal is truly to punish and/or deter, $150 to Bill Gates surely won't move the needle; on the flip side, a $150 traffic ticket levied on a teacher is likely more punitive than origins of the law intended.
35
In Austria they apparently have a progressive system.
1
@Don And the fines for someone making 10 dollars a week more? Silly and unmanageable.