Eat The Poor: Taking Away Driver's Licenses For Offenses That Have Nothing To Do With How Well Someone Drives
Brian Doherty writes in reason that petty offenses like a shoplifting charge or unpaid parking tickets are being used to suspend people's driver's licenses. Predictably, people need to drive to get to work and to make their lives work (without a mule or taking often-inadequate public transportation:
Most people, for understandable reasons having to do with their livelihoods and lives, don't always respect such suspensions, leaving them open to further fines and even arrests. These are among the most common ways America's working and poor classes interact with the government: as a source of unreasonable restrictions on movement in the name of mulcting them of more cash.
Seeing as how this doesn't affect most politicians and their owners, don't expect this current version of serf abuse to go away any time soon.
Oh, there will be a lot of talk about it near election time, but not to worry.
DrCos at January 1, 2015 5:13 AM
When I was in my late teens, I received a jaywalking ticket. The fine was a ridiculously high $80, which I simply didn't have given my $4.25 an hour minimum wage retail job. I ignored it, mostly because it was in a pedestrian-centered shopping district near a major university where jaywalking is going on nearly 100% of the time and I felt that my friend and I were singled out of a huge crowd that was crossing the street at the time to be given tickets.
So the ticket went in the trash, and several weeks later I received notice in the mail that my driver's license had been suspended. I had to pay, or rather my parents had to pay and I had to reimburse them, a couple hundred dollars to get my license back. Meanwhile, my friend decided to show up for his court date, where the fine was reduced to six dollars.
Live and learn, I guess.
Beth Cartwright at January 1, 2015 7:06 AM
Don't let the cops keep these fines and see how fast they stop issuing these tickets and fines get reduced. A large part of this is driven by police budgets being supported by fines. Since poor people have fewer resources to fight back with and are less likely to vote they are the best population segment for fine based revenue generation.
Ben at January 1, 2015 8:07 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/01/eat-the-poor-ta.html#comment-5729014">comment from Beth CartwrightBeth, thanks for posting your story. Truly awful.
Amy Alkon
at January 1, 2015 10:35 AM
I just saw a sign on a handicap parking space that said the fine was $560 for parking there without the placard. Fines are insane these days.
BunnyGirl at January 1, 2015 2:45 PM
Do note that if you allow or promote cameras which monitor you, you will quickly lose any negotiation you might obtain.
The camera doesn't lie: you committed an infraction, pay up. Pay right now.
Pay. That's all that matters. Pay.
Radwaste at January 1, 2015 9:20 PM
Radley Balko, as usual, takes the prize: in a September 2014 WaPo article, he outlines the Catch-22 many poorer people find themselves in vis-à-vis predatory policing, fines, and A very informative article, especially for the blind/deaf/dumb suburbans who prefer to believe that "those people" somehow deserve it all.
Grey Ghost at January 2, 2015 11:28 AM
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