Debt-related driver’s license suspensions in Ohio
clevelandfed.org
clevelandfed.org
One day, while helping someone get their car out of an impound, i was informed by the officer on duty that my license was not showing as valid. They couldn't tell why though, said the status/notes listed made no sense to her, and i should contact the Denver office to find out what is going on. I was rather confused, as it had been many years since i had last been pulled over, for a minor speeding ticket.
Denver was similarly confused by the details. After some research, they tell me what appears to have happened was i paid my ticket years ago by check, in person. They recorded they received the check on time, but either due to a clerical error or something (they aren't sure), a late fee was assessed on my ticket prior to the payment being processed. The fee was, i think, $5.
Around this same time, i moved, and while i changed my address with the USPS, i didn't with the DMV. The DMV was thus sending my "you owe us $5" letters with "Do Not Forward" instructions via the USPS, who were knowingly delivering the mail to the wrong address (my old place).
When i discovered all of this, years later, my license had been suspended for 54 weeks due to delinquency. In CO, if your license has been suspended for over 1 year, you may not just satisfy the debt, you must also retake your driving test. But since i didn't take my original test in CO, i would also need to re-apply for a permit and pass a written permit exam before being allowed to schedule my drivers test.
The poor lady i spoke with in the Denver office recognized the sheer absurdity of everything she was telling me, but could do nothing to fix it. She also let me know the outstanding debt was now $15.
I was pulled over for something, actually it might just have been this.
"Your license isn't valid." What? Why is it suspended?
"It's not suspended, it's just not valid."
What the hell does that mean?
"You'll have to talk to the DOL. And you can't drive your vehicle from here."
I'm meant to be working the next night, so I need to figure this out.
Go to the DOL's website. It literally says my license is valid, in bold green letters. Huh. For fun, I click on "Pay any amounts owed (citations, infractions, etc.)". "There are no amounts owed on your license."
I take print outs of both of these, and am at the DOL when it opens the next morning.
Similar to you. I paid, in person, by check, a fine a few years prior. Because it wasn't "processed" til after midnight, my license was suspended, but unsuspended the same (next) day. But (and I'm not sure how this is justified) there was a fee attached to removing the suspension (that I didn't know about), so my license was "invalidated".
To their credit, at least, the lady at the DOL was very sympathetic. She stamped all my print outs with a DOL stamp, and then all the print outs of the process to revalidate my license (to try to support my case, that there was no way I could have known this, as the DOL's own website tells me my license is valid and is not subject to any restriction).
Went to court to contest the "driving without a valid license". Still took me 20 minutes of repeating, several times over, to the prosecutor this whole flow, the first fifteen minutes of which he was insistent that none of my paperwork mattered because "they would have sent you a letter, so you must have known", before finally capitulating and dropping it.
They're pretty bad at that step. They'll swear up and down it was sent, but questions like "to where" and "was it the same address I have on my driver's license," or "do you have the slightest shred of evidence" are met with deaf ears.
I had the damnedest time once explaining to the clerk why it mattered that the signature she was looking at wasn't my name, wasn't my handwriting, wasn't attached to a document with my name, and wasn't dated within a year of any ticket associated with my license. Her entire algorithm was (document_in_file && ink_in_signature_box).
It might be acceptable if you were at least entitled to a proper trial when they made blatant mistakes. The status quo causes problems though.
Fortunately everyone was friendly and willing to wipe my record clean, but that could easily have been much worse.
All you have to do is find the right connection (usually through a family member), pay some "coffee money" and whatever you want, you can get.
This would have been resolved for probably $20-40, but it would have only taken a few minutes of your time and a lot less frustration.
Can I pay the police to make someone’s life miserable? The police sound more like a cartel or gang running a protection racket.
I don’t want the Vietnamese system, and while problems with the US system seem too common, I think I’d prefer the US system.
The harsh reality is that no system is perfect. Each one usually has its +/-'s and usually depends on which side of the fence you're sitting on.
Many states, agencies have “expedited processing” options built in
Looks like Colorado’s DMV did not
At the state and municipal level, you might be surprised how easy it is to lobby for a tiny tweak you would personally like. You don’t have to be registered to vote there, and many times its not even a popular vote required. Just the mayor or a 5 member county board who are even more of a grifter than you are.
For example, if I get pulled over in Vietnam while driving a motorbike, I can just pay the "fine" right then and there. While I admit, it is totally corrupt and questionable, it sure beats spending hours going to the police station and dealing with language issues.
Obviously, this isn't good for locals since it is used as a form of extortion, but it is what it is. I'm not in Vietnam to fix the problems there.
The world is indeed a strange place...
Most people who have lived in places where this exists were also, at the time, locals, so your description is self-contradictory.
This isn't new, either - e.g. the 1936 Constitution of the USSR (adopted under Stalin) was considered a very liberal document for its time. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly were all guaranteed, there was strict separation of powers, universal franchise with secret voting, and so on. Ironically, most of the people who authored it would end up in gulags or with a bullet in their head within a few years of its publication.
So it would be talking about the Czars.
Even when it comes to informal, customary constitutions, the only restriction that was universally upheld was that the reigning monarch had to be Eastern Orthodox (if they weren't, they ipso facto didn't have the divine right to rule). Everything else was ultimately subject to the Emperor's whim.
A system that can even allow anyone to “flag” potential process issues to be bubbled up will be quite useful. Such as the role played by X and Google reviews for most private businesses. Or the “How was your experience?” machines outside washrooms with three smiley buttons goes a long way than not having any feedback loop.
The bureaucratic world is so much easier to dominate than the physical world.
This movie was released in 1985. At that time, a dystopian scenario like this was far out. In 2024 I don't think it's very far out—it's on the horizon.
Fast forward 10 years the state must have digitized everything and I received a collection notice in the mail. I hadn't even lived in that state or owned that vehicle for several years. At least my license wasn't invalid.
Anyway, no one could do anything about it until I wrote a letter to a judge in the court system and he wrote back and was able to reverse all the damage.
How did you know what judge to contact? Can citizens just appeal administrative stuff like this in California to judges without filing a whole suit?
I left my mailing address and I got back a return letter in the mail a few weeks later or something.
I have no idea what you can do it for but it worked for my problem at least.
Things like this are totally worth a try, though. The legal system can be much more flexible than it seems, and the humans underneath it are generally kind of occasionally overworked and frustrated.
I got out of a huge "parking in a handicapped spot" ticket when I was like 16. I was running late to school, the only parking space available was next to the handicapped spot. I thought I was just barely outside the space, turns out I was just barely inside (~3-4").
I just took pictures and went down to the courthouse. I told them what happened, that I didn't intend to deprive anyone of their handicap space and that I know they need them, and that even though I know I accidentally screwed up, the space should have still been usable. I asked if they could cut me a little slack, and they did. I got a little admonition about being more careful, which was eminently fair, and they dismissed the ticket.
The next time I entered the US, it was Christmas Eve, and I flew straight to my hometown to spend time with family. Of course, they detained me. I asked what the issue was, and they said that the computer didn't match my passport photo. I told them that this keeps happening to me, and they looked a little closer and said "in the computer system where a photo of your face should be, we have a photo of a boarding pass". I asked them how to fix it, they said it wasn't possible but suggested that I get a new passport. I never got a new passport, but after that day, I never had trouble entering the US again, so I imagine that one of the officers felt some compassion for me and managed to get the bug in the system fixed for me.
I do think that maybe that officer had a bit of a higher EQ than most.
Politicians and pundits love to rail against government inefficiency or bureaucracy but that’s an intentional tactic to absolve the politicians who created the problem. If the law says there’s a penalty after 52 weeks, the DMV employee can’t override it unless they’re very specifically authorized to do so.
It's very difficult to fire a government employee. This is because of "due process" requirements that apply specifically to the government taking something from you (in this case, a job). The due process requirements are fairly burdensome and drawn out, so often the inept employee is just shuffled off to another office or put somewhere that he has minimal impact on others.
If that is true, and the records show what can only be explained by a clerical error - there is always a procedure to fix clerical errors. If liquidise wrote to his senator and the senator took up the cause, I guarantee the error could be corrected by an orderly and legal procedure.
Of course, whether that procedure is known to front-line workers, and whether they can do it fast enough to achieve their call processing time targets is another matter.
Not quite Dunning-Kruger which might have been a statistical mistake.
Disclosure: former maker.
I suspect it is because lower IQ people struggle to recognise higher IQ in others.
Smartest guy I know said the smartest guy he knew delivered pies. Smart people are cryptic.
Robocat's perverse corollary: when you look for smartness in people you can always find it: usually in an unfamiliar area.
I believe smartness is an ability to intuitively see patterns that others do not obviously see. Our writing is full of signals and some people are adept at reading a lot into a simple comment. I'm not suggesting I'm any good at it, and unfortunately there are also a lot of people who think they're good but are not.
Mentioning "IQ" at all is a huge flag: often used by people that are academically successful but that is a poor measure of how smart someone is.
While my comment was written in a cheeky style, I am actually writing about my own experience as a reasonably smart person dealing with my own lack of wisdom over the years.
Don't worry: I don't actually suspect you have a low IQ.
Yes, completely off-topic, I shouldn't bite I know!
This is also why the larger and the more hierarchical any organization is, the more sociopathic it is as a whole, even if its bureaucracy is ran by people who aren't.
It has wide implications against the poor. Poorer people will probably ignore it. Won’t pay it. Drive with suspended license. Have to pay higher premiums or just dropped completely from their carrier. If that person gets in an accident, they will be fucked in the form of medical debt. One can abuse the ER EMTALA for only a short time. Forgo medical treatment and physical therapy. Temporary injuries then translate into permanent disabilities.
Can’t drive. Can’t get insurance. Can’t get a regular job. Can’t afford health insurance. Can’t afford food.
It’s a vicious cycle and it’s amazing how most people are able to get out of this situation without doing anything illegal.
Important missing context, failure to pay child support is the most common “debt-related drivers license suspension”.
This is about creating incentives that help ensure children get the financial support they are entitled via court rulings on their case.
Second, DRS is stupid (it harms the enforcer of the policy, society, and the person who is not making payments). It removes the ability of the person who is supposed to pay child support from having money to make the payment. The article points out the potential economic fallout of DRS - and there is a connection to tech: Intel is building a huge facility that will employ many Ohioans there and will have a workforce constantly at risk of having their license suspended over unpaid medical bills. The only word that even begins to describe DRS is stupid.
Third, child support is only one reason someone may have a DRS. Any payment resulting from a judgment (even administrative) can result in a DRS -- so routine collections often result in suspensions. Child support is only one of many ways someone can find themselves with a suspended license.
DRS makes about as much sense as debtor's prisons.
Paying to support children you make is a moral obligation. The justice of any given court decision is going to vary. But beneath it all is a social contract that says if you made the kid, you support the kid.
But regardless, this is consistent and a well-understood compromise not an accidental injustice. The priority is stability in the child's life above absolute fairness for the adults. If you occupied the role of parent to a child, you may have to pay child support regardless of biological connection.
We've settled on this approach over the alternative because when unfairness occurs, it is for the adults to experience not the child.
You draw the line of responsibility at having sex. Other people might draw the line at being in a committed relationship.
Why shouldn't Bob be required to support Alice as she raises their kid? What does availability of birth control change here?
If you don't want to carry the responsibilities of making a child, then don't screw with someone. Simple.
Those who screw and then refuse to answer to their deeds are by far the most worthless people on the planet. Children born to such parents deserve better, and the courts are just making certain-as-they-can of that.
Also, note that this is very different from someone who can't carry the responsibilities, that's another and far more complicated story.
There's at least one case of an underage boy having sex with an adult woman who seduced him, got pregnant with his child, and then forced him to pay child support, even though the court ruled that he was a victim of statutory rape.
What I speak of are two consenting adults having sex and making a child intentionally or otherwise. If those parents subsequently don't want to pay child support or otherwise don't want to own up to their acts, they are worthless people and the child deserves better.
Seems nuanced to me.
If you go at it alone despite obviously bad circumstances, and you end up not winning that roll of the dice on your ability to do it alone long term, did you fuck up or did they?
If you don't want to (or know you can't) be responsible for such consequences, the responsible way forward is don't have sex. It's really that simple.
I reiterate: Those who consensually have sex and then refuse to own up for their behaviour are worthless people.
You're wrong. Plenty of people work out child support without having to even go to court specifically for that. Most people do the moral thing and take care of a child they were responsible for bringing into this world.
Any two parties should approach the prospect of raising a child with extreme diligence, unfortunately not everyone does, accidents happen, emotions take over and later things may or may not go horribly.
40 years later and the left is the one claiming moral superiority in terms of use of pronoun, social policy, etc.
I thought we didn’t impose our personal morals on others?
It is a way to get someone to do something that is not in their interest by making an assertion that to do otherwise would be immoral. However “immoral” is an empty word, it means everything and nothing at once.
To various people: Eating pork is immoral. Saying “Jesus Fucking Christ” is immoral. Sex before marriage is immoral. Smoking weed is immoral. If you’re a Catholic priest or Vestal Virgin even marriage itself is immoral.
We shouldn’t accept statements of the form “X is immoral” as well-formed arguments. “Drinking and driving is immoral” is not an argument. “If you drink and drive you might kill someone”, that’s an argument.
You don't just get your license suspended if you stop paying, you get a suspension when you...
1. Stop paying child support.
2. Get a notice of from the government telling you to get in contact with them to set up a hearing to address the non-payment and ignore it.
2b. Set up the hearing, fail to have good reason for non-payment and refuse to negotiate a payment schedule and...
3b. Don't appeal the decision or fail to make your case at the appeal.
While with any system involving humans you can get a series of fuck-you-in-particular's there's quite a few checks. It is explicitly the charge of the DCS to keep this very catch-22 from happening by having lots of different enforcement mechanisms and taking the person's finances into account. If you don't have a job and are making a "good faith effort" to get one they won't suspend your license.
Don't like that you don't get to raw dog her now? Too fucking bad, man up. Find someone who agrees with your choice to not have a child including having an abortion if necessary or don't jizz in her.
She literally cannot get pregnant without you jizzing in her.
The question isn't whether the debt ought to be paid, it's whether this method of enforcement is counterproductive.
In cases like child support, I think it probably does work to some extent. They have a ton of people that they think could pay, but are dragging their feet.
Would you prefer send them straight to jail?
BTW I take the extreme stance against almost all license sanctions. That said, I have to admit without them, and without the threat of jail, many crimes would have little deterrents. Same story IMO with criminal records and going after people's careers.
We would need to develop creative new sanctions, and arguably should anyway; but I see no good ideas.
AIUI, a number of US states deal with child support in exactly that way: Payments are made to the responsible state agency and they remit the funds to the custodial parent.
Sorry, but this is insanely counterproductive.
And less from a logical perspective.
When I was in college (back before the dawn of time, when dinosaurs ruled the earth -- also known as the late 1980s), one of my fellow students got his second (or third?) DUI (this is also in Ohio, BTW) and had his license suspended -- except to drive to and from work and to drive to and from the local jail where he spent weekends for several months, paying off his debt to society.
Which was geared toward making things difficult for my fellow student (weekends in jail, only driving to/from work, etc.) as recompense for the DUIs, while at the same time not destroying his life. Which seems to be the better idea, IMHO.
But what do I know, I haven't lived in Pennsyltucky in 30+ years?
Paying off one's debt to someone implies that said someone receives something valuable. What value does the society receive from a person spending every weekend in jail?
It's just a punishment, there to make them suffer, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with any "debts to society". I wish we'd stop dressing our punitive justice system up in fancy wording like these, or "correctional facilities", so that we can pretend it's something that it's not.
I imagine under this system some extreme repeat offenders would still be banned. Perhaps a few less extreme getting suspensions. Taking someone's license as a general penalty for many offenses is terrible. This has really fed outlaw culture in the USA.
I would also like to see public transit options that make this less of an extreme issue. Perhaps this could be achieved in 5-50 years.
I don't want to see my friends contemplating suicide after a first offense or considering the legal life to be impossible after one or two more.
Still assinine however and is a debtor prison in all but name.
Do most people though?
Most states spend about twice as much on roads as they take in via fuel tax and registration. The difference is made up via the general budget (income and sales tax). https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/states-road-funding.... The Federal gasoline tax has not been raised in 31 years and has lost half its real value.
Local zoning laws mandating minimum parking around each building has large implicit costs. Housing shortages. Needing to commute. Car dependency and needing to drive for every single outing.
Americans generally disapprove of “handouts” or cash transfers. But if the subsidy is designed as a good or service provided below cost there’s less opposition. If you call it a refundable tax credit it also becomes more palatable.
Pretending that it's impossible to live without a car in the United States is an insult to those of us who do it everyday.
It's also of limited use for someone with dependents (kids, disabled) or a home owner (invariably you'll end up transporting large items owning a home unless you're going to coordinate deliveries).
In addition, it can get quite cold in the winter -20F wild chill and it tends to rain the majority of May/June. Frequently near or above 100F in late July/August. These are all surmountable but require a fair bit of outdoor gear and a decent bike.
This completely ignores all the folks that live outside metro areas. A bike is a complete non starter for anyone with a farm (which is fairly common outside metro areas...)
The town I grew up in had a "drive your family's tractor to school" day before homecoming in high school since you can drive a tractor at 14 (I think without a license)
You point out that there aren't cycling facilities, while pointing to cycling facilities. You point to things like deliveries as though that isn't simply an inconvenience. The Ohio has six cities with populations in the hundreds of thousands.
Again, I'm not saying I agree with the policies here. I'm saying that losing a drivers license, especially in the wake of at-fault collisions, moving violations, fines, as well as many other reasons why the state might want to compel individuals to fulfill some reasonable request is not always, because America, a hardship. Alternatives exist for many-if-not-most people.
Driving is an earned privileged, not a right. If a hardship exists, it should be considered, but there are alternatives in many, many parts of the country, even Ohio.
However, in Ohio, very few people are able to productively survive with only a bicycle as transportation. Some can, and some do (whether by force or by choice).
But just because it can work for some doesn't mean that it must also be able to work for many, or for most.
(And I've been that person, in Ohio. AMA.)
Many alternatives are possible while not generally practical.
We are talking about the court's ability to revoke a drivers license to specific people, who live in specific places. Sometimes it's a hardship, other times, it's not.
Pursuit of happiness, using whatever transportation you wish, is not a privilege
The declaration of independence was a breakup letter, not a legal document.
If you wanted to murder someone in the "pursuit of happiness", that would be still be a crime. Driving is a privilege and you have zero inherent right to it.
Median commute distance is 10 miles (which is a reasonable e-bike commute depending on route) https://scag.ca.gov/sites/main/files/file-attachments/ej_jhf...
Almost 1 million daily public transit riders: https://www.metro.net/about/l-a-metro-surpasses-900k-daily-r...
Why did you think virtually nobody commutes via bike?
Very significant portions of the US completely lack the infrastructure required to safely bike, especially in lower income areas. It is not uncommon at all for places in the US where >95% of commutes are by car, for a commute to require travel on a highway without sidewalks or bike lanes. Much of the US is covered by undivided highways with shoulders unsuitable for safe cycling.
There are other situations which might be better compared to debtors prisons, like being sentenced to jail for contempt of court for nonpayment of judgements, etc.
Healthcare costs are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US, and I imagine any accidents would be beyond detrimental to one who is in bad enough debt to have his or her license suspended.
Then there is places that get extremely cold or hot.
Places where biking is very unsafe.
The fact that most people are physically unable to bike 30 miles.
The lack of an extra 10 hours per week to commute without giving up sleeping or becoming unable to pick their kids up or be there after school.
Most people cant bike to work or replace their car with a bike.
Based on a quick google search I see median distances under 10 miles: https://www.streetlightdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/C...
And the times that line up with your 10 hour estimate look to be public transit users, not drivers: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/one-way-...
Why do you think giving up a car will add 10 hours?
I misspoke insofar as the average citizen taking 10 hours total by car in fact its 5 which an average one way commute time of slightly under half an hour. I believe it would be reasonable to suppose that the average commute time would somewhat more than double to aprox 1 hour 1 way for an increase in time cost of 5 hours per week.
Given the average persons existing time commitment and fitness I don't think an extra 5 hours and 100 miles per week on the bike is altogether reasonable on its face.
If you take the intersection of those who are at least median closeness, sufficiently fit, and have the time to spare probably about 10% of the pop could commute that way. If we would like to achieve anything like that we probably need to make biking a bit friendlier than it presently is.
We eat bicyclists for breakfast. The most dangerous roads in the US for bikes, are on Long Island.
Cycling to work, hereabouts, is worth your life. A lot of undocumented workers do that (can't get licenses), and they get hit, fairly often. I'm starting to see a lot of electric scooters.
But I really wish it weren't so. I moved here from the DC suburbs (MD), where they had really good support for bicyclists.
I could move close enough to my job that walking or biking, even throughout most of the winter, would be ok. Going to the nearest grocery store would be fine for half the year or so. Going most anywhere else around town, I'd have to rely on our crappy bus service.
Aside from equipment, people need to build up their skills and traffic awareness. These are not instant fixes which can be purchased at a store. This is where incremental growth is important. You wouldn't expect a rookie driver to drive on a highway on his first trip. Comfortably operating inside traffic without being disruptive is a skill unto itself.
Yes, it is possible, but if you're not an enthusiast, you're probably not going to develop yourself in these areas.
I ride a bike or take public transit almost every day too, and live car-free, but I had to leave the US to do it.
“License forfeiture suspensions” occur when a person is charged with certain driving-related misdemeanors and either fails to appear in court or fails to pay a court fine.
“Judgment suspensions” occur if a court issues a judgment finding a person responsible for property damage or personal injury caused by use, care, or maintenance of a motor vehicle, and that person fails to pay the amount owed.
“Child support suspensions” occur when a driver fails to pay child support or fails to appear in response to a subpoena or warrant for child support issues.
“Noncompliance suspensions” occur when a driver does not show proof of insurance at a traffic stop or at the time of an accident.
“Random selection noncompliance suspensions” occurred when a vehicle owner did not provide proof of insurance in response to a request from the BMV mailed to randomly selected drivers.
“Security suspensions” occur when an uninsured driver causes an accident that results in more than $400 worth of damage or injury and the other party submits a crash report to the BMV.
“Court registration blocks” can be imposed by a court for unpaid fines or fees and prevent a vehicle owner from renewing their vehicle registration.
“Warrant blocks” prevent a person from obtaining or renewing a driver’s license or vehicle registration and can be imposed by a court for any person who has an outstanding warrant.
0. https://lasclev.org/wp-content/uploads/Road-to-Nowhere_hirez...
How else is the state supposed to punish people who won't/can't pay fines? I guess it'd be good to see more work-release jail, but my impression is that these programs are sort of logistically cumbersome and expensive to operate. E.g., El Paso charges $22/day, which is already 1.5 hours of the workday at minimum wage.
https://support.franklincountyohio.gov/Support-Order-Enforce...
(I'm not saying whether they should or shouldn't, I'm just saying, you're implying "just show the court you have a job and you'll get your license back", which is not the case.)
Your point still stands about these being debt traps though. But in many cases they're downstream from some other payment that the government requires, like registration fees, or the requirement to hold a private auto insurance policy. Maybe we should worry about these in the first instance and not just the license-revocation rules designed to enforce them.
What if we just didn't have a registration fee? Or maybe we should socialize auto insurance so the poor aren't priced out of driving in the first place?
For instance the state of SC sent a tax bill to the wrong address and 30 days later suspended my wife's license which we discovered in another state while traveling. We believed that we had paid the taxes for the car as part of the purchase as is normal. Although the tax bill for her car was tangentially related to her license using one to enforce the other just led to complexity and stupidity.
There is no such thing, at least not one that can effectively recoup any money. To a first approximation, unsecured debts are never collected in the US. Collectors purchase debt for pennies on the dollar because only 1-5% by value of such debts are ever paid.
https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/the-waste-stream-of-c...
Turning over child support debt to the private unsecured debt collection industry means that children won’t be supported.
Debt collection is an entirely different matter when the creditor has something to hold over the debtor’s head, which is what is happening here and it’s a good thing. Child support payments are determined in large part by ability to pay. The state absolutely should use the leverage at its disposal to ensure children are provided for.
Garnishing wages and seizing assets already has teeth and child support payments are already far more collectable than credit cards.
Attacking licences in 99% of cases attacks ability to pay in a counterproductive fashion.
The state should avoid "leverage" and stick to direct consequences like taking your money to give to your kids or taking licenses because people are unfit to drive.
Shall we attach state ID next or ability to ride on public transit.
Once you stop caring about principals and start justifying means based on ends you stop having a meaningful theory of how government ought to work.
There was a time when I was younger that I was way, way behind on child support. My wife got injured and could not work; I was keeping the house alive on one self-employed income and doing the best that I felt I could to keep everyone afloat. I now understand that I could have petitioned the court to adjust the amount I was expected to pay [based on their interpretation of my ability to pay], but (lacking omniscience) I didn't understand that at the time and I had no readily-apparent way to seek guidance about my options, so I fell further and further behind. (Even a fucking photocopied pamphlet would have been helpful.)
Another alternative might be community service as an intermediate step that happens before jail and/or license suspension. A person who is working for free, and by force, at a recycling center every weekend while being able to maintain their usual income is certainly better-equipped to be able to pay child support than a person who is in jail or who is unable to drive to work.
But neither of those options seem to be commonly (if ever) used in Ohio.
If they can't afford the child support they tell the Judge that, and they work with the person on the amount.
It's hardly a debt trap. At best it's a disorganized person trap.
Child support payments are ordered based on the parents ability to pay, not to exceed the needs of the child.
The court can reinstate your license if they reassess the amount and/or you agree to a new payment plan. The court can also give you a hardship license, that permits you to drive for specific purposes: like from home to work.
I dont have a ton of sympathy for deadbeats that want to joyride in their car while their kid is at home hungry.
Perhaps this is an incentive for people to think twice about the sanity of having random punishments of one form meted out for a violation of a different form.
The book "Debt: the first 5,000 years" by David Graeber is a pretty eye opening book.
It used to be possible for a man's wife and children to be sold into slavery because of his debts.
The spanish conquistadors had a whole debt pyramid starting with the expedition funding and leading to the oppression of millions of conquered people trying to repay it.
You would think we were more enlightened nowadays.
Why? We're the same species.
Even just some cursory thought should put the lie to that. As Steven J. Gould ruminated[0] upon quite some time ago:
... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human
intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as
we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues
that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding
of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard
example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads --
makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing
whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a
finite or an infinite number.
-- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds"
My apologies. I forget that many folks on here aren't fluent in English.
I know the idiom, but [that] was ambiguous in your original comment.
It's estimated that there are more slaves today than during the height of the Atlantic Slave Trade...
Hope you can get that sorted out in the next 15 years or so!
All it means is your kid gets less and thinks less of you for it. Poorly thought out plan that punishes the poor and the children dependent on them.
Ohio's minimum wage is $10.45/hr, $21,600/year. With one minor child, the state will require ~$2,000/year in child support (processed for an additional 2% charge).
ADP's net pay calculator says that that will mean you take home $365 a week. $1,400 a month after your child support comes out.
Saying "it has nothing to do with poverty" isn't exactly accurate, either.
> Child support is not some tax or fee or fine. It pays for food and shelter for children.
Wait til you hear about states where the man can be on the hook for child support for a child that isn't his because he "acted as a parent" (because he didn't know this). Sure would seem like a tax or fee or fine to me if that was the case.
And if you aren't employed, you can attend a seek work program.
https://support.franklincountyohio.gov/Support-Order-Enforce...
The more likely alternative seems to be "Too poor or bad with money management to pay your child support? Just don't pay it and there are no consequences that puts money towards the support of your child."
That's not a thing. If someone is poor the judge will take that into account when calculating how much they have to pay.
Child support is not private debt, it's court ordered debt.
It's actually considered one of the highest of all types of debt. It can even take precedence over IRS debt, which is otherwise the debt with the highest precedence.
However, by forcing people into cars, we suddenly have significant problems. Especially considering the housing crisis that makes cars the primary residence of a couple hundred thousand people who can't afford a parking ticket. Much less a $1500 reinstatement fee.
It's absurdly expensive to be poor. Cars are yet another reason for that.
There's a quite bizarre thing here, though: In typical American car-centric areas, suspending someone's license because of debt takes away their ability to pay back debt. This seems just as counterproductive to creditors as debtors prisons were (and sometimes are).
To punish them. For all the talk about rehabilitation and compensation, our "justice" system is fundamentally still about making some people happy by letting them watch other people get hurt.
This is not nearly as easy on public transportation or for pedestrians. Terry stops have much less power when you don't have a hundred traffic laws and licensing requirements that you can get a car driver for. In addition, you can't revoke someone's walking license if they don't pay child support.
Car, bike, walking, they are all means of transport that the government can restrict easily.
Cars are just good to travel in low density areas.
"The reason I stopped you sir is your WALKING LICENSE is suspended!"
Here's a funny vid as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbvWniXcNhA
If there were debt-based suspensions of the right to ride public transport, would you categorize this as an argument against public transport centric city design?
This is a plain ridiculous assertion.
EDIT: the point here is that bad policy that involves something you happen to dislike doesn't lend strength to the viewpoint that the thing is bad.
I mean, I happen not to like pitbull-type dogs, but I acknowledge that a putative law which prevented debtors from getting dog licenses would not be an argument against owning pitbulls.
Banning people from using transportation that they probably need for work is dumb, bad policy, and bad economics. It tells you nothing about the merits of the kind of transport from which they're being banned.
No, you can't. Please point to any places that actually have the technical means of enforcing such a ban.
Did you miss the whole "covid lockdown" period we just went through where governments restricted people from even leaving their homes on foot?
Cars are great. Stop crying irrationally about them.
We don't even need government to restrict people's movement; car companies, 70 years of terrible land use policy, and good ol' fashioned NIMBYism did it for us.
Tell that to the countless people who lose friends and family to them every single day.
https://abc7.com/san-francisco-california-crash-organs-organ...
Now step into the shoes of that poor person, who has had the screws turned on them. Whould you give up your car and trust the government?
That's why they don't trust public transit, they don't trust the government and rightly so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JgukjFWlcc
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/URLs_Cited/OT2021/20-8...
Two points of anecdata, sourced from a cross country trip that took me through ohio:
- we went to a beer garden at the end of a long day of driving (>12 hours). We sit down to order and know exactly what we want. The waiter comes to take our drinks, but patently refuses to take our food order because "that happens next". He had a tablet to put orders in. Would've saved everybody time. It was ~30m before the next waiter showed up.
- the next morning, we stopped at a diner to get breakfast to-go. They had eggs, bacon, and toast on the menu but no egg sandwich. We asked if we could get a bacon egg and cheese to go, off menu, offering to pay an extra couple bucks for the trouble. A 15 minute back and forth with the kitchen ensued culminating in a frustrated and confused register person grumpily handing us two styrofoam containers with the various ingredients (not assembled, because I guess this counted as "on the menu"). We end up building our own sandwiches right there, on the counter, and throwing out the bits and pieces that didn't make sense in a sandwich because they also refused to "hold" anything like the apparently obligatory fruit cup. This completely awkward state of affairs paradoxically seemed to bother nobody.
There was more weirdness throughout the state, all along the lines of "technically correct but actually awful" from the airbnb to the highway toll booths (they wouldn't take anything other than exact change and we had to cajole them to keep the difference because who the hell keeps nickels in this day and age?).
I did learn to sleep comfortably on cement with toilet paper as pillow. I can also resist horrible toilet stench while sleeping. The recent family murderer in my cell was joyful and friendly and I made heroin addict friends. There was commotion in a nearby cell, others told me it was rape, good thing I avoided that.
Also, an interesting fact, apparently it's not just abu-ghraib type torture prisons that keep prisoners in very cold concrete only rooms and move you around to different holding cells and cellmates every few hours (i assume it is to sleep deprive and freeze you so much you cause less troubles?). I suppose prison is supposed to be unpleasant but they could have waited until I was tried and convicted. Seems a bit much as well for expired government documents where the reason is debt instead of safety, at least for America.
I now hate car ownership (likelihood of police interaction being one of many reasons).
That is, my interpretation is that if you get a moving violation, don't pay the ticket, have your driver's license suspended, you got a suspension due to "bad driving". Their interpretation is that only if you have your license suspended for a specific incident that it would be due to "bad driving".
But, I have no idea how many of these are parking tickets, driving without insurance, repair issues or whatever. But fines do have a public safety purpose, it doesn't seem right to lump them all in as "debt".
1.7 million Ohioans have a suspension in a given year. Meanwhile the state has 8M licensed drivers, so 20% of the people in the state are suspended at a given time? Wild.
Unfortunately, the legal aid society betrays the "bullshit" angle that the Fed article obscures. On page 5 they talk about the types of "debt related suspensions" in their dataset - the biggest single category with over 50% of the "affected" drivers is "non compliance suspension" - which is drivers which fail to produce proof of insurance during a traffic stop or accident. The second biggest category is "forfeitures" which is people who were charged with a traffic violation and didn't bother to show up to court or to pay the fine.
The article makes it sound like most "license suspensions do not stem from bad driving; instead, they arise because the driver owes an unpaid debt" - and then opaquely bucket "not having insurance DURING A TRAFFIC STOP OR ACCIDENT" as "unpaid debt" rather than "bad driving." The Fed article doesn't make any reference to the insurance thing at all, but that's literally the largest bucket.
It feels a bit of a stretch to me to then portray the data as discriminatory towards the urban poor - the article works very hard to make these suspensions seem punitive towards those communities where it seems that the real causality is "urban poor have a low rate of having insurance" -> "not having insurance causes a license suspension" both of which are kinda predictable and reasonable, and would make for a dull article.
The 3rd largest group of "suspensions" is unpaid child support - behind "didn't show up to court for traffic violation" and "no insurance." This is indeed a "debt related" suspension but conveniently the Fed article doesn't feature the term "child support." We can still debate whether unpaid CP is grounds for license suspension, but for an article that relies to much on emotional flavor (eg describing affected communities etc) it seems remiss to ignore that the subset of those communities most impacted (besides those who fail to show up to traffic court and those who don't have insurance) are child support deadbeats.
It's funny that the authors of this debt and payment related article on the Federal reserve website are called Kyle FEE and Brian MikelBANK.
In a given year, not at a given time.
It's the kind of metric that's likely to overcount people with multiple suspensions in a year, too.
Well done, Ohio! That'll learn'em.
Who the hell signed this into law? It just seems like a complete "fuck you" to the poor, designed to kick them while they're down and punish them for being poor.
I don't even care if the cause of the debt was outright tax fraud. Make the punishment fit the crime. If someone owes a debt to the government, garnish wages. If the debt is due to fraud, throw them in prison. But to make a sweeping law that takes away driver's licenses and most of the people affected are poor has no logical basis. It does nothing to solve the problem of unpaid debts, it merely makes them worse.
EDIT: Re-reading, I notice the article doesn't state the source of the debt. If it's unpaid traffic tickets, then I do think it makes sense to suspend the license, but an afternoon of traffic school should suffice for most moving violations. If it's unpaid taxes, hell no.
When I was younger, I was working three jobs to keep my head above water. I got a speeding ticket and forgot to pay it. My license was suspended. I had to not only pay the fine but to pay to reinstate my license. I could only afford to pay in installments to reinstate my license. I missed one payment and my license was suspended yet again. This is a trap that now seems crazy I could have ever fallen into, but it is a vicious cycle.
I paid the ticket within the time-frame, but I forgot to do the second step, and my license was suspended. I didn't realize my license was suspended until I got pulled over a few months later, and the cop informed me that I was driving without a license, and that's a felony in Florida. Apparently I also didn't have auto insurance either, because my insurance company wouldn't insure someone without a license.
Fortunately for me, the cop was sympathetic to my story, and just gave me a regular speeding ticket, and the next day I had to get my sister to drive me to the DMV, and I was able to get everything sorted out (this was before Uber was a thing). I had to pay an extra $100 for my license to be reinstated.
It was a huge pain in the ass, and added a lot of extra steps for something that realistically could have been solved with an email from the payment place to the DMV. I was lucky to have the vacation time banked and was able to miss work to fix this, but it would have been so much harder if I had hourly wages.
I think Florida has made this less horrible now (I haven't lived there in twelve years, and I don't own a car anymore), so maybe this particular thing has been resolved, but my point is that sometimes you can have your license suspended even when you pay on time.
> Who the hell signed this into law? It just seems like a complete "fuck you" to the poor, designed to kick them while they're down and punish them for being poor.
People who govern by inflicting suffering instead of leveraging data to encourage rational and data driven outcomes. We see this as a bug, others see this as a feature.
22.8% (258,730) were license forfeitures. When a person is charged with a misdemeanor driving offense and either does not show up to court or fails to pay the fine.
4.8% (54,802) were judgement suspension. When a person causes property damage or personal injury due to a car crash and is fined, and does not pay the fine.
6.7% (75,906) were child support suspensions. Self explanatory.
59.9% (679,014) were non-compliance suspension. Non-compliance suspensions is when the driver is asked to provide proof of insurance at a traffic stop or scene of an accident and does not.
3.8% (43,630) were random selection suspensions. Random selection suspension is when they take a random sample of people shown in their system to not have vehicle insurance and ask them to provide proof of insurance, and then they do not.
1.9% (21,728) were security suspension. Security suspension are people with active criminal warrants.
https://lasclev.org/wp-content/uploads/Road-to-Nowhere_hirez...
Additionally there are "blocks" (527,058) where a person has a valid license or registration but cannot renew it either due to an outstanding warrant (378,523) or unpaid court fines (148,538).
As someone who was struck and injured by an uninsured driver, not only should uninsured drivers have their licenses suspended, any vehicle they are found operating or in possession of regardless of who owns it should be shredded and recycled with the scrap value going to a fund to compensate victims.
edit: also, I have been driving for 30 years and never been issued a ticket, been at fault in a crash, or had a single insurance claim except for chipped windshields. My insurance is so low I don't even know how much it costs. It is my assertion that operating vehicle in a manner that avoids accidents, fines, and court cases is easy, especially since I'm entirely average in my abilities, and I have very little sympathy for those who cannot do so.
The goal of the system should really be to get everyone insured, and I suspect there are people who don't just have financial problems resolving this but also a hard time navigating the bureaucracy.
Assuming you take the vehicle, you should sell it as-is if possible, it will likely provide more value than shredding it. Even if you have to sell it to a dismantler, the parts are probably more valuable before you shred them.
It certainly doesn't seem fair for the government to take a car from an owner if its use was unauthorized, but if you want to do it for authorized use vehicles, then you should seek to get a reasonable sale and the funds should go towards a specific debt incured by the user; if the vehicle sells for more than those debts (less cost of sale), the balance should be returned to the owner. Same as if it were a house foreclosure or an abandoned car.
"There's no soap to wash my hands, but that doesn't mean I'm bad at surgery."
"There are no tests, but that doesn't mean I'm a bad at writing software."
Why are we only randomly sampling this rather than exhaustively?
>any vehicle they are found operating or in possession of regardless of who owns it should be shredded and recycled with the scrap value going to a fund to compensate victims.
So you're saying that next time someone steals your car for a joyride, you'd prefer if it got destroyed rather than just left somewhere?
I can only imagine that there is a lag in reporting from insurance companies, maybe they're batched, so instantly sending out a notice to everyone showing a lapse in coverage would result in a lot of unnecessary letters being sent out.
I didn't show up to court once, over a civil matter.
Thats because I was kicked out of my parents house. Homeless. And when I tried to go to the BMV to declare homeless status and NOT to send mail to that address, they refused me. I got a civil summons in the mail. Parents destroyed it and all mail addressed to me. And I got a summary judgement against me.
I tried to change it to my email address with the BMV, as that was stable. Of course not. Homeless people are less than humans who deserve derision and hate... and judgements against you.
I wonder how many of that 258730 fell into the same boat?
No, it still doesn't. Modern societies have a kink for adding requirements for basic survival, but at the same time decreeing those same things "privileges, not rights" so that they can deny them with minimum oversight.
On places people have no other ways to move around, this is a human rights violation. Nothing less. (And yes, people should have options, that doesn't mean you can just say that out loud and take people's rights away. You have to do something if you want to use that claim.)
> On places people have no other ways to move around, this is a human rights violation. Nothing less.
By this argument, driving tests should be illegal too. Or age limits on licensing. Or fees to renew plates or permits. If there's a "human rights violation", it's letting motorists known to repeatedly violate the law (putting my life in danger) continue to operate a vehicle.
If you want to correct someone's bad or even intentionally irresponsible driving, there is nothing about the problem that implies money.
In fact it's if anything, the opposite. Making the penalty for a ticket be money just means I can just pay the ticket like paying for the priviledge to ignore that rule.
In fact I do this wrt to the front plate on one of my cars where it would be ugly. I don't want a plate there, but this state's rules say otherwise, but I get to just have what I want anyway. Once in a while, I get a ticket for it. I just pay it and continue not having a license plate on the front of that car. It's been over 20 years and several cars.
How nice for me that the penalty for this important rule is just money!
No, you've mis-identified the problem as "the punishment is only a single sum of money."
What actually makes it ineffective is "it's a fixed sum which some people (like me) are rich enough to casually ignore". Compounded by "infrequent enforcement."
The truth of this is easy to illustrate: Simply imagine that instead of a ~$100 fine every ~5 years, the missing plate was detected every week and the fine compounded by +5% each time until it reached 10% of your wages. It's technically still "just money"... but would your behavior be the same?
> Once in a while, I get a ticket for it. I just pay it and continue not having a license plate on the front of that car
Yes, I agree - your state shouldn't have this loophole. Since the economic penalty doesn't work, you should also be receiving non-monetary penalties for this behaviour that would have resulted in revocation of your driving permit (and further violations would be criminal).
I’m all for pegging fines to income to reduce the likelyhood that fines cause serious harm to violators, beyond the desired effect. But at some point it may not be possible to do anything but take a license.
Compare to: "OSHA shouldn't be fining MegaCo for lacking metal safety-railings around the ManMangler 4000 unit, because if it was reeeealy about safety they'd shut down the entire factory until it was safe. Fines prove they aren't serious about safety and have some other dubious motive."
Fines are a totally valid way to change behavior and deter the unsafe behavior from happening again in the future. They are both adjustable and reversible, unlike imprisonment or eye-for-an-eye. While I would love to see fines scaled by wealth to avoid disproportionately severe (or ineffective) effects, that's not the same as rejecting fines entirely.
But one human right can always be violated to preserve another human right [1]. In this case, a person X's human right to travel freely is balanced by everyone else's human right to travel freely (or particularly the subright to be able to travel without risk of bodily harm).
The latter is why we have licenses for driving. If someone does not respect other people's human rights then their human right can be taken away.
I would however, oppose, taking away someone's license for lesser reasons than other people's human rights. For instance, I would support poor people not having to pay license fees.
[1] In fact, a huge part of law is how we balance each human right against other human rights.
At what point does a hypothetical/rare edge case of "trapped unable to travel anywhere unless I drive my own vehicle so I need to be allowed to do it badly" overwhelm the the commonplace issue of bad-driving causing harm?
People also drive unregistered vehicles, so an insurance requirement tied to registration is not a complete solution.
1. You're in an actual accident.
2. You get pulled over by the police for some reason.
3. Before driving away a recently purchased car from a dealership and the car has a lien on it. It's a requirement of the bank that lent you the money using the car itself as collateral. If you purchased it fully, they don't care.
Fees for yearly car registration/renewals go towards transportation projects in the state/county/city.
TLDR: Americans can get away with driving uninsured on public roads for quite a while before getting caught.
Can we apply the same “it’s a privilege, not a right” logic to big corporate licenses, like spectrum?
From the article:
> From 2016 through 2020, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) and third-party creditors levied an average of about $150 million in charges and fees related to DRS [...]
Third party creditors are permitted to [ab]use this system. Sounds like it's not just traffic tickets.
A - Why taking your father's license was necessary?
B - How taking your father's license was supposed to help get the child support paid? (Assuming paying the child support was the ultimate goal.)
Just thinking there must have been some rationale behind laws allowing that to happen. It'd be interesting to get the explanation of that rationale from those who had a hand in enacting laws like this. Because on its surface, that seems like madness.
In a society as car dependent as ours, this is tantamount to a loose house arrest sentence, and worth noting that it still falls in exactly the same way as your original point about how outrageously stupid it is to levy fines and then interfere with someone's ability to earn due to failure to pay those fines. Not to mention, in that aforementioned society, you can't not drive. So of course these people are driving illegally, and then they can be cited for that which will give a fresh case for yet more fines, more fees, and more court dates for them to miss.
And before you say "well it should prevent people from breaking traffic laws!" there is in fact a wide body of evidence showing that stiffer punishments for any crime does extremely precious little to affect the rate of offense.
No, it's quite clear these laws are designed to turn poor people into a steady revenue source for the cities and counties that have budgets to balance, same as it always was. It's a perfect solution: they have fewer resources to fight the tickets or the unfair circumstances, their low position in society means nobody gives a shit about them, they usually can't afford legal representation, they'll have a harder time making court dates and paying balances, and as such, municipalities get to drown them in all kinds of bullshit fees and charges, and if they still fail to pay, then they get to throw them in prison to boot. Another set of hands to work in the only method we have for legal slavery these days.
This practice is fucking grotesque.
Would you say the same for repeat offenders? A traffic ticket that does not carry the risk of a compounding punishment might as well not exist. I can agree with ignoring one traffic ticket, but I do think a "three strikes and you're out" rule should be in place to prevent people from taking advantage of the system's leniency.
Like, let's say the worst case scenario is true: you have this person who is willfully bucking traffic laws on the regular, for some reason that we are not privy to. They just won't stop. Okay? What do you want to do about it? Do we imprison them for a completely non-violent offense? Do we just continue fining them? Do we take away their right to drive, and make them functionally immobile, and also completely still capable of driving illegally?
Yes, that is exactly the point. A huge number of laws exist only to punish people for being poor.
1. Does the economic system allow for full employment.
2. If not, then it stands to reason that among the unemployed, a portion is temporarily unemployed and a portion is chronically unemployed.
3. Is it moral to blame the chronically unemployed for their unemployment if fill employment is unattainable?
4. If full employment is unattainable, and it's immoral to blame the chronically unemployed, then what purpose do unemployment punishments serve? Why make a system where someone is guaranteed to lose, and then punish the loser?
There are people who have money, yet won't pay debts, unless you force them to. This system ostensibly was designed to solve this problem while at the same time ignoring the impact on low income people.
> If someone owes a debt to the government, garnish wages.
You've never had your wages garnished, have you? If you think suspension of a drivers license, which is just a temporary paperwork condition, is somehow preferable to actual taking of up to 25% of your income from your check, I'm incredibly surprised.
> designed to kick them while they're down and punish them for being poor.
Finally.. you shouldn't assume that all poor people are victims of some external circumstance. It's not a uniform "class" of people you can think of this way.
sure, some are victims of some internal circumstance, but I can't really think of someone who is willingly poor, more like incapable of getting over their internal problem.
It's not an isolated choice. Their choice to be poor is usually a consequence of them deciding that some other activity is easier and better than attempting to build wealth for themselves.
I've lived this way for large portions of my life. America is not fun to live in while facing this proposition, and the current climate seems to require a certain tolerance or willingness towards corruption that I personally cannot abide even though I am poorer for it.
It wasn't a judgement. It's just an anecdote about how solving the problem may look quite a bit different than the frothy suggestions posted here.
I would say your choice to be middle class or not wealthy is a direct and easily understood consequence of deciding that some other activity is easier and or better - for example I'm going to be a Public Defender and help people!
Also I guess I want to learn about Ancient Sumerian instead of pursuing an MBA!
But those are not choices guaranteed for poverty, they are choices not to pursue wealth.
choices for poverty are generally not willingly chosen or are at least not direct and clear consequences but sure I bet you can with diligent searching turn up some examples.
That's a HUGE problem.
> If you think suspension of a drivers license, which is just a temporary paperwork condition
"temporary paperwork condition"?
Are you advocating driving on a suspended license? Because someone who can no longer drive to work either loses their job or it's suddenly very expensive to drive.
> you shouldn't assume that all poor people are victims of some external circumstance. It's not a uniform "class" of people you can think of this way.
Well no, of course not. Some people are poor because of shitty choices.
But poverty is extremely difficult to escape, whether or not it's because of shitty choices. I think it's fair to try to improve the lives of people that are poor because of external circumstance, even if it means we end up helping people who you feel don't deserve help because poor choices led them to be poor.
It may be large, but do you have any information that can put the size of this problem in context with the others?
> Are you advocating driving on a suspended license?
I'm merely recognizing that doing so is possible without bringing further harm to yourself, while having your paycheck garnished is entirely unavoidable. Further if you're driving for an actually good reason, I doubt most police officers would make an issue of the paperwork condition. Finally there are many states where simply driving with a suspended or revoked license is not an arrestable or towable offense.
> But poverty is extremely difficult to escape
If you are unwilling to change anything else about their lives, then yes, it's hard to make the same actions have a different result. In particular, even if you try, you're probably just moving consequences and risk around the system in a careless fashion.
> even if it means we end up helping people who you feel don't deserve help
So far I've failed to witness "throw money at the problem" or "let them off the hook" actually _improve_ anything other than the conscience of the people who advocate for it.
That's a pretty ballsy assertion.
> Finally there are many states where simply driving with a suspended or revoked license is not an arrestable or towable offense.
Even in those, they'll just keep fining you. Great solution.
Yes, it's unpaid tickets and tolls. That's common in most states. If you have unpaid tickets or debts, you can't register your car. If you can't register your car, you get more tickets.
I'm not sure why you changed your opinion of this being "the worst thing ever" to "it's fine" because it's based on fees instead of taxes. Either way it has the same impact on the poor.
If the car has to be re-possessed, it's unfair to let the person keep using the vehicle (and perhaps even destroy the vehicle). Now whatever financing created the debt might have originally been predatory, but that's a separate study (probably badly needed!). Nevertheless, debt collection just wants an extra reason for a cop to pull somebody over and enforce the debt.
We also very much DO have slavery. They too are through a judge or jury signing off.
Yup.
I'm always reminded of the gentleman (Joseph Prudente of Florida) who was put in jail without bail for failing to upkeep their lawn to their HOA's standards. The legal reason was contempt of court for not following the judge's order to upkeep their lawn.
As an aside, contempt of court doesn't have a sentence length, nor does it require you to be found guilty of any crime.
Egregious enough. Then the real details hit, and made a bad thing worse:
- A member of the HOA Board had moved to foreclose on this home despite the small arrears (even relative to other members of the community)
- Someone made a very short offer on the house (IIRC, in the order of $125K for a $4-500K home)
- HOA Board voted to accept the short sale offer
(You might have seen this coming) Spoiler alert: The HOA board member who lead the vote to foreclose, the person who made the short offer, and the board member who voted to accept that offer? All the same person, who had a healthy little business as a landlord.