By Niki Cervantes
Staff Writer
June 21, 2016 -- State legislation
to stop the automatic suspension of driver’s licenses for people
with minor traffic offenses who fail to appear in court or to pay initial
fines that snowball into huge financial burdens passed a key committee
Monday.
The California Assembly Transportation Committee voted 9-to-4 to pass
SB 881, which comes in the wake of a special temporary amnesty program
started in October of 2015 by California.
The bill, sponsored by State Senator Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, allows
those with minor driving offenses to to talk with a judge about their
fines, restores driver’s licenses to those with a payment plan and
adjusts escalating fees after taking low incomes into account.
In the first three months of the amnesty program, more than 58,000 Californians
have received fine and fee reductions and more than 40,000 have requested
reinstatement of their driver’s licenses, a study by the California
Judicial Council found.
SB 881 is co-sponsored by the Western Center on Law and Poverty and the
American Civil Liberties Union of California.
“This is good news for hundreds of thousands of Californians who
have had their family and work lives disrupted due to a suspended license
simply because they were too poor,” Michael Herald, a legislative
advocate for the Western Center on Law and Poverty, said of SB 881’s
progress in Sacramento.
About 612,000 Californians now have a suspended driver’s license
due to failure to appear or failure to pay on traffic tickets, according
to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The poor and those living on low incomes have been especially hard hit
by court fines, fees and penalties for minor offenses that rapidly rise
if not quickly addressed -- sometimes leading to jail and losing jobs.
Hertzberg said a U.S. Federal Reserve report found last month that nearly
half of American adults don’t have $400 to pay for an emergency
expense like fees for minor driving offenses and would have to sell something
or borrow money to cover the cost.
The legislation does not apply to offenses involving reckless driving
or driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
SB 881 has already passed the Senate and goes next to the Assembly Public
Safety Committee for consideration later this summer, said spokesman Andrew
LaMar.
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