Personal Narrative: Laqueanda Reneau
Reneau got 15 tickets in a single year, including 7 $200 citations for not having a city sticker. She turned to Chapter 13 bankruptcy for debt forgiveness.
Traffic Fines and Fees
Florida SB 1270: Penalties And Fees… prohibiting the suspension of a person’s driver license solely for failure to pay certain financial obligations…
This 2018 bill - which did not pass - marks the third consecutive year that Senator Jeff Brandes (R-St. Petersburg) introduced legislation to end driver’s license suspension for nonpayment of fines and fees in Florida. This bill would also have required courts to provide reasonable payment alternatives for poor defendants, including payment plans and performing community service to pay fines.
Durham Driver Amnesty Program
The Durham County District Attorney’s office and the Bloomberg-funded Durham Innovation Team partnered to create the Durham Driver Amnesty Program. In its pilot phase, the District Attorney dismissed 2,500 pending charges for eligible participants which kept them from obtaining their driver’s license.
Driven By Dollars: A State-By-State Analysis of Driver’s License Suspension Laws for Failure to Pay Court Debt
In this report, Mario Salas and Angela Ciolfi analyze driver’s license suspension policies in all 50 states and describe the harmful consequences of “license-for-payment” systems.
Texas SB 1913: Relating to the administrative, civil, and criminal consequences, including fines, fees, and costs, imposed on persons arrested for, charged with, or convicted of certain criminal offenses.
This bill aims to improve the fairness of the Texas criminal justice system’s response to defendants’ inability to pay fines and fees in criminal cases, particularly in traffic and city ordinance violations.
Personal Narrative: Amy Marie Palacios
Amy Marie Palacios is a single mother with two children, who earned $20,090 in 2016 - below the federal poverty line for her three-person household. Her driver’s license was suspended in 2015 because she failed to pay the fine for a speeding ticket.
Personal Narrative: Nora Ann Corder
Ms. Corder drove to work with a suspended license because her job was her only source of income. She was stopped by law enforcement, received three new citations, and her car was impounded. As a result, she owed $1320 in fines and fees.
Driving Into Debt: The Need For Traffic Ticket Fee Reform
This report explains how the California courts’ interest in revenue collection causes a burden of debt for citizens and recommends alternatives to traditional collection methods that raise more revenue while causing less harm.
Paying More for Being Poor: Bias and Disparity in California’s Traffic Court System
This report is based on the authors’ research on traffic courts and driver’s license suspension practices in the San Francisco Bay Area. It details how much revenue courts collect from fines and fees, the harmful impacts those fees have on low-income Californians, and also advances several policy reform recommendations.
San Francisco Fines & Fees Task Force: Initial Findings and Recommendations
In late 2016, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors directed the Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector to create a Fines and Fees Task Force (staffed by the Treasurer’s Financial Justice Project) to study the impact of fines and fees on San Franciscans & propose relevant reforms. About six months later, the Task Force published this initial report in order to provide an overview of fines and fees in San Francisco as well as an array of reform recommendations.