Driver’s License Restoration

• Guilford County has 40,000 citizens with indefinitely suspended driver’s licenses!
• A person is charged with a traffic offense (even EXPIRED REGISTRATION, BROKEN TAIL LIGHT, etc.)
• They cannot afford to pay fines ($10-$50) and fees ($200+) within 90 days, their license is automatically indefinitely suspended for failing to pay court costs (fine/fees).
• Many must get to work, so they drive without a license.
• If stopped, they are ticketed and charged with DRIVING WHILE LICENSE REVOKED, EXPIRED/NO REGISTRATION, and/or NO LIABILITY INSURANCE which greatly increases their court costs.
• If they still cannot afford to pay court costs the person can even be JAILED for Failure to Comply!

1. Costs, fines and fees have escalated in North Carolina 260% since 1995.
2. People who have low level misdemeanors or traffic violations such as a lapsed registration, are responsible for court costs and others fees.  If these fees are not paid within 90 days, your driver’s license will be suspended indefinitely.
3. Guilford has 35,000 people in this situation.  Guilford has the highest per capita number of license suspensions for failure to pay fees and fines than any county in the state of North Carolina.
4. 62% of those are African American, which is not proportionate to the population.
5. 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and cannot afford fees of hundreds and even thousands of dollars.  The poor are penalized disproportionally to the rich.
6. This means that thousands of families are impacted for years on end.  (The average suspension was 14 years in Durham)  People cannot even apply for many jobs without a drivers’ license, and keeping the jobs they have is hard without transportation.  It negatively affects access to healthcare and education.  Often people who need to get to work drive without a license which then leads to serious charges with much higher fees and fines, or even incarceration.
7. After one year, research shows that the chances of the state recovering the money is extremely small so we are doing damage to our community for no good reason.
8. The DA has the power to write a motion to the court to dismiss the charges in whole or in part.  And in a single motion they can seek relief for large groups at a time.  In Durham, Mecklenburg, Pitt, Caswell/Randolph, New Hanover /Pender, Gaston and Buncombe counties, this is what has happened.
9. In Guilford our DA is working to seek relief for which we are grateful, but the pace has been slow with only 1300 since last October.
10. The League of Women Voters is a non-partisan effort to make our democracy work for all people. This effort by the Criminal Justice Roundtable is one positive way to make our democracy do just that.
11. We want the County officials to escalate the pace and clear the 35,000 cases that cripple so many families in Guilford.

Driven into Debt: Debt-Based Driver’s License Suspensions, presentation by Terri Flam-Goldberg and Emma Coltoff. Presented by the Criminal/Racial Justice Sub-Committee at Temple Emanuel.

When Debt Takes the Wheel: Why suspending the driver’s licenses of North Carolinians for unpaid traffic court fines and fees is unjust and counterproductive. North Carolina Equal Access to Justice Commission (September, 2020)
“a story map project that reveals extreme racial disparities in North Carolina driver’s license suspensions by county and details the devastating impact of the state’s policy of suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid court fines and fees.”
Contact https://ncfairchance.org/ to get pro bono help with driver’s license registration.

Driver’s License Suspensions in North Carolina: Duke Law Professor Brandon Garrett and Daniel Bowes of the North Carolina Justice Center lead a discussion of driver’s license suspensions in North Carolina. Also speaking are individuals who have had their driver’s license suspended about how the experience affected their lives. Sponsored by the Duke Criminal Law Society.