'Driver Responsibility' or never-ending cycle of debt?

A vortex of debt awaits many drivers caught in the DRP

By Cindy Mallette, Guest Contributor

I’m a homeschooling mother of three -- a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a two-month-old. And if I don’t pay money to the Texas Department of Public Safety every month for the next three years, I could be thrown into jail.

I’m a victim of the Texas Driver Responsibility Program, a well-intentioned law designed to penalize very bad drivers (think drunk drivers) by making them pay extra money on top of any fines they owe for their convictions. Those surcharges go to fund trauma centers that treat uninsured victims. Hospitals love this law, but pretty much everybody else hates it. In fact, this bill has across-the-board hatred from diverse groups such as the NAACP and the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Why the hate?


First, this law disproportionately hurts the poor, who have trouble paying the surcharges and are therefore more likely to have their licenses suspended (automatic penalty if you don’t pay on time). This causes a cycle of more fines and more surcharges and the potential inability to continue driving, maintain car insurance, or keep a job.

Second, the surcharges are a double-punishment. Only, you get this punishment without the benefit of having a day in court to plead your case. If you plead “guilty” or “no contest” to a traffic ticket, you are at risk of automatically getting a surcharge of several hundred dollars slapped on top of your fine. And if you’re poor, several hundred dollars can turn into several thousand dollars pretty quickly (see paragraph above).

Twice in my life I’ve faced arrest, both times because I was driving with a suspended license. My license was suspended for the simple fact that I’d missed paying the Driver Responsibility surcharge on time.

My trouble started in 2007. Back then, I was a reporter for the Tyler Morning Telegraph and my beat covered three rural counties. I drove a ten-year-old Toyota Corolla that had more than 300,000 miles on it. I couldn’t afford anything newer. I could barely even afford to keep the car inspected and registered -- my salary barely topped $23,000 a year before taxes.

As I drove hundreds of miles over rural East Texas, I got ticketed for speeding once and had two car accidents involving only my vehicle. I found myself with too many points accrued on my driving record. I got a letter from the Department of Public Safety stating that I owed $104 to the Driver Responsibility Program.

Receiving that letter was like a punch in the gut. Where would I come up with that money? I had to keep driving in order to keep my job -- I just hoped I wouldn’t get pulled over before I was able to scrabble together the money necessary to pay off the surcharge.

My hopes were dashed one afternoon as I drove my husband’s car down a back road near Overton. He didn’t have a front license plate on his car, and a State Trooper parked on the shoulder noticed. I’d missed paying the surcharge on time, so I was caught driving with an invalid license.

The State Trooper didn’t arrest me, though the law requires it. Instead, he ticketed me for driving with an invalid license and with having an expired registration. I went on a monthly payment plan for the fines, but at $100 per month, I was unable to keep up. Shortly after, I moved to Austin and abandoned paying the fine. The monthly cost was more than I could afford. When the court sent my fine to collections, additional fees were tacked on to cover collection costs.

Finally, the time came to renew my driver’s license. It was May 2015, and I still didn’t have the money to pay the almost decade-old fine. I made an appointment with the court in Overton to speak with the judge and see if he would reduce the amount so I could renew my license. The court date was set for the day after my license expired. The judge agreed to reduce the fine amount, I paid it in full, and the court secretary handed me a receipt.

The receipt would serve as proof that I was legal to drive as I headed home to Austin the very next day with my children buckled in the back seat. I was ever-so-careful on the drive back, not just for safety, but because the small towns that dot Highway 79 between East Texas and Austin are known speed traps.

Rockdale is one of those towns. It has a reputation among Central Texas residents as being a notorious speed trap, especially in the 2,000-foot-long school zone along the western edge of town. The four-lane highway drops from 55 mph to 35 mph with a single flashing yellow light to warn you of the 20 mph drop.

I was in the left lane in a downpour when I passed that flashing light. I noticed the other cars falling behind, and a glance at my radio clock told me what I’d feared -- 3:05 p.m. I braked, but not fast enough. I passed the police car going 45 mph.

When I handed the officer my license, I told him, “It’s expired, but I’m headed back to Austin to renew it.” When he came back from running it through his computer, he said, “Ma’am, it’s not just expired. It’s suspended.”

I showed him the receipt from the Overton court showing I’d paid the overdue fines. It didn’t make a difference.

“Ma’am, according to the DPS computer, it shows the fines are still overdue. Your license is invalid, and I have no choice but to arrest you. Do you have someone you can call to take your kids? Otherwise, I’ll have to call CPS to come and take them.”

I did not.

The officer called the Rockdale police chief, who agreed to let me go if I would pay $200 - half of the fine for driving with an invalid license.

When we got to the police station, I told the officer that I wanted to plead “not guilty”  to the charge, since technically I was legal to drive. But the officer said, “Well, if you plead ‘not guilty,’ you’ll have to drive all the way back out here for a court date, and the judge is just going to look at the DPS computer record which shows that on this date your license was suspended.”

So, I pleaded “no contest.” That was the biggest mistake I could have made.

A DWLI conviction comes with an automatic license suspension AND a $780 Driver Responsibility Program surcharge. I had to pay $100 to reinstate my license, several hundred dollars to the City of Rockdale for the traffic stop, and now a surcharge of $780 to the Driver Responsibility Program.

A few weeks after the traffic stop, I got two letters from the DPS in the mail stating I owed $780 in surcharges. I called the DPS to clear up the confusion -- I had only one conviction, so there should only be one surcharge.

Or so I thought.

No, they explained. The surcharge program accounts for offenses up to eight years old, so the DWLI conviction from 2007 triggered a second surcharge. I now owed $1,560 to the Driver Responsibility Program, $780 for the old conviction and $780 for the new conviction -- non-negotiable fees that come with stiff penalties for failure to pay.

Worse, I have no recourse to get these surcharges removed -- no chance to explain to a judge that this is all the result of a computer delay and traffic tickets from nearly a decade past. The surcharge is a conviction without a trial and a double-portion of punishment.

The State of Texas has attempted to lessen the blow of this clearly unjust law. Those whose household income is 125 percent of the federal poverty level ($35,000 or less for a family of five) can get their surcharge waived.

If, like me, you earn between 125-300 percent of the poverty level, you can have your surcharges cut in half. The catch is, you have to pay the remaining balance in full within six months, or your license is suspended until you pay the remaining amount.

Finally, you can pay your surcharge in monthly installments, which come with a $2.50 installment fee per surcharge payment. You’re allowed up to six years to pay off the entire amount if you do the minimum monthly installment. For me, the installment fees alone would add $660 to the surcharges, totalling $2,220 when all is said and done.

That’s an astounding number: $2,220 on top of the fines I’ve already paid, which are largely the result of being caught up in the surcharge program in the first place.

My story is frustrating and heartbreaking, but it’s not the worst. Thousands more Texans have experienced life-altering problems because of the Driver Responsibility Program. People have shared about their inability to drive for years because of suspended licenses -- simply because they can’t afford to pay the surcharges. Others have shared about spending time in jail - being treated as criminals because they can’t pay. Still others have been unable to get a driver's license in another state because they can’t afford to pay off the surcharges imposed by the State of Texas.

Regardless of any attempt to lessen the impact of the surcharge on the poor, the fact that anyone has to pay a surcharge is immoral. As I said before, it’s a conviction without a trial and a double-portion of punishment.

With the 2017 Texas legislative session on the horizon, I hope to see our lawmakers put an end to this terrible program that hurts millions of Texans. It will require two things:

• For people like me to tell their stories of how the Driver Responsibility Program has affected them. If you have a story to share, feel free to email me at cindymallette@gmail.com. I’ll be collecting these stories to share with the House and Senate committees that oversee this program. Putting a human face on this program is the No. 1 way to ensure its end.
• To come up with an alternate way to fund trauma centers. The State is required to fund these centers, and since 2003, they’ve used the Driver Responsibility Program to do so. I am confident that with all of the well-funded organizations on both sides of the political spectrum united in their hatred of the law, we can come up with a strong alternative for funding the trauma centers. We need to make it easy for lawmakers to end the surcharge program and still fund the trauma centers.

We Texans have for generations believed that a clear punishment should fit a crime -- traffic violations included in that. Entrapping repeat traffic offenders into a downward vortex of hefty fines and debt is no way to encourage responsibility or greater roadway safety. Let's work to put an end to the Driver Responsibility Program and the trauma it has caused Texas drivers.

A veteran news writer, Cindy Mallette is a devoted wife, mother of three, and a freelance communications consultant who has worked on several Travis County and Central Texas campaigns. She has a love-hate relationship with politics but maintains her love of God and sound public policy. You may contact her at @CindyMallette or read her blog at https://cindythinks.wordpress.com.

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Image credits:
1. Woodcut illustration by Harry Clarke, appearing in "A Descent into the Maelström" by Edgar Allan Poe (1919).
2. Facebook.com