Driver Responsibility Fee Hearing in Detroit Friday

**Sandhouse** · June-15-09, 10:53 AM

The Michigan House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing at 10:00 AM Friday, June 19th, at 1 Woodward Avenue, Suite 1900, to hear testimony on bills to repeal or amend Michigan's Driver Responsibility Act.

This is the law that assesses taxes on driver-license points of $50/year per point above 6, and levies irreducible fines of $400 or $1,000 for driving without insurance, and $1,000 for driving with a suspended license [[as for failure to answer a ticket or pay the "responsibility tax").

This law is opposed by district-court judges, the NAACP, and various other groups, but has so far proven impossible to repeal due to the desire by the legislature for revenue and lobbying by collection agencies acting as contractors to the Michigan Department of Treasury.

Only about half the "responsibility fees" are being collected. Around 200,000 former drivers are in debt to the state under this law, and remain unlicensed and legally immobilized.

Below are summaries of the 3 bills that will be taken up by the Committee:

HB 4098 REPEAL DRIVER RESPONSIBILITY TAX [[B. Scott) Repeal Driver Responsibility Act [[convictions and points taxes) after Dec. 31, 2009. Halve amounts assessed in 2009, and settle unpaid amounts for 50% in 2009 [[no refund of previously-paid amounts). Compare HB 4101 and 4604; SB 127, 312.

HB 4101 HALVE DRIVER RESPONSIBILITY TAX [[Jackson) Halve Driver Responsibility Act conviction taxes. [[Does not halve points tax.) Compare HB 4098, 4604 and SB 127, 312.

HB 4604 DRIVER RESPONSIBILITY TAX [[Kowall + 25) Repeal Driver Responsibility Act surtaxes for convictions for no valid license or proof of insurance, after 2009. Retain all other surtaxes and points tax, including no insurance and operating while license suspended. Settle outstanding debts for other than serious violations for 75% of amount due during 60-day period. Allow payment of entire tax in one year. Make conforming amendments. Similar to SB 127.

**DetroitPlanner** · June-15-09, 03:15 PM

Fees for driving without insurance or on a suspended liscence is something I can support because it helps to drive up everyone else's insurance costs. The tax on points seems like a double-tax, don't people wth points already pay hefty fees? If a person is stuck with more than six points and still has a liscence, they have already demonstrated to the court that they do not need their liscence revoked. Maybe they need to start taxiing the courts for allowing these people to drive instead of suspending their liscences? Let the courts decide who drives not the legislators!

**Mackenzie68** · June-15-09, 03:22 PM

6 points??? I'm sorry for anyone getting caught that often.

How does would this change affect my insurance costs as a two point driver? How would it affect actual revenues, which is to say does anyone actually PAY for their transgressions? Does this information come up on all police data bases at any traffic stop, does it result in confiscating cars and has it been shown to have any positive effects?

Serious questions, I'm back to MI after leaving within a year or two of the Uninsured Motorist Act.

**Detroitnerd** · June-15-09, 03:27 PM

The Mitten reaches into your pocket under the guise of promoting "responsibility." Shee-it, if they were responsible, they wouldn't have to double-dip, would they?

**rb336** · June-15-09, 03:42 PM

Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

Fees for driving without insurance or on a suspended liscence is something I can support because it helps to drive up everyone else's insurance costs. The tax on points seems like a double-tax, don't people wth points already pay hefty fees? If a person is stuck with more than six points and still has a liscence, they have already demonstrated to the court that they do not need their liscence revoked. Maybe they need to start taxiing the courts for allowing these people to drive instead of suspending their liscences? Let the courts decide who drives not the legislators!

not that I am aware of

zero-pointe driver, this fee is easy to avoid -- drive smarter

**Ltdave** · June-15-09, 07:31 PM

zero-pointe driver, this fee is easy to avoid -- drive smarter

unless you happen to be unfortunate enough to drive through Warren when that one cop was padding his pay with $22,000 in OT for writing bogus 'failure to stop' tickets...

or getting a speeding ticket for 5 over because youre attempting to time the lights on groesbeck at 6:30pm, so you can avoid stop and go travel for 4 miles...

**Detroitej72** · June-15-09, 07:49 PM

Bottom line, if you don't want to pay the fine, don't commit the crime!
Besides, as someone who pays through the nose for auto insurance, I am all for charging fools who drive without it.

My insurance is too high for someone with a clean record.

**Bobl** · June-15-09, 08:43 PM

Originally Posted by Detroitej72

Bottom line, if you don't want to pay the fine, don't commit the crime!
Besides, as someone who pays through the nose for auto insurance, I am all for charging fools who drive without it.

My insurance is too high for someone with a clean record.

I agree with this one. While driving today, both in Detroit and NE suburbs, I observed:
One driver going the wrong way in a parking lot. She stopped and ignored others who were tapping their horns for her to back up.
A young driver going at least 20mph over the limit, weaving in and out of traffic, with a cell phone stuck to his head.
One car with no license.
More than one car nosing into the right lane of Gratiot, blocking it.
One driver throwing a potato chip bag out the window.

None of these people appeared to have any sense of responsibility. None were ticketed. This, and other behaviors like this, should be discouraged.

Those who choose to drive responsibly should not subsidize those who do not.

**EMG** · June-15-09, 09:41 PM

What's this? The guilty actually being forced to pay for their own wrongdoings? Wow! What a concept!

Sounds like a winner to me!

DetroitDad · June-15-09, 09:59 PM

Stop driving so much and walk, bike, or take the bus.

**DetroitPlanner** · June-16-09, 07:48 AM

Originally Posted by rb336

zero-pointe driver, this fee is easy to avoid -- drive smarter

You can be the safest driver in the world and just run into a sting of bad luck that would get you above six points. You would still pay the penalties on those six points. If I understand this, this would be on top of those six points. Its like being charged as being guilty twice, even though you have already paid the courts. Granted some folks with six points should not be driving and need their liscencesed revoked, but that is not the case in all instances. For example you can get caught driving six over on a non-peak day with no-one around you and get three or four points for that alone! Yet you are driving very safe and may not be aware that the road is posted at a ridculously low speed [[say a five lane road posted at 30, they are out there!).

**Brittz** · June-16-09, 08:34 AM

Originally Posted by Ltdave

unless you happen to be unfortunate enough to drive through Warren when that one cop was padding his pay with $22,000 in OT for writing bogus 'failure to stop' tickets...

or getting a speeding ticket for 5 over because youre attempting to time the lights on groesbeck at 6:30pm, so you can avoid stop and go travel for 4 miles...

Great post. How some can assume the driver is at fault is unbelievable. This is extremely hard now with the loss of jobs in this area. This law needs to be repealed NOW. I read also something about not having the proof of insurance with you it's like an automatic heavy fine. This is one reason for so many hit & run accidents.

**Sandhouse** · June-16-09, 08:56 AM

Unrealistically-low speed limits, as described above, are a big contributor to the problem of the Driver Responsibility Act. As most circuit-court judges will tell you, a typical route into the DRA debtor's prison is a driver who fails to respond to a speeding ticket, not having the $135 or so needed to pay it, and not knowing or caring that this leads to an automatic license suspension. When pulled over again, the suspended driver gets a ticket for operating while license suspended and if convicted, earns a $1,000 DRA tax. This process can be repeated any number of times.

It can be difficult to avoid speeding tickets. I've avoided them in Michigan since the end of the 55-mph speed limit, but I pay abnormal attention to traffic-cop behavior. Most people don't make such a science of it. It's true that a driver is foolish to leave a ticket unaddressed, but how steep do we want the penalty to be for being foolish? I have come to think of the Driver Responsibility Act as a tax on poor, stupid losers -- Michigan's last inexhaustible resource.

And incidentally, those 30-mph speed limits on 5-lane city streets are, since November 9, 2006, almost certainly illegal. Most cities have not updated their traffic ordinances and speed limits to comply with the change in state law that took effect that day, and the majority of speeding tickets issued on city major streets [[not state highways or county roads, or subdivision streets) would not withstand a proper challenge. This just makes the Driver Responsibility Act all the harder to tolerate.

I encourage Detroiters with opinions on this issue to attend Rep. Scott's committee hearing on Friday.

**Hamtragedy** · June-16-09, 11:56 PM

Originally Posted by xstigmatax

So bottom line is you get charged twice for the same infraction plus do not even get any chance to have your say. Yep, that is a real "winner".

Another reason fewer and fewer Detroit drivers are licensed, penalized for not paying already BS fees, and only adding to the insult of unaffordable auto insurance.

**kraig** · June-17-09, 09:41 AM

Fortunately, this has never been a concern of mine. This does look like a case of double dipping. Don't they already receive a ticket for the driving without insurance violation? Why charge a fee? If the fee is for driving while uninsured, does this allow them to drive around uninsured and not receive tickets? Once they do buy insurance, do they have to continue to pay the fee? Does the money go to those people that have been involved in accidents with those that don't have insurance? That would make sense, if not, I don't know, it sounds like a revenue grab scam.

**MCP-001** · June-17-09, 09:59 AM

If people can't be bothered to pay attention to putting a slip of paper in their wallet/purse, what the speed limit is, or what isn't working on their vehicle, just what are they doing when their driving along side the rest of us.

Sorry, but you get no sympathy from me.

Stupidity should be painful.

**Sandhouse** · June-17-09, 10:01 AM

The Driver Responsibility Act was a straightforward revenue-raising move. The first $65 million of each year's take go to the state General Fund. Then the next $3.5 million go to the fire departments of cities with large numbers of state-owned buildings [[Lansing, college towns, et c.). Even with collections running below 50%, this scheme is yielding about $80 million a year, which is why the legislature and Governor will not get rid of it.

Of course, the number of unlicensed and uninsured drivers is bigger than ever. Many judges will no longer accept even a voluntary guilty plea to driving with a suspended license, knowing that the irreducible $1,000 fine will never be paid by a poor person, and resenting the legislative intrusion on what should be a judicial prerogative: fixing a penalty appropriate to each case.

**Mama Jackson** · June-17-09, 08:55 PM

Originally Posted by xstigmatax

Yeah the driver responsibility law is a real winner. Explain that to someone who maybe forgets to put their new insurance card in the car, gets pulled over for something like a faulty headlight and ends up with a no proof insurance ticket.

Even if someone brings their insurance card to the courthouse the next day, proves they had insurance when they were pulled over and gets the reduced fine they are still charged $150 dollars a year for 2 years by the state AFTER paying the county for their 1st ticket. Oh yeah and BTW, you can not ask for a court date or any type of appeal on the "responsibility" fee, you are forced to pay or lose your license. Simple as that.

So bottom line is you get charged twice for the same infraction plus do not even get any chance to have your say. Yep, that is a real "winner".

And you can be charged with this Driver's Responsibility Fee for NOT signing the Vehicle Registration. So make sure you sign it the second you get your new copy on your birthday!

**7miledog** · June-17-09, 10:52 PM

Does anyone besides me find it interesting that this hearing is being held at the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce office? Perhaps Rep. Scott wants to say she held a hearing without having to deal with a lot of actual testimony. She knows the State is already in a hole without repealing this, let alone losing the $120M it brings in every year.
Makes you say hmmnn.

**Sandhouse** · June-18-09, 08:47 AM

This hearing could indeed just be a way for Rep. Scott to show the flag in Detroit, without making any actual progress. The test will be whether the Committee reports a repeal bill.

It sounds like the legend is still circulating that you can get a ticket for not signing the back of your car registration. This hasn't been true for a couple of years, except for elected-gross-weight trucks, which you must sign for to acknowledge that you will not operate your truck above the tax-paid weight.

**Bigb23** · June-18-09, 09:20 AM

There was a situation on rural Michigan dirt roads where the State and the MSP repealed all posted speed limits on dirt roads to driving at a safe [[?) speed. The speed limit signs were left in place as further confusion. So, with this widely reported knowledge, I usually drove at 35 mph in posted 25 mph zones on Oakland Co. dirt roads.
Well, wouldn't you know that Oakland Co. was the only County in Michigan to get an exemption. This was not widely reported, and I only saw this info buried in a newspaper article 1 1/2 years after the fact. So unknowingly, I was breaking the law about ten times a week, and open to tickets and points every time.

Luckily, I've only had one ticket in the past 25+ years, and that was 19 years, and a quarter million miles ago. But now, because of chronic layoffs, dismal job prospects, and Michigan's inflated insurance rates, I have to constantly worry about driving without any insurance.

At least until this extended recession/depression is over, pass a temporary, emergency overhaul of the code, and give us a chance to lift ourselves out of this economic sh*t hole.

**Bigb23** · June-18-09, 09:30 AM

It sounds like the legend is still circulating that you can get a ticket for not signing the back of your car registration.

I had an ex-girlfriend get that ticket in the city of Rochester several years ago. They, [[the State), want them signed, and I don't think a law like that would be repealed. It doesn't make sense. So at least I know it wasn't a legend back then.