Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - If license isn't valid, impound the auto
Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - If license isn't valid, impound the auto
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
June 19, 2007
Who knows what it is that impels people who are in traffic court for driving on a suspended license to promise the judge they won't do it again, stroll out to the parking lot, get into their vehicle and pull away? Are they odds players who figure they won't be the ones to get caught -- unlike those who have been ID'd in the Sun-Times' long-running "Why Are They Driving" series? Do they have a wish to be caught and punished? Or is it simply a cold practicality that overcomes them? "What am I gonna do? Take the bus?" said a West Side man captured by a Sun-Times photographer driving away from the Cook County courthouse in Bridgeview last month. He had pled guilty to driving on a suspended license and was fined $100 by a judge who apparently believed it was the man's first offense. In fact, he has been convicted several times and has been driving on a suspended license since 1994.
Whatever has induced hundreds of people to break the law, nothing seems to be deterring them from this practice -- not their conscience, not stern warnings from judges, not a state law by which police can confiscate their vehicles and sell them if the driver has been convicted of a DUI, leaving the scene of an accident involving personal injury or reckless homicide or had a statutory summary suspension related to the use of drugs. But a new city ordinance being proposed by Ald. Tom Allen (38th), chairman of the City Council's Transportation Committee, may cut into this appalling trend.
Allen is calling for the immediate impounding of cars driven on revoked or suspended licenses. Not only would the guilty driver lose the use of his vehicle, he would be responsible for expenses: $150 for towing the impounded car and storage charges, $10 a day for the first five days and $35 a day thereafter.
Opponents of the ordinance say it can be too harsh in taking away a vehicle on which other members of the suspended driver's family depend. Perhaps the offenders should give that some consideration. Driving on a suspended license is no minor violation. One has only to recall the incident in which a man with a revoked license killed a mother of seven on Interstate 57 to appreciate how serious the consequences of allowing this trend to continue may be. And if the city can impound vehicles for non-driving related offenses including prostitution and loud radio playing, as well as other driving offenses, there's no reason police shouldn't be able to impound the cars of people who repeatedly and brazenly defy judges.
Clearly, too many people don't take having their license suspended seriously enough. Anyone who has endured the stress of getting their impounded car back from the City of Chicago knows this may be just the medicine to change that.
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
June 19, 2007
Who knows what it is that impels people who are in traffic court for driving on a suspended license to promise the judge they won't do it again, stroll out to the parking lot, get into their vehicle and pull away? Are they odds players who figure they won't be the ones to get caught -- unlike those who have been ID'd in the Sun-Times' long-running "Why Are They Driving" series? Do they have a wish to be caught and punished? Or is it simply a cold practicality that overcomes them? "What am I gonna do? Take the bus?" said a West Side man captured by a Sun-Times photographer driving away from the Cook County courthouse in Bridgeview last month. He had pled guilty to driving on a suspended license and was fined $100 by a judge who apparently believed it was the man's first offense. In fact, he has been convicted several times and has been driving on a suspended license since 1994.
Whatever has induced hundreds of people to break the law, nothing seems to be deterring them from this practice -- not their conscience, not stern warnings from judges, not a state law by which police can confiscate their vehicles and sell them if the driver has been convicted of a DUI, leaving the scene of an accident involving personal injury or reckless homicide or had a statutory summary suspension related to the use of drugs. But a new city ordinance being proposed by Ald. Tom Allen (38th), chairman of the City Council's Transportation Committee, may cut into this appalling trend.
Allen is calling for the immediate impounding of cars driven on revoked or suspended licenses. Not only would the guilty driver lose the use of his vehicle, he would be responsible for expenses: $150 for towing the impounded car and storage charges, $10 a day for the first five days and $35 a day thereafter.
Opponents of the ordinance say it can be too harsh in taking away a vehicle on which other members of the suspended driver's family depend. Perhaps the offenders should give that some consideration. Driving on a suspended license is no minor violation. One has only to recall the incident in which a man with a revoked license killed a mother of seven on Interstate 57 to appreciate how serious the consequences of allowing this trend to continue may be. And if the city can impound vehicles for non-driving related offenses including prostitution and loud radio playing, as well as other driving offenses, there's no reason police shouldn't be able to impound the cars of people who repeatedly and brazenly defy judges.
Clearly, too many people don't take having their license suspended seriously enough. Anyone who has endured the stress of getting their impounded car back from the City of Chicago knows this may be just the medicine to change that.
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 8:09 AM
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