A minor infraction cost me my driver’s license, my job, thousands of dollars, and over a decade entangled with a system that punishes poverty.
By Dario Alvarez
The morning started out like any other. I was on my way to work at a food safety lab, in a new car with tinted windows and a temporary plate displayed behind tinted windows. A highway patrol officer pulled me over and gave me a ticket for the windows and for not having a license plate, because he couldn’t see it. I thought it was a minor infraction. I didn’t know it would kick off an ordeal that has cost me thousands of dollars and three jobs for over a decade since. That traffic ticket changed my life and I am still feeling the effects every day.
I ended up facing fines of about $500 in total, including about $140 for tinted windows. The fine for the license plate was dismissed, but I still had to pay court costs. It was about $350 just for stepping into court, even though I did nothing wrong. At the time, I was making $20 per hour. So I got on a payment plan to pay it off.
A ticket for even a minor infraction can be prohibitively expensive for many people. If they can’t afford to pay it, they can lose their license. Only people who can’t afford to pay are punished.
Not long after, the lab I worked at closed down and I lost my job — and my ability to make those payments. Meanwhile, the interest piled up and my court debt continued to grow. I thought things were looking up when I got another job, this time at a plastic manufacturing company in Loveland, Colorado. But I got pulled over again on my way to work. That’s when I found out that my driver’s license had been suspended for failing to make payments during that period when I didn’t have a job.
I missed work that day because I was sitting in jail, without the ability to call in. When I finally got out and tried to explain the situation to my employer, I found out I’d been automatically fired due to their strict no call, no show policy. “Sorry,” they said. “There’s nothing we can do.”
For the second time, I was in the predicament of having no job and a continuously growing amount of fines and fees. This time, though, I knew I didn’t have a 
license, which meant most jobs were out of reach since I’d have to drive to get there. At that point, I felt like I had no choice: either drive without a license, or miss out on an opportunity to make a living again and make those payments. I’d be breaking the law either way.
When I was pulled over that morning in 2011, I had no idea what was happening to me and how it would impact the rest of my life. Until then, my life felt like it was on track. I had a great job that allowed me to provide for my three kids and start the process of buying a house. I had no criminal record. And yet, I’ve spent the past 10 years entangled with the criminal legal system and mired in seemingly endless debt. My career has taken a hit and I’ve been unable to keep a steady, good-paying job since then. If I were rich, I would have been able to avoid all of the troubles of the past decade. But instead, I’m being punished for not having enough money.
Today, I still don’t have a driver’s license. My fines and fees now total about $3,000. I’ve been paying what I can but barely making a dent in my debt because of the interest rate. I don’t know how long it will take to pay off my debt and get my license back with the $12 per hour I make at my current job as a dishwasher at a sushi restaurant. My job is unstable, especially now with restaurants closing due to the pandemic. If I lose my job, I will once again have to make the choice between driving without a license and making those payments. Right now, I walk or use city bikes to get to work, but winter is coming.
What happened to me happens to millions of Americans who struggle to pay off government-imposed debts for minor traffic violations. State and local governments use these fines and fees to fund law enforcement and other government operations, but the inability to afford expensive tickets has no bearing on public safety and should not be treated as if it does. Punishing the inability to pay through driver’s license suspension criminalizes poverty and traps people in a cycle of debt and incarceration. The burden of this unfair system falls primarily on Black and Brown communities who are already overpoliced and have lower incomes as a result of documented systemic racism.
Many states have already started rethinking this system. Nevada, for example, has decriminalized minor violations like speeding tickets, driving with a broken tail light, and parking tickets so that they don’t result in arrest warrants, driver’s license suspension, or incarceration for people who can’t afford to pay them off. However, 12 states still have laws on the books that trap people in endless cycles of debt for these minor infractions. I’m not saying that people should not face consequences for violating these laws. But it shouldn’t destroy your life.
There is a bill in Congress right now that would go a long way in ending the cycle of poverty caused by the imposition and collection of fines and fees. The Driving for Opportunity Act would provide grants to states that do not suspend, revoke, or refuse to renew a driver’s license for failure to pay a civil or criminal fine or fee. The government should not use law enforcement to make money and should not punish people who can’t afford to pay. Courts and other public services should be fully funded through tax dollars, not through predatory tickets, fines, and fees that lead to policing for profit. Passing these reforms would protect millions of Americans from remaining trapped in poverty and being forced into making impossible decisions — like whether to pay off your fines or put food on the table.
Originally published by the ACLU.
So she can buy a new car but can’t pay a $140 tinted window fine?
Hard to believe, I’ve had my license suspended before and believe me I was notified.
The DMV will issue a license that allows one to still drive to and from work when their license has been suspended.
“ The DMV will issue a license that allows one to still drive to and from work when their license has been suspended.”
That’s true in California and four other states, none of which he lived in.
“ So she can buy a new car but can’t pay a $140 tinted window fine?”
It looked like about $350 not $140 (think Dario is a he). It looked like he was making $3200 a month gross, so a $350 fine would be tough, but could probably pay $100 a month, he would have been fine unless he lost his job, which he did and that’s when everything spiraled.
Who would have guessed that failing to make payments (and/or seeking guidance regarding a claimed inability to pay) would head to a license being suspended.
I figured that the court system would just “write it off”, at that point. 🙂
How much were his car payments?
By the way, cars don’t normally come from the dealer with illegally-tinted windows. You have to go out of your way (and incur additional costs), to make that happen.
I’d suggest a nice, reliable used car next time. You can get old Honda Accords, for example – pretty cheap at times. (No one wants sedans anymore.)
And your registration and insurance will be cheaper, as well. You don’t even have to insure the car for damage or theft that way. I haven’t insured my own vehicle in that manner for about the last 15 years. (Same vehicle, by the way. And it was already more than a decade old by that point.)
The only vehicle I’ve ever purchased “new”, other than motorcycles when I was younger.
So I clicked on the link to this ACLU article and found this about the author:
You picked the wrong subject if you were looking for my sympathy — tinted windows are my pet peeve. Have others noticed how the number of cars with illegally tinted windows has exploded during the pandemic? It’s almost like there is lawlessness because the cops don’t pull people over for minor infractions anymore . . . or even once ticket those idiots who have been burning rubber in the parking structure at dusk for the last 18 months. Have y’all not figured out the where and when cuz the rest of us have.
But yeah no face, no visual cues, just a blank dark piece of glass. Pull out, and maybe they see you, maybe they don’t. No hazard there #cough#
???
And there it is, like clockwork in every ACLU and many a Vanguard article. Is there a term for this? It’s like one has to drop it in everything, every subject: “disproportionately on black and brown bodies due to systemic . . . ” . . . like if one gets shorted a shrimp at Long John Silver’s and drops that phrasing in the post, then it’s about racism. I’m not denying the existence of racism, systemic or otherwise. I’m noting how everything and anything can be ‘made and assumed to be’ racist by adding that phraseology. And no claims of racial bias over my hatred of tinted windows: I have no idea the race of the people behind those windows because I CAN’T SEE THEM !
Having said all that, I much agree with the theme of the article otherwise, that these fees added to prop up government budgets are pure BS – and these insane increases to the point the fees are far greater than the fines in complete insanity. Also agree that no one should be losing their license over inability to pay a fix-it ticket. They get away with this as the burden only lands on ‘non law abiding citizens’, but we’re talking about what should be a fix-it ticket, so a burden 5X the cost of the ticket shouldn’t land on a small percentage of individuals and wreck their budgets. THIS SHOULD BE PART OF CITY BUDGETS.
None of which we live in. Does anyone else find it strange that ‘some’ here believe that ‘we’ are ‘not supposed to take a political stand in a community if we’re not a member of that community’, yet ‘we’ take political stands on issues, here on this forum, that aren’t even in ‘our’ state, much less ‘our’ community, like all the freakin’ time? Just askin’ –> ‘for a friend’ 😐
Personally, I just find it amusing that there’s a “war on cars” until it involves someone “of color”, or at least – of some colors (which can then be made into such an argument).
But yeah, it’s pretty tough to see someone behind illegally-tinted glass in a new vehicle. You have to wait until after they’re pulled over, before crying racism.
In other words, the war on cars is just fine (and there actually is at least some justification for that), until it involves someone of an oppressed class.
And then suddenly, skin color outweighs environmental, safety, and all other concerns.