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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | December 19, 2023 10:28 AM |
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| From: | Senator Patrick J. Stefano and Sen. Jay Costa |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Community Service Alternative to Satisfy Fines and Fees Related to Driver's License Suspensions |
| In the near future, we plan to reintroduce legislation similar to SB 1049, which passed the Senate Transportation Committee unanimously last session. The bill would provide alternative mechanisms for individuals to retain their driver’s license in cases where they are financially unable to pay fines and fees imposed for routine traffic violations. The alternative arrangements include community service. According to The Buhl Foundation’s analysis “Driver’s License Suspensions and the Impact on Young People in Pennsylvania,” among young drivers ages 16-24 years old, failure to pay fines and fees and failure to appear are the most common reasons for license suspensions. In the period between 2014 and 2017, 172,006 young people in Pennsylvania received driver’s license suspensions. Of these, 124,650 suspensions given were of an indefinite length. Many drivers, especially young and low-income drivers, are overwhelmingly burdened by this provision. The inability to pay the fines creates significant barriers to pursuing employment and educational opportunities and burdens their ability to access healthcare and other necessary services, essentially creating a debtor’s prison. As the Buhl report highlights, license suspension exacerbates “the vicious cycle of needing a license to get to a job but needing a job to pay the costs associated with getting a license or paying the fines resulting from driving without a license.” The analysis can be accessed in the attachment below. Our proposal would provide for a magisterial district judge to determine that if someone, regardless of age, is financially unable to bear the costs of fines and fees associated with their traffic offense, they could assign community service as a payment alternative to an indefinite license suspension. It would also allow those who currently have suspended licenses due to violations of driving without a license, failure to appear, or failure to pay fines the ability to be provided this alternative, including an opportunity to receive a provisional license. The proposal would also allow community service as a payment alternative to suspensions related to driving while suspended. The bill will allow for due process to demonstrate the inability to pay or the hardship caused by failure to reinstate the operating privilege. We have already taken strides in a bipartisan manner in recent years to decouple certain criminal acts from driving suspensions due to the impediment it causes our citizenry in being productive members of our workforce. Please join us in ending the inequity of license suspensions based solely on an individual’s inability to pay. If you have any questions regarding this information, please contact Sally Bowman at sally.bowman@pasenate.com, Luc Miron at luc.miron1@pasenate.com, or Jake Gery at jgery@pasen.gov. |
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| View Attachment | ||
Introduced as SB1118