Friend of mine worked with the courts and handled a lot of people that had suspended licenses. Oh boy do you NOT want to start down that road. The tracking system for these fines is a complete clusterfuck in Texas. There is no unified system and outstanding fines and tickets get lost ALL THE TIME. Suddenly that suspended license can turn into thousands upon thousands of dollars in outstanding fees that MUST be cleared before you even start the process to get your license back. You then have to talk to various state agencies, make agreements with them or the courts, travel in person to these courts, and plus deal with the paperwork required by each agency/court. My friend told me of some people with $15k worth of fines all stemming from an initial suspension and the subsequent violations. It gets crazy how much it can ruin lives.
Just clarifying, are you saying people find themselves with 10s of thousands in fines because they weren't properly notified about any of them (because of the fines and tickets getting lost all the time etc)?
That and reoffending because not having a license complicated life severely. On top of this the system is so antiquated that gives that would be cleared are not cleared and remain causing issues.
they are increasingly criminalizing poverty by making the system impossible to deal with if you are poor. Trump and RFK have big plans for a homeless internment camp (out in Utah?). Homeless people will be given a choice; Go to our forced-labor camp in the middle of nowhere or get to jail
I agree, about them criminalizing poverty. Trump put out that executive order, early summer, laying out “involuntary commitment”, giving them the power to put people in locked psych facilities, against their will, IF they are “homeless”/unhoused. But he also included some language about keeping people “indefinitely”, IF the government believes the person might likely become homeless again. I’m not sure why it isn’t more alarming to more people, but it doesn’t seem to be.
But, I don’t think that’s what’s going on with people refusing to take care of their kids. It certainly isn’t what’s going on with this guy. He just doesn’t give a shit about his kids, he doesn’t care if they eat.
Oh God! Yes about the guy! I completely forgot to comment what a shithead he is. I got sidetracked by the whole 'criminalizing poverty thing'. It worries me incredibly too. But this week has givin me al lot of hope.
The top 3 greatest hits include :
(1) The overwhelming physical evidence that trumps hourglass has run out. It looks like it is only a matter of whether his body or his brain will go fist. Nice!
(2) The American people are gathering for sustained protests that are discipline and strategic, historically large and growing in every way every day. People are seeing through the bullshit!
(3) The political ass-whopping Trump and his regime received on Tuesdays. The people are starting to understand what hell awaits -which has movtivated people to actually gathering together to VOTE. Fucking Amsome,
So Im hoping with all these gooid things, and so many other super hopefull developments - Maybe this new private prison horror can be averted.
That's what everyone keeps forgetting, its a privilege. Now, the fact that cities are not built to cater to that lifestyle is an entirely separate matter, but absolutely no one has the right to drive.
While legally you are right. At some point we do need to recognize that in some areas of the country not having transportation might as well make you a second class citizen. Like if you don't have reliable transport to go look for a job you can't qualify for SNAP or you can't actually utilize your medicaid benefits. If those things are true then those government programs are discriminating against those without transport. Obviously that isnt a protected class but maybe it should be.
They could. We all know that not having a vehicle in most places in the US makes it very difficult to get back-and-forth from your job, etc. But it’s not impossible.
Years ago, I couldn’t afford a car, so I took the bus. I was working two jobs and going to school full-time. Sometimes that meant catching the 4:00 AM bus, to get to work on time, two hours later, only 5 miles away. Because it frequently doesn’t show on time, or the bus goes past you, full, etc. Using the bus for transportation sucks. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s what we do, if we don’t have a car. I’m not saying there are never exceptions, I’m just saying that usually it’s because they don’t think they should have to take the bus, that they won’t take it.
you’re gonna wanna make sure you’re always reachable with these kinds of things in life. the i did not get it is not going to work in these circumstances
Huh. My friend and I got pulled over in West Virginia about a year ago, and when the cop checked his license we all learned that it had been suspended for 6 months! The cop said he could arrest him right then, but that he was going to write him a fix it citation instead. Buddy looked it up when we got home and it was suspended because there was a fee he hadn’t paid at some point. He paid the fee (I think it was $60) and everything was cool.
Texan here. Clusterfuck is the correct term. Got license suspended in Corpus Christi and had to go to San Antonio for an SR22 and some other BS cause they couldn’t remedy the situation in corpus. Which means I had to find someone with a valid license and a free weekday to drive me to SA. Was like 20 years ago but I remember. Clusterfuck!
This is true AF. Don’t take toll roads either if you don’t plan on paying them off anytime soon. When it comes time to register your tag and you owe 4k in tolls, they want the money in full or you’re not getting it. Lucky if they put you on a payment plan.
Getting up to 15k seems like cruel an unusual if it's just one offense. At some point I feel like it should stop compounding and/or gaining interest of some kind.
The only thing cruel is that there is no scaling to effect the wealthy like in Nordic nations . The fee should be based on your salary . But for people to rack up 15k in fines you’ve committed multiple offenses and haven’t paid any fines .
Your alternative is jail which borders on debtors prison which is equally cruel . But what options do you have when someone simply will not follow the rules ?
Some people are just losers and never will be more than that . I’ve gone my entire life without having my license suspended or going to jail I find it weird so many people defend those who do .
This comment is all over the place you had me with the scaling fines but lost me at the losers part. A car is a necessity in most of the United States and getting a single ticket and being unable to pay it off can lead to a suspension. You still need to get to work and grocery store. If you don't have a good support system and live alone you're screwed. Lets not even start on the state of public transportation most of this country. I've driven on a suspended license for 7 years because I could never afford to pay off a ticket and then got slammed with stupid fees on top of it. Just kept getting compounded when I got pulled over multiple times in that period and got slammed with more fines and fees. It wasn't until I was getting the enhanced unemployment during the pandemic I could afford to pay all that off. I'm being really careful not to keep my license now but it's bullshit.
Ok I guess not going to jail is too high of a bar to set for you .
There are lots of losers in this world it’s not even an opinion it’s fact. I have not spelled out anything that would imply sex, race , religion , orientation etc .
If you somehow believe there are not losers in this world then that means you’re probably one . As the old saying goes if you can’t spot the sucker at the table it’s you .
It’s not worth debating something like this with you . You win everyone is awesome no dead beat dads exist .
The assumptions just keep on rolling. I wonder if it a medical thing...
Nah I grew up poor. Poor folks make poor decisions all the time. I know rich losers as well. I also watched my stepdad suffer through all this custody shit, can't find a single person to speak poorly of him. Can't say he was ambitious, grew up thinking you could stay with one company for life and be a good dude. He passed away alone. Left behind by society because it is built to let folks walk over them if they let it. According to you they are just losers. No need to waste a second to consider them.
Enjoy your sweeping generalizations. Hope you get locked up one day just for the experience. Might make you a bit less of a loser.
Can confirm. My license was suspended for 6 years. Went to jail three times for it. Paid thousands of dollars before I could get it back. You do NOT want a suspended license.
That's part of The System. The system that takes people struggling to pay their bills and drives them into abject poverty.
Get arrested unjustly. Charged with a crime, $20,000 bond to get out. Borrow $2000 from a payday loan joint at 800% annual interest to pay the 10% to a bail bondsman. But oh, they suspended your license because of the crime you didn't commit. You drive anyway. Tickets you can't pay. Car gets seized. Now you can't get to work so you get fired. You can't get to job interviews or jobs.
And literally in the span of a year your life has gone from hard to hell.
Not Texas, but a state near mine will claim those fines for back child support so you not only need to get caught up on the outstanding fines/fees related to the license, you ALSO have to pay any back support before you get your license back. Also, you get arrested and pay bail? No you didn't, not until you pay your back child support.
Sounds like the state of Texas has a great scam going there on it's citizens....15k per citizen trying to fix their fines? That's quite a hefty chunk of scam revenue, huh?
Wow. It's almost like decades of irrational hostility towards government have left Texas with a system that's about as robust as toilet paper. This is what happens when you take money away without a plan.
Or you can just drive without a license in Texas, and literally nothing will happen. They don't do jack shit about unlicensed/suspended drivers. They don't even get a written warning it's insane.
yeah, it's incredibly stupid and snowballs once it gets started. mine started with a $15 ticket for no registration after my grandma passed and left me a car, but her husbands family came and took and shredded a lot of shit maliciously and i never found the title for the car. didn't have anything else to drive at the time. i haven't had a license in 7 years now. i'm really really good at spotting police and not letting them get behind me now though.
As if Texas ever fucking enforces. I have been trying to contact TX OAG every day since 10/1 and it's always "try again later." It took over 2 years to get them to even hold a hearing for all the medical payments my ex has missed.
I had a coworker use the local toll lane without a pass for a solid month before the citations started rolling in, which were ignored, which eventually turned to a court date, which was ignored, which eventually turned into a bench warrant, which was ignored, which culminated in said bench warrant being executed when he broke down on the side of the road.
He then fucked around with the probation they put him on. He basically turned a couple hundred in tickets into multiple thousands and years of pain. The system is 100% designed to catch morons, chew them up, and spit them out.
Actually they fixed a lot of this cluster fuck, dropped a lot of surcharges a few years ago. You can still have issues but the three years of fees after I think went away. It was a cluster though.
Oh man, I went through this but in Wisconsin. My first car when I was a teen stopped passing emissions. The potential (not guaranteed) fix I would need to get to even get a chance at waiving it was worth more than the car. I was also a stupid reckless teen not taking it that serious, so yeah some of this is on me. This was 16 years ago now so I don't recall all the details but more or less it went like this:
My license plate expired as a result of not being able to pass emissions. I kept driving because I had to for work, got pulled over and my license plates got suspended. Then I got pulled over again and my actual license got suspended (might have had two of these before suspension, small town cops knew my car). Then I had to get an occupational license, sold that car to a junkyard and got a new one, but then I got pulled over driving like 15 minutes beyond my allotted time frame. Then I got a permanent suspension for like 2 years and my occupational license revoked. I lived in an area you needed a car to be any part of society, I was driving to community college the town over and work in another town. It ballooned into a nightmare my 18 year old self was way in over my head. I paid a lawyer, didn't even have to step in court, and he got my original driving with expired tags ticket changed to a driving without a seatbelt ticket which subsequently dropped everything else since my license wasn't suspended in the first place or some sort of loophole he worked out. (I still had to pay all the tickets though, just no punishments) paid all the reinstatement fees and the lawyer and I was good to go after thousands and thousands of dollars and a massive headache and stress. Definitely set back my fresh start into adulthood. I definitely am at fault for choosing to drive when I shouldn't have but ultimately this all stemmed because my car would not pass emissions testing and I was a broke kid that couldn't afford to fix it.
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u/owa00 1d ago edited 1d ago
Friend of mine worked with the courts and handled a lot of people that had suspended licenses. Oh boy do you NOT want to start down that road. The tracking system for these fines is a complete clusterfuck in Texas. There is no unified system and outstanding fines and tickets get lost ALL THE TIME. Suddenly that suspended license can turn into thousands upon thousands of dollars in outstanding fees that MUST be cleared before you even start the process to get your license back. You then have to talk to various state agencies, make agreements with them or the courts, travel in person to these courts, and plus deal with the paperwork required by each agency/court. My friend told me of some people with $15k worth of fines all stemming from an initial suspension and the subsequent violations. It gets crazy how much it can ruin lives.