Bloggin’ on the Edge

Posted by Scott Spielman at 4:15 PM | Comments

So the Michigan House Transportation Committee voted today to repeal the ‘driver responsibility fees’ residents pay after they receive certain traffic tickets.

“These heavy-handed judgments are the same as double jeopardy on Michigan drivers,” said State Rep Phil LaJoy, (R-Canton). He voted to repeal the fees. “They are excessive fees that have not had an impact on fixing Michigan’s roads or public safety.”

For those who aren’t familiar with them, they amount to a $1,000 fine spread over two years. You pay it when you renew your license. Yes, they are excessive and no, they haven’t helped fix roads or improve public safety.

The law was a fundraiser, pure and simple. It deserves to go away.

That being said, what happens to everyone who has had to pay it during the past few years?

Take me, for instance. I made a mistake, a stupid mistake. I was arrested for a DUI. I admitted it. I paid for it. I tried to turn it into a positive thing by writing about it in hopes others would think twice before they made the same mistake, too.

Oh, I chafed under the law. I fumed. I broke three different pens writing that check every year and I’m still scrubbing the ink out from between my fingers.

Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. It’s not right to penalize people for two year when they make a one-time mistake. Judges would throw up their hands. “It’s the law,” they’d say. It went through the office of the Secretary of State, so they didn’t have a whole lot of leeway, anyway.

So this was legislation that was approved based on false promises: that it would provide more funding for road improvements, more funding for public safety, and it would only penalize people who deserved it.

Now that even those who approved the legislation agree that it was wrong, the next step should be to repeal it. After that, I’ll take a nice rubber-stamped apology and a check for my $1,000. I won’t even charge interest.

If legislators really want to find a way to stimulate our economy, there’s a good first step: refund the hard earned money that should never have been taken away from people in the first place.

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