Collegiate Times

It’s official. The Commonwealth of Virginia has declared war on its citizens. I am referring, of course, to the “remedial driver fees” that were enacted on July 1. For example, if you are stopped for going 81 mph or more on I-81 you can be cited for reckless driving. You will go to court and have to pay a fine set by the judge. Additionally, you will also pay a new “fee” to the tune of $1,050. One third of that amount must be paid at the courthouse, with the balance made in payments to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) over the next three years.

Penalties for other driving offenses have gone up as well. First-offense DUI now carries a $2,250 fee in addition to the $1,500+ you already have to spend on fines, attorney fees, and VaSAP classes. That doesn’t even count increased insurance and loss of time at work.

We’re all aware that whenever you get convicted of any moving violation that you get points on your license. Once you reach 12 points in a year your license is subject to suspension. Under the new law, as soon as you hit 8 points you will have to pay a fee for each point above that. This can translate into several hundred dollars, even though you may not have accrued enough points to merit license suspension.

There are a great number of things wrong with this new fee system. First, they only apply to Virginia residents. This should come as a comfort to out-of-state students who now know they can break the law with much less concern than Virginians. It seems the Commonwealth is continuing its longtime habit of treating one group of people differently than another, except now it’s about state of residence rather than skin color.

Secondly, this is a huge slap in the face to poor people. Most readers of this publication are Tech students who will likely end up with jobs making at least $40K a year upon graduation. While it would be most inconvenient, we could absorb those fees into our monthly budget. However, someone living at or just above the poverty line is going to have serious trouble working that in. If it becomes a choice between paying rent and buying groceries or paying the DMV, which do you think it will be?

If that person doesn’t pay, he or she will have a suspended license. And given that you need a car in most places to get to your job, are these people going to stop driving? Of course not, but they will not have insurance either (can’t have insurance without a license). The result of that will be that everyone’s rate of uninsured motorist coverage is going to increase.

Proponents of these fees argue that something has to be done about people’s bad driving habits, and if this is what it takes then so be it. That might be passable if these fees were actually about safety. But they have nothing to do with safety. If they did, they would apply to everybody who drives on the roads, not just Virginia residents.

As usual, it’s about money. Delegate David Albo (R-Fairfax County), one of the legislators who pushed for these fees, estimated anywhere from $65 to $120 million in new revenue per year would come in to be earmarked for transportation funds (read: roads in Northern Virginia). Am I the only one who sees irony in passing laws that you expect people to break?

Speaking of irony, would it come as any surprise that Delegate Albo himself stands to personally profit from all this? Consider that with literally thousands of dollars on the line for some offenses, I predict that a lot more people will be fighting their charges, which often necessitates hiring an attorney. It just happens that Delegate Albo is an attorney at a firm that deals in traffic law. Kenny Lay would be proud.

To put things in perspective, I will say that I personally will not be directly affected by these fees. I very rarely drive my car unless I have to leave Blacksburg, which isn’t often. Even then I drive the speed limit because I like saving gas. Given that I ride a bicycle most places, I like the idea of people being a bit more attentive behind the wheel.

I don’t, however, like the deceitfulness and hypocrisy of the safety-Nazis who are really only concerned about revenue. I don’t like the blatant conflict of interest in people like Delegate Albo. I don’t like the discrimination towards Virginians on the part of our elected officials. And I really don’t like the idea of the Commonwealth banking part of its transportation budget on the premise that people will act foolishly.

This is not about defending bad driving behavior. This is about spurning extremely poor public policy. 

Fortunately, there are ways to address this issue. You can send a message expressing your displeasure to Governor Kaine or you can find out who your delegate or senator is and contact them.

It takes all of a few minutes to write them an e-mail and ask whether or not they supported these fees. Remember that all 140 seats in the General Assembly are up for election this November, and that if you are a Virginia resident you can vote out the legislators who supported these fees.

Now, if we really want to show our disdain, we use a little reverse psychology. I hereby call on everyone reading this to become a model driver. No speeding, no running red lights, no driving after one drop of alcohol. I say this because if everyone followed the traffic laws to the letter all that additional revenue will not manifest itself. What better way to get back at the hypocrites who use safety as a whipping boy for money?