State Rep. Paul Opsommer, chair of the House Transportation Committee, today hailed the initial passage of Senate Bill 166.
\nThe bill begins the elimination of the so-called “driver responsibility fee” law, which now leaves the House and goes to the Senate.
\n“I am extremely happy to see the State of Michigan finally take real steps to phase out what I think everyone now agrees is a terrible law,” said Opsommer, R-DeWitt. “This law frequently made people pay twice for the same infraction, sometimes elevating the impact of even minor tickets to the point where people could simply not afford them and were seeing their licenses revoked. Driving privileges should only be revoked for reasons dealing with real safety issues, and the right of people to travel should not be impeded by those in government who wish to use driver’s licenses as a device to manipulate and control taxpayers. Only in the most egregious of circumstances should people lose their licenses for parking tickets or other non-moving violations.”
\nOpsommer pointed out that many governments are using driver’s licenses and tickets as leverage against taxpayers who know that in many cases their jobs, and livelihood, are linked to their ability to drive. Toll revenue in other states is being diverted to pay for non-road projects, and red light camera and automated ticket schemes are fleecing drivers of millions of dollars.
\nGovernments unable to raise taxes are turning toward unfair tickets and fines as a way to prop-up underfunded pension funds and other liabilities. Opsommer said that there are plans in cities like Chicago to use red light cameras to even ticket people whose tires touch the white lines when stopping at intersections.
\n“This is still Michigan, and we’re still proud of our automobile heritage and the freedoms that come with our right to travel,” Opsommer said. “But more importantly, that right to travel is strongly linked to making a living and getting our economy back on track. We need to continue to say no to excessive fines, no to speed traps, and no to automated ticketing schemes that have nothing to do with safety and are just excuses to gouge taxpayers. This bill is a good first step.”
\nThe bill is widely expected to pass out of the Senate and could be sent to the governor for his signature by year’s end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
State Rep. Paul Opsommer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}