Hawaiʻi got rid of harmful driver’s license stoppers—this bill would bring them back
A bill that would reinstate license suspension for unpaid fees related to abandoned vehicles by transferring authority to the counties is a serious policy backslide. The governor should veto it.
With the legislature concluding its business in May, the governor has until June 27 to declare his intent to veto any measures passed during the legislative session. One bill that Governor Ige should include on the veto list is HB1413, a bill that would allow county governments to suspend, revoke or prohibit the renewal of an individual’s driver's license for unpaid fees relating to the abandonment of a vehicle.
This bill would reinstate driver’s license suspension for unpaid fees, or “stoppers,” a harmful practice that was prohibited by the legislature in 2020 through Act 59 in recognition of the “substantial and undue hardship” (Act 59, p. 2; line 5) these suspensions create.
Allowing HB1413 to become law would represent a significant backslide toward this harmful policy. For many working families, the ability to drive is a lifeline to stable employment, education, and access to basic needs like healthcare and groceries. When that access is removed, it has serious consequences that inhibit the economic wellbeing of families.
“The inability to obtain or renew a driver’s license prevents people who have not committed a crime from getting to work, picking up their children, keeping medical appointments, and ultimately from escaping debt” (Act 59, p. 2; 7–10).
Since stoppers are already a punishment doled out for inability to pay off debt, their imposition has a disproportionately severe impact on lower income folks. It’s expensive to be poor; so the saying goes. The policy therefore makes it more difficult to pay off the initial debt in the first place.
Research on the link between decreased economic mobility and driver’s license suspension bears out the punishing costs stoppers impose on individuals and society. A study on the effects of driver’s license suspension in New Jersey found that:
42 percent of survey respondents had lost their jobs as a result of driver’s license suspensions;
Within that group, 45 percent were unable to find another job; and
Of those who were able to find a new job, 88 percent reported a decrease in income between their former job and current employment.
When governments implement punitive measures that strip people of their ability to drive due to unpaid fees, they inhibit the earning power of their own residents. That, in turn, lowers economic activity in communities. In effect, these practices work to exacerbate economic hardship for working families with low-incomes and our community as a whole.
Recognizing the harm stoppers cause, Act 59 prohibits the Judiciary from imposing restrictions on an individual’s ability to obtain or renew a driver’s license due to unpaid traffic fees. In doing so, Hawaiʻi joined 21 other states that have reformed the practice of imposing driving restrictions based on unpaid debt.
This national trend is significant, as it recognizes that penalizing people for their inability to pay off debt effectively criminalizes poverty. For many of Hawaiʻi’s working families, particularly those with low incomes, the imposition of a fee can result in significant economic hardship, often pushing people deeper into poverty.
HB1413 attempts to circumvent the ban on judicial stoppers imposed by Act 59 by transferring the authority to suspend a license to the counties, instead of the courts, when it comes to unpaid fees for abandoned vehicles. The rationale is that counties incur costs for disposing of abandoned vehicles, so strengthening the counties’ ability to collect related unpaid fees is warranted. The other implicit motive is to discourage abandonment of vehicles in the first place.
However, while abandoned vehicles are a real problem that needs to be addressed, this policy is unlikely to either reduce vehicle abandonment or to increase related fee collection.
People abandon their vehicles because they can no longer afford their upkeep. Vehicle abandonment is a problem born of financial hardship to begin with, and adding additional financial hardship in the form of driver’s license stoppers is highly unlikely to improve the financial situation of the vehicle owner.
Additional ethical concerns exist about stripping an individual of the ability to drive when they have not committed a criminal offense. In the end this practice will lead to more harm than good. In recognition of this fact, eight community organizations wrote a letter to the governor on May 31 urging him to veto HB1413. Governor Ige can preserve the positive legacy he helped create through Act 59 by doing just that.
