East Bay Express: Alameda County Superior Court Reverses License Suspensions for Nearly 54,000 Drivers Who Couldn’t Afford to Pay Traffic Fines

The East Bay Express is reporting that Alameda County has reversed the holds on 54,000 people’s driver’s licenses that were suspended, due to an inability to pay their traffic tickets.  Jessica Lynn reports that “California ended failure-to-pay suspensions on driver’s licenses in June 2017, with the passage of Assembly Bill 103. But Alameda County Superior Court is one of the first courts in the state that has directed the DMV to lift old failure-to-pay suspensions in addition to not issuing new ones.”

You can read the full text of the article here.

I’ve consulted with many, many individuals as a criminal defense attorney, who were subject to these holds.  Once a an unpaid ticket heads to collections, the penalties are ridiculously high, and there is no way to remove the hold from your license aside from paying the unconscionable fees.  I remember one young ndividual, in particular, who had amassed over $20,000 in collection fees.