Commentary #2

     Several years back, I too had the privilege of paying about $270 every year for 3 years. This is not including the court fees and fines I had to pay for driving while my license was invalid. And yes, your license will get suspended if you miss a payment, which is exactly what happen to me. And to top it off while my license was suspended, I just so happened to get pulled over and ticketed on my way to work for making a rolling stop in my neighborhood. In addition to more fees and fines for that ticket I received, my license stayed suspended and my 3 years of surcharges started over!

     I would have to agree with my colleague over at “Texas” when she says that there has got to be a better solution for punishing folks that commit whatever it was that they did. I will say that for some offenses the surcharge is just, such as DWI’s. However, this doesn’t mean that I’m for the surcharge program. To me, this program is just another one of the states’ vessels to extract money from its residents. It seems that the state is just interested in squeezing every freaking penny they can from us. With fees for late payments, convenience charges for online payments, it’s just an ongoing cycle of getting screwed over! If the state focused on its people as much as it focuses on making money, our way of life would be so much better.

     Much like my colleague had mentioned, a point system might just be the perfect solution for punishing offenders. But before we can get the surcharge program 86’d, we the people have got to become pro-active in finding that new solution, and then bringing it to our representatives to make that change possible.