When people can get to work, our economy is better for it. We all want people to show up for work on time, when they say they are going to be there. Our workplaces function better when employees have consistent and reliable transportation to reach their places of work.
With that consistency comes regular paychecks, which enables families to fully participate in civic and economic life.
Yet too many Massachusetts residents often face systemic barriers that make it harder – sometimes near impossible – for them to find and keep a job. For many people, being able to accept and keep a job is made more difficult by a lack of transportation options, the cost of transportation, or limited bus schedules that don’t accommodate the many jobs outside of a 9-5 schedule.
The Massachusetts Legislature is considering a bill that, if passed, would reduce significant barriers to transportation and employment: S.2874/H.3662, “An Act to increase opportunity by ending debt-based driving restrictions,” or the Road to Opportunity Act. This bill would end driver’s license suspensions for failure to pay a fine or fee due to non-safety related reasons.
Driver’s license suspensions for unpaid fines or fees is an issue with far-reaching impacts: tens of thousands of drivers are impacted statewide. In Massachusetts, 70% of residents drive to work, and for many workers, driving is actually part of their job. In such cases often losing your license means losing your livelihood.
Unsurprisingly, this issue disproportionately affects low-income people, people of color, and people who live in rural areas. The suspension of a driver’s license due to unpaid fines or fees has a disproportionate negative impact on residents of color, because racial bias often still plays an outsized role in who gets stopped by police in the first place.
Nationally, Black drivers are more likely to be pulled over than white drivers, increasing contact with police and the risk of criminal charges. According to Massachusetts trial court data, driving with a suspended license and driving without a license are the top two causes for Massachusetts residents’ involvement in the trial court system, so this is a pervasive issue. Ending debt-based license suspensions is a sensible, straight-forward policy change that will help reduce racial inequities in our legal system.
Rural residents, facing longer distances between destinations and limited public transportation options, rely on being able to drive to get where they need to go.
And for people with limited incomes, especially the ones who have multiple jobs to make ends meet, the burdens of this policy are felt heavier, including the psychological weight of making decisions about how to get to work or school and the financial reality of paying the driver’s license reinstatement fee on top of previous fees.
The policy as it stands is inequitable. It doesn’t make financial sense to suspend someone’s driver’s license because they can’t afford to pay a debt. If someone can’t legally drive, they can’t get to work to make the money they need to pay off the debt.
Debt-based driving restrictions not only harm the driver but also hold our communities back. These restrictions impact our wider economy by putting people in a cycle of debt and instability, pushing some into a situation where they have to make the unsafe choice of driving without a license.
A key provision of the Road to Opportunity Act is the creation of a waiver process if someone cannot afford to pay any part of the fine or fee in question. The version of the bill in Senate Ways and Means provides payment plans to those who do not qualify for a waiver; this ensures that our state and municipalities will have higher collection rates, because people will be able to pay toward their debt and will be able to legally drive to work to continue earning money.
And we know this by data from other states, where similar reforms were implemented. When California ended their debt-based license suspension in 2017, their debt collection increased while giving their drivers the relief of having valid licenses and stability in their jobs.
When we leave policies in place that unjustly penalize low-income people because they can’t afford to pay off the penalty, we create circumstances that hold people back from fully participating in community and contributing to their workplaces. When a parent can’t get to work, their children are impacted. When families struggle, that also has an impact on our neighborhoods, school systems and local economy.
It is in our best interest as a state to break down the barriers that are holding people back from getting to work and participating in their communities. We call on the Legislature to advance S.2874/H.3662.
Passage of this bill will positively impact tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents.
Our success is interconnected, and while our struggles may seem individual, they impact how we relate to the world around us. Changing state policies such as this one is a way to tangibly improve peoples’ lives, and our collective wellbeing as a Commonwealth.
Rachel Lea Scott is the community engagement manager at Transportation for Massachusetts, based in Northampton. Maha Aslam is the project manager with Transit + Streets at LivableStreets Alliance.