Stop suspending driver's licenses just because people are too poor to pay the fine.

Originally, license suspensions were used to promote driving safety by punishing and removing unsafe drivers from the road and thereby encouraging safe driving. However, the scope of license suspensions has expanded greatly. Instead of suspending driver’s licenses only where public safety is at stake, courts now use license suspensions as a tool for collecting this unpaid traffic citation debt.

These suspensions make it harder for people to get and keep jobs, often start them on a path to incarceration, and raise public safety concerns. Ultimately they keep people in long cycles of poverty that are difficult, if not impossible, for many to overcome. However, this doesn’t have to be the case.

People should make restitution and pay their debts, but we believe driver’s license suspension should not be the first step to trying to make that happen.

Since 2015, the states of California, Mississippi, Virginia, Texas, Montana, Idaho, Maine and Washington, D.C, have passed laws discontinuing the practice of suspending a person's driver's licenses simply because an individual can't afford to pay the ticket in the time allotted. Surprisingly, the collection of fines in these states has increased, not gone down. What they've found is that if you make it easier -- not harder -- for people to pay, the more likely they will.

This can be the practice in Kansas and with this policy change, we will be a safer state and one where our citizens can adequately contribute to the economy, since they will be able to drive to jobs where they can earn a reasonable income, and subsequently stay of state-supported services. It's a policy that only makes sense and it works.