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The Jim Ford Story
This letter was sent to me by Jim Ford on October 14, 2004:
Dennis,
Nice web site and good job on Mark Johnson show. I am involved in a
mess now that might interest you and potentially could bring out
thousands of voters for you. I am not ready to go public yet as I am
working to resolve it politically but will definately be going to
the legislature with it.
It is a matter of the State (DMV) making criminals out of law
abidding citizens (sound familiar?) I had my insurance cancelled on
my new mobile restroom business, had my car insurance go up $1000
and will go up again, cripled my business, ruined my driving record
plus actually had a penality increase on a ticket because I had the
nerve to exercise my constituntional rights and appeal the ticket.
I have discovered that the state of Vermont has a hugh problem that
the legislature did a study on but has not implimented the
recommedations. The subject is the one hundred thousand plus active
license suspensions in VT. (157,000 in 2003). The legislature wants
to reduce this number because the number of DLS tickets that are
flooding the court. They looked at amnesty, reducing the fines,
removing the points for DLS (which only generates another license
Suspention). What they didn't look at was HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE THEIR
LICENSE UNDER SUSPENTION BUT DO NOT KNOW IT? That is what happened
to me. I paid a ticket and unbeknown to me the check arrived 1 day
after my license was suspended for failure to pay a ticket. I
assumed that I was square on things and forgot about it. Nine months
later I get stopped for speeding and find my license was under
suspention. Turns out that sinse my check arrived after my license
was suspended I then needed to pay a $50 reinstatement fee but they
never notified me that my check arrived late nor about the
outstanding reinstatement fee.
I went to court on the ticket and the judge agreed with me that they
should have given me better notice so he waived the entire $194 fine
but said that sinse the facts were true as I admitted that he had to
rule in the favor of the state and had no control over the points. I
will get 5 more points for the DLS conviction that will get me a
real 30 day suspention on top of the 10 day suspention that I
legtimately got for accumulating 10 points for three speeding
tickets. But get this if I had not appealed the tickets it all would
have arrived at the DMV at the same time, would have added up to 15
points and I would only get one 30 day suspention. But by the time
the new 5 points from the DLS conviction arrive I will have already
had the 10 day suspention. This results in having an additional 10
day suspention just because I appealed. Paul Gillies said this is
unconstitional.
Dennis, I have talked to many many people who were in the same boat
that they weren't aware they were under suspention. Checks bouncing,
child support payments, fish and game tickets, snowmobile tickets
and many more can result in a suspention.
The problem is once you are under suspention you may never be able
to get it back and are driven "under ground" . If one must drive to
feed his family and gets caught the new DLS ticket gets him 5 more
points and that gets you an automatic longer suspention because they
go up in increments of 5 points, 10 pts =10 days, 15pts=30 days,
20pts=90days and up and up ect. They can never get out from under.
The DMV estimated that at least 10% (Mike Smith Dir of Counter
operation) and as high as 1/3 (Chaunsy Leise Legislative Researcher)
of the drivers on the road in VT are under suspention at any given
time. That is a hugh problem ( watch thes numbers Dennis because I
could not verify them). But there is well in excess of 100 thousand.
What would happen to the VT economy if 1/3 of the drivers had to
stay home from for even 10 days. No wonder there is so many DLS
tickets. People need to work. There must be thousands of people like
me that would have paid there reinstatement fee h
ad we know about it. (it is on the first letter that you receive 30
daqys before the suspention but if you thought you made the dead
line as I did you don't think about it). The government must not be
making criminals out of law abbiding citizens. In your words "This
has got to stop" Good Luck Jim Ford
If you have a story you would like to share with Dennis Carver,
contact him. |
