I must say, for all the skepticism I have expressed about Abuser Fees, I am astounded by the depth and breadth of hostility towards the bad-driving penalties that has surfaced this summer. State and local governments have been jacking up spending, taxes and fees for years, yet the electorate has laid there, supine and tranquilized. Stirring at last from their somnolent state, people have fixated on… what? Property taxes? Sales or income taxes? The swarming host of lesser levies? No, people are agitated about a set of fees that will punish a tiny fraction of the population — about 2.5 percent — consisting of the most reckless and incorrigibly dangerous drivers in the state.
Now momentum is building to throw out Abuser Fees. Former Gov. Jim Gilmore and 11th District Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, R-Fairfax County are the latest to denounce the penalties, according to Bob Gibson at the Daily Progress. Lost in the criticism is the idea that maybe we should incentivize the worst drivers — who cause the most accidents and, as a byproduct, the worst traffic congestion — to drive more carefully.
Constitutional issues aside, there are two core problems with the Abuser Fees legislation as it now stands. First, the fees are structured to raise transportation revenues, not to curb bad driving. That’s why, for a convoluted chain of reasons, out-of-state drivers are exempt from the fee. Virginians are rightly irate. If we need to raise taxes for transportation, then we should do so in a way — raising gasoline taxes — that is transparent and captures revenue from out-of-state motorists. The gasoline tax has many problems, as I have written extensively. But at least it functions as a rough user fee, which makes it vastly preferable to the $1 billion grab-bag of taxes, levies, fees and penalties that lawmakers foisted into place this year.
The other problem is that we have no idea if the higher fees will succeed in curtailing bad driving as they are purported to. No one has studied the issue carefully. Legislators did not solicit the input of traffic court prosecutors or judges. If the goal is to reduce the incidence of reckless driving, the ideal solution may not be blunt-edged, oppressive fines, which force many people into driving on suspended licenses, but a combination of penalties that include fines, remedial driving education, driving restrictions and other remedies.
If we want to combat traffic congestion, it does make sense to target the reckless drivers who cause accidents and snarl traffic. But we should put into place a set of remedies that are designed specifically to accomplish that goal — not to raise revenue.
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