One day in September 2024 I received a frantic call from my wife Jamie, who had just been in a serious car accident. Though both vehicles were totaled, everyone was physically okay. But a nightmare from Jamie’s past came rushing back. Years after a series of relatively minor drug charges, she still had no valid driver’s license and no car insurance.
I got there as quickly as I could. As the officer began asking her questions about the accident, we were fearful that saying the wrong thing would send her to jail. We prayed that the other driver involved wasn’t considering legal action. We were lucky; they couldn’t have been nicer, and their only concern seemed to be whether my wife had been hurt.
Back in 2008, Jamie had been in a minor accident—while driving in the rain she veered into a cow fence, just 300 yards from her home. Her children had been in the car and were unhurt, so after calling the police she took them home before returning alone just as the police got there. The police charged her with leaving the scene of an accident and issued a warrant.
She paid the court fees and assumed the matter was resolved. But she didn’t know about a separate $10 fine she had to pay at city hall, and as a result her license was suspended.
Getting it reinstated would have cost several hundred dollars. And there was always something or other that was a higher priority, so she just didn’t get around to it. A year later she was pulled over and given a warning about driving with a suspended license, and almost immediately after that she was pulled over again and arrested. But she kept driving, and didn’t have any problems until 2018, the beginning of a difficult few years when she was arrested several times for drug possession and theft.
By 2022 she’d served all her time and had no outstanding warrants—except now she had thousands of dollars in unpaid fines that had accompanied her charges, and couldn’t get her license back without paying them. It seemed like there was little chance of ever getting it back now.
But after her accident in 2024, both of us were shaken. We knew what a daunting task it would be to get her license reinstated. But we agreed that this was the time to face it and get it fixed, and finally leave the past in the past.
Jamie’s car after the accident in September 2024
First she had to turn herself in. Not because of any new charges, but purely because of the unpaid fines. We were fortunate that she was able to go down to the police station on a Sunday night and be out the next morning, but it cost us over $2,000 in court fees and about $6,500 for the bail bondsman. If we hadn’t been able to pay him, who knows how long she might have had to wait in jail.
She got a judge’s order for a restricted license, and has now begun paying $123 each month—through a court fine website that takes a cut.
$4,369.50 for property theft. $1,413.00 for simple drug possession, and driving with a suspended license. $3,513.50 for drug paraphernalia and failure to appear in court. $2,214.50 for another theft charge. $2,474.00 for another possession charge. $814.50 for a parole violation plus court costs.
That’s nearly $15,000, all for things that were nonviolent or even just plain bureaucratic in nature, and for which she’d served her time. And on top of that, over $8,500 we had to pay up front just to be allowed to get the process started. All stemming from a $10 fine 16 years ago that she hadn’t known she’d had to pay. Yes, she kept driving with a suspended license even though she had been warned and knew it was illegal. But if you’re not in a position to easily pay a few hundred dollars the first time something happens, life doesn’t stop until you are. You still need to drive to work, or drive your kids to school.
It’s much harder to get car insurance with a recent suspension on your record, and then if you can get it, it’s more expensive. Though my own driving record didn’t have any issues, I ended up being denied coverage just because Jamie and I live in the same household.
Here in Tennessee there are towns heavily populated by people with criminal records where it feels like almost no one has a valid license. And the local governments thrive financially because residents are trapped paying endless fines they can’t afford.
“It’s a shame and guilt cycle over and over again,” Jamie said. “Some people just say, ‘Forget it—come pick up a pack and flip it.’”
Top image via Connecticut Senate Democrats. Inset image via Jeff Noland.
Based in New York, Stephen Freeman is a Senior Editor at Trending Insurance News. Previously he has worked for Forbes and The Huffington Post. Steven is a graduate of Risk Management at the University of New York.