At this rate, I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever be rid of Dave Albo's brilliant idea - the "abusive driver" Efforts to repeal Virginia's controversial abusive-driving fees hit a snag Monday after lawmakers discovered a 130-year-old state Supreme Court ruling that prohibits lawmakers from ordering local courts to stop collection of fees or fines that have already been assessed.
Hmmmm...perhaps Albo - a lawyer who makes money getting people out of traffic violation penalties -- is more clever than we've given him credit for?
So the local courts collect the fees that have been assessed and then they come up with some excuse to give back the money later. Maybe that would work.
Either way, even though some people got royally screwed by Albo's get-rich-quick-plan, it's better to do away with the abusive fees NOW, rather than fret over century old rulings and cause even more people to have to pay the fees.
The American Spectator: Waters Hot
Basically, this is a view of abuser's fees from the right which thinks they are part of overall "government creep" and simply one small step towards an "Orwellian omnipresence."
He goes on to predict they will be back, just like The Terminator....
Albo, who just happened to be a big-time lawyer connected with a firm that specializes in defending traffic cases, pushed for and got a new law that went into effect last July. It imposed unprecedented fines, as high as $3,000 per incident. These fines were charged to motorists for traffic infractions, including routine speeding, on top of whatever fine the court levied for the infraction.The justification given was that the fees would help fund transportation improvements, and of course, "safety," that well-worn bray that's still remarkably effective, despite the obvious cynicism with which it is deployed.
But Albo and his backers made a mistake. They went for broke, and all at once.
Not only were the fines outrageously high relative to the offenses; not only did they constitute a "double tap," where violators paid, in effect, two fines; but to add insult to injury they only applied to in-state drivers.
A Virginia motorist convicted of driving 80-something mph on a Virginia highway with a posted speed limit of 65 mph faced a "reckless driving" charge, a court fine of several hundred dollars, plus an "abuser fee" of more than $1,000. But an out-of-state driver caught doing exactly the same thing only got the court fine.
Seem fair to you?
VIRGINIANS FELT THE same way. Lawmakers got an earful of a different sort of abuse. Several delegates who voted for the fees were turned out in the recent elections. Not even seven months after Albo's law went into effect, it is on the verge of being repealed in toto.
So the "abuser fees" will go, but it may be only a temporary victory. Albo and his friends will realize, if they haven't already, that they overplayed their hand. Gradualism is the key.
Next time, the "abuser fees" will only apply to indefensible acts -- DWI, vehicular manslaughter resulting from gross negligence, etc. Then, the law will be expanded to the next-down category of offenses -- things not quite so bad but still hard to make excuses for.
Few will complain. It will become accepted practice. Other states will pass similar laws. There will be uniformity, and reciprocity.
A few years will pass. Then, someone will propose that the fines be applied to yet more offenses. "Public safety!" will be the cry. And just as seat belt laws went from no-argument laws requiring that small children be restrained to "primary enforcement" laws that empower police to pull adults over for failing to "buckle up," so, too, will "abuser fees" eventually encompass routine and purely technical infractions, such as simple speeding.
And we'll have come full circle.
There's just too much money at stake; too much potential control over the masses to be passed up for long.
To paraphrase Arnold: They'll be back. Count on it.
And next time, we will probably not notice the water's getting warm again; at least, not before it's too late to jump.