Speaker
Description
This paper chronicles the seven-year journey that led to the end of Ohio’s practice of suspending driver’s licenses for failure to pay fines and fees. It began with a simple question from Legal Aid attorneys in Cleveland: Why do so many bankruptcy clients have suspended driver’s licenses? To investigate, we submitted two data requests to the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV). Our analysis confirmed a troubling pattern— most suspensions were not due to unsafe driving, but rather to unpaid debt.
We found that debt-based suspensions were disproportionately concentrated in marginalized communities: they were 40 times more likely in low-income neighborhoods and 130 times more likely in non-white neighborhoods. The total amount of fines and fees preventing Ohioans from regaining their licenses exceeded $900 million. Armed with these findings, we built a coalition of organizations committed to reform. Our advocacy culminated in the passage of Ohio House Bill 29, signed into law in early 2025. The legislation eliminated over 400,000 failure-to-pay suspensions and forgave more than \$8 million in associated fees.
This paper outlines the challenges, strategies, and lessons learned throughout this policy reform effort, offering insights for applied geographers seeking to engage in similar work.
| Is there a SINGLE day you are unavailable to present? | October 25, 2025 |
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