USA Driving Licences

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Nobody gets thrown in jail for failure to pay a traffic fine. We don’t have Debtors Prison. You may have your driving privileges revoked after a very long time.

Robert, I think you may be falling prey to some very one-sided propaganda videos. I assure you, there is zero reason to fear traffic tickets in the US.

As to gun laws, yes- we have fantastic gun laws for the most part. The thing many non-Anericans don’t realize is the US is a conglomeration of 50 sovereign states. (In theory, although this has eroded greatly over time.) Each state has the power to regulate separately.

Our Constitution has been one of the most effective documents in history to protect individual rights. The Constitution is a Federal document, and from time to time an individual state may pass a law that contradicts the Constitution. (California, New York, New Jersey gun restrictions come to mind.) In those instances the State law stands until it can be challenged and defeated in court. Sometimes the State wins and sometimes the Constitution prevails.
 
John, you're right we don't have debtor's prison, but there are MANY folks serving time for inability to pay a fine. Some of these small towns (and not so small) actually charge the inmate money for each day served in jail - not a lot, but seems like Hoover, AL charged something like $15/day for "room 'n board" while you served your time. Sad to say, we have a "legal" system, but no "justice" system in this country.

rant mode OFF

Still one of the better countries I've lived in.... no, of the countries I've actually been in long enough to understand the life there, let's just say the USA is the best, even with all the problems we do have.

Ken H>
 
Wikipedia would be a good place to learn about other countries, youtube….not so much.
It's pretty simple, most people grow and learn the laws of their land, if you break them you pay is some way, that's the way it's always worked.
It's rare Robert that anyone goes to jail for a simple ticket, usually their license is checked and found that they have warrant's or something like that. there's simply a lot of bad people in the world, and everybody in jail will tell you they've been done wrong, it's not their fault. some people know they did wrong and clean themselves up. I believe in second chances as much as the next guy. every nation has it's problems, what can you do, it's a crazy world out there. I just try to walk a straight line, stay out of trouble and hope reach my end with a clear conscience

I got to watch my toes here, last week I asked a guy a simple question about his country and the next day he had to be carried out of here in a straight jacket.
 
John Wilson said:
...Robert, I think you may be falling prey to some very one-sided propaganda videos...
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I have found several of the side secondary points in this thread to be interesting and informative. I am tempted to share my feelings on so much more, but I have so many good friends abroad and wish to be the best host and the best guest I can be when seeing them.

But this point by John is one that I think could make the world a better place if all were more aware of it. When I am traveling abroad, I pay very keen attention to news media, papers television etc… and I am shocked at how grossly misleading it can be. If my fellow Americans think that our media can be slanted about what is going on here, you need to cut our friends around the world some slack because the information they get about our country is so one sided and misleading that it is almost cartoonish.

Relax, I am actually setting politics aside in this assessment, as it appears that nobody, anywhere, is capable of rational thought on that topic any more. But just the general views about our different cultures, when portrayed by the media, are so far off the mark about the U.S. that I am always left in total awe that such blatant misinformation can be disseminated. So please folks always remember that from newspapers to online media, and everything between, all have an agenda, and the only facts to be had are the ones that we actively research ourselves. People separated by the oceans are much more alike than what the media would want you to believe.
 
I am seeing Judge Miller suspend and deal with suspensions for drivers committed of a trivial offence, CROSSING A ROAD MARKING LINE FRACTIONALLY for example, getting a fine, not paying fine in one state, getting a fine in another state and things roll on until drivers licence is suspended, the drivers are so desperate to work they carry on driving as they will starve if they don't, many are black poor people, you have a vast country and long journeys to make to work, no busses in some places.

Does anyone on here watch Judge Donner Miller? incidentally she does seem a reasonable judge.
 
I have watched Judge Judy, like her but she lectures dead beats which is a waste of breath as they will always be dead beats and she is inconsistent
quite often.
 
I see your 'legal open carry' , carriers being questioned, harassed by USA police, why do they do it when they know full well the right to carry arms is in your constitution?
 
Laws concerning open carry and concealed carry are dictated by which state your in.
I haven't heard of any harassment by police to people who open carry where it's allowed, sounds like muddied fake news. of course if I was a cop and saw someone with open carry in a state where it's allowed and that person didn't appear to be a normal looking citizen or acting strangely I would ask to see his permit. call it profiling or whatever but I would consider that part of my job...to protect, I don't perceive that as harassment.

Last week I was in the tax collector building and was asked by security to leave, put my belt knife in my truck and come back. that wasn't harassment, it was his job, I did as he asked and all was good.
 
bladegrinder said:
I was a cop and saw someone with open carry in a state where it's allowed and that person didn't appear to be a normal looking citizen or acting strangely I would ask to see his permit.
Click to expand...

Hi Bladegrinder, you posted this quote below.

Can you describe for us a "normal looking citizen acting strangely"?
At this point the person has not broken any laws and acting legally so why should he/she be questioned when they are operating within rules of your constitution?

Why would someone 'open carry' if they intended criminal activities?

I would put this down to 'harassment'

Confused.
 
Robert, I'm going to politely bow out of this thread as I don't really care for the direction it's seeming to take.
I'm not a lawyer or someone who specializes in our constitution.
you seem to be going in a direction that only a theologist or guru would have an answer.

I will be carrying my gun this weekend though and don't really anticipate any harassment.
 
Thank you for your input Bladegrinder, maybe we will have another discussion sometime.
I do enjoy talking about USA

PS bullet guns are difficult to get licences for here in UK and no open carry, we can carry shotguns openly whilst out shooting, crossing roads for example.
 
Yes, Robert things can be rough for the working poor who get their driver's licence suspended for unpayed traffic tickets. However, as I understand it, the Supreme Court has ruled that people cannot be imprisoned just for simply failing to pay their citations. Don't forget also that driving is not a right, it's a privilege. One must do certain certain things like having a licence, insurance, registering the car, and maintaining it in good working order.

You may think that a motoring offence is trivial but it still is an offence. If they didn't commit the offence then they wouldn't have been stopped. Failure to show up in court becomes another offence. Failure to pay the fine triggers suspension of the licence. The truth is that it is the action of the drivers that usually cause the problems.

That leads me to a question. What happens in the UK when someone doesn't pay traffic fines?

Doug
 
Doug Lester said:
Yes, Robert things can be rough for the working poor who get their driver's licence suspended for unpayed traffic tickets. However, as I understand it, the Supreme Court has ruled that people cannot be imprisoned just for simply failing to pay their citations. Don't forget also that driving is not a right, it's a privilege. One must do certain certain things like having a licence, insurance, registering the car, and maintaining it in good working order.

You may think that a motoring offence is trivial but it still is an offence. If they didn't commit the offence then they wouldn't have been stopped. Failure to show up in court becomes another offence. Failure to pay the fine triggers suspension of the licence. The truth is that it is the action of the drivers that usually cause the problems.

That leads me to a question. What happens in the UK when someone doesn't pay traffic fines?

Doug
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Good morning Doug, it is 11.55am here.

I am unsure but not heard of anyone not paying motoring fines being jailed unless it is brought up in a serious trial and a bit added on for iI.

I read a lot that drivers moving out of state and not updating the driving licence is a pain in the butt especially if they leave a unpaid ticket behind them and then get another in a different state, the paper trail from one state to another breaks down.

If you pass your driving test in any state why is there a need to have a different licence for other states?

A British driving licence allows us to drive all over the world but for how long I do not know.

This country make £millions out of parking fines alone, hence a lot of outworn centres suffer from lack of shoppers so small and large stores move outside towns to new mall type places where a lot of parking is free, we now have virtual ghost towns.
 
Doug Lester said:
Yes, Robert things can be rough for the working poor who get their driver's licence suspended for unpayed traffic tickets. However, as I understand it, the Supreme Court has ruled that people cannot be imprisoned just for simply failing to pay their citations. Don't forget also that driving is not a right, it's a privilege. One must do certain certain things like having a licence, insurance, registering the car, and maintaining it in good working order.

You may think that a motoring offence is trivial but it still is an offence. If they didn't commit the offence then they wouldn't have been stopped. Failure to show up in court becomes another offence. Failure to pay the fine triggers suspension of the licence. The truth is that it is the action of the drivers that usually cause the problems.

That leads me to a question. What happens in the UK when someone doesn't pay traffic fines?

Doug
Click to expand...
 
Yes it is the action of the drivers which puts them on the wrong side of the law, they are responsible but I believe suspending someones DL in certain circumstances makes it so much worse for the offender, things go from bad to worse
People have gotta eat and pay bills to exist, they have children.

IMHO the USA has much higher work ethic, expectation for the lower paid jobs which the poorest have more than their fair share of.

We have had an aversion to the rotten low paid jobs for a long time but are gradually being forced to take them on a guaranteed minimum wage which is peanuts, hence more crime.
 
Robert all I am going to say here is understand all of the videos you watch
Are ONLY what someone chose to show you and represent 1/10 of 1% of citizen police encounters. They almost always misrepresent the facts and are provided based on entertainment or personal agenda.
 
I am seeng the poorest, neediest people in your country persecuted for being such.
Your country is that vast when someone leaves a area and settle several thousand mile away and they leave problems behind them the driving licence system causes havoc, normal working Americans cannot afford to stop working and go back to sort out said problems made by incompetent paper pushers.

ONE driving licence for all qualified Americans would stop so much unnecessary misery /jail time and save money
Our vehicles carry a tag for life unless you purchase a private one which is registered to you only.

Your jails are ram jam full with scum and relatively decent naive souls who just need help, not forced to mix with scum and learn how to burgle , steal and so forth, so are ours are the same but not to the same extent,.

How can you send a man to jail for committing the offence because someone has messed up his paperwork miles and miles away, he has 4 children, a new baby, a sick wife, works his guts out to provide for them and you take away his ability to drive, stupid in most cases.
 
What you are missing is the we are the United States of America. Our Constitution only gives so much power to the Federal Government. The rest of the power resides with the individual states. We had a civil war largely over the limits of those two powers. To allow the Federal Government the right to issue federal drivers licences we would have to have a Constitutional amendment. That's not something that is lightly or easily done.

As far as someone being unfairly incarcerated, well no system is perfect and a lot of times when you see someone claiming that their lawyer had taken care of it or that they had already been to court over it it's just that. A claim and a false one. If someone did fall down in not removing the active warrant from the system then the accused will be given a chance to prove it. That's a part that doesn't get shown on our TV cop shows.

Doug
 
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