If you are accused of driving with a suspended license, you probably shouldn't show up to a virtual court hearing while driving.
  • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
    674·
    6 months ago

    On one hand, yes this was terribly stupid.

    One the other, I understand why people are forced to drive under desperate circumstances to get to work, doctors appointments, etc. because public transit in most places is so bad it’s worthless.

    • Dreizehn@kbin.social
      26·
      6 months ago

      Indeed, when you experience the public transportation system in the 1st World EU countries and Japan, the USA is decades behind them. However, if you look at the US public transportation system until the mid 1960’s, it was there.

      • Stovetop@lemmy.worldEnglish
        45·
        6 months ago

        However, if you look at the US public transportation system until the mid 1960’s, it was there.

        On that note, it’s worth bringing up that Los Angeles, a city known for its horrible traffic conditions, once had the largest electric rail system in the world before it was completely eliminated in favor of the gridlocked highways it has now.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric

      • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.caEnglish
        13·
        6 months ago

        Indeed, when you experience the public transportation system in the 1st World EU countries and Japan, the USA is decades behind them.

        I think thinking of it this way only makes sense if commitment and desire to create good public transportation is somewhat comparable - which it’s not. In the US (and a lot of Canada) there simply isn’t any desire to properly invest in public transit. When public transit projects fail and a government is held accountable at the ballot box, the following government just slashes everything and washes their hands of it instead of trying to fix things. They’re not behind in time, they’re behind in commitment.

        • MajorHavoc@programming.devEnglish
          4·
          6 months ago

          There’s plenty of desire here, there’s just no desire in our overlord billionaire class.

          Fortunately for our billionaire overlords, we’re still very fond of them.

          • Stovetop@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            6 months ago

            Exactly, and it’s good old fashioned racism that they use to get away with it, too.

            Public transit still has a stigma in many parts of the US as being for poor people who can’t afford cars. And as it happens, nonwhite Americans are a lot more likely to be economically disadvantaged due to institutionalized racism. On top of that, they are also a lot more likely to live in urban environments where there is some semblance of public transit due to the phenomena of white flight, where white people by-and-large started moving out of cities to get away from the coloreds, and so riding the train or taking the bus has become “out of style”.

            Basically, a white middle class American is likelier to reject the option of public transit because they don’t want to share space with poor minorities, and so public transit is limited to urban pockets surrounded by an impenetrable wall of NIMBYism. Plus no one with the resources to afford a car wants to support measures to create more environments where cars are not needed, so attempts to improve existing public transit often fail.

    • nocturne@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      171·
      6 months ago

      I lost my license years ago because I could not pay my child support because of a work injury. I had no option but to continue driving. Then almost did not get a new job because I did not have a license. It was a vicious circle. 11 years after no longer having child support it is still effecting me, one state suspended my license because I was driving on a suspended license (but I was never notified) and even though another state gave me a license when I moved, they also suspended my license (again without notification).

      • Today@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9·
        6 months ago

        My daughter went through this - Lost her license at 17, continued to drive, and each year got caught resulting in another year of suspended license. This went on for about 7 years. She finally went to the court and asked for a hardship license. It was a pain in the ass because she had to keep a log with her that documented every trip and her insurance was crazy expensive, but after a year of that, she got her license back. It sucks, but in the end paying a couple hundred dollars and going through the real process with the courts for a year was much cheaper than continuing to pay bail and tow fees.