07-06-2007, 05:04 PM
More on this:
Out-of-State Drivers: Why Not?
Many of the follow-up questions I received about the abuser fee article last week centered around the out-of-state driver question. For those of you who can follow a complex legal theorem, here it is:
Under Virginia's Constitution, traffic fines have to be deposited into Virginia's "literary fund," which funds school construction. The Constitution says that this money cannot be funneled to transportation. In order to change the Constitution so that the literary fund could be used for transportation, it would take about three years. If we changed the Constitution, it would also ensure that roads and schools would directly compete with each other, so at this point I do not even think it would be a wise proposal.
For these reasons, we decided the "abuser fees" would be classified as fees, not fines. There was one problem with that - we had no effective way to capture out-of-state drivers with a fee.
Try as we might, Governor Kaine, the Attorney General, and several legislators all thought of ways to legally bring in out-of-state drivers to the abuser fee. We could not. That is why the legislation looks the way it does today.
Out-of-State Drivers: Why Not?
Many of the follow-up questions I received about the abuser fee article last week centered around the out-of-state driver question. For those of you who can follow a complex legal theorem, here it is:
Under Virginia's Constitution, traffic fines have to be deposited into Virginia's "literary fund," which funds school construction. The Constitution says that this money cannot be funneled to transportation. In order to change the Constitution so that the literary fund could be used for transportation, it would take about three years. If we changed the Constitution, it would also ensure that roads and schools would directly compete with each other, so at this point I do not even think it would be a wise proposal.
For these reasons, we decided the "abuser fees" would be classified as fees, not fines. There was one problem with that - we had no effective way to capture out-of-state drivers with a fee.
Try as we might, Governor Kaine, the Attorney General, and several legislators all thought of ways to legally bring in out-of-state drivers to the abuser fee. We could not. That is why the legislation looks the way it does today.
2013 Cadillac ATS....¶▅c●▄███████||▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅||█~ ::~ :~ :►
2008 Chevy Malibu LT....▄██ ▲ █ █ ██▅▄▃▂
1986 Monte Carlo SS. ...███▲▲ █ █ ███████
1999 F250 SuperDuty...███████████████████►
1971 Monte Carlo SC ...◥☼▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙☼◤
2008 Chevy Malibu LT....▄██ ▲ █ █ ██▅▄▃▂
1986 Monte Carlo SS. ...███▲▲ █ █ ███████
1999 F250 SuperDuty...███████████████████►
1971 Monte Carlo SC ...◥☼▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙☼◤