Michigan Votes Forum

Like the person who lost his $70,000 job I too have had the same thing happen to me. I was enjoying a career which requires me to have a license for the simple purpose of business travel. Now I am not only reduced to not having a license but am having my family feel the consequences of my driving mistakes as well. Our income hax been reduced to hand to mouth. I accept my mistake and admit to it ( drunk driving) but this was my mistake not my kids. In addition to not being able to pay the impossible fees, my wife has now been charged with a fee for not having insurance (this due the fact that we are struggling to make with me being out of work due to my drivers license situation). What seemed to be good intentions by the Granholm administration have turned into a situation of "2 steps back, 1 step forward" which we cannot get out of. Like my license, This legislation needs to be revoked and our legislatures needs to start over from scratch and come up with solutions which represent a forward move rather than one which further hurts our economy, placing the State of Michigan even further down on the list of economically sound states.

Like the person who lost his $70,000 job I too have had the same thing happen to me. I was enjoying a career which requires me to have a license for the simple purpose of business travel. Now I am not only reduced to not having a license but am having my family feel the consequences of my driving mistakes as well. Our income hax been reduced to hand to mouth. I accept my mistake and admit to it ( drunk driving) but this was my mistake not my kids. In addition to not being able to pay the impossible fees, my wife has now been charged with a fee for not having insurance (this due the fact that we are struggling to make with me being out of work due to my drivers license situation). What seemed to be good intentions by the Granholm administration have turned into a situation of "2 steps back, 1 step forward" which we cannot get out of. Like my license, This legislation needs to be revoked and our legislatures needs to start over from scratch and come up with solutions which represent a forward move rather than one which further hurts our economy, placing the State of Michigan even further down on the list of economically sound states.

"What seemed to be good intentions by the Granholm administration" They have no "good intentions'. What did you blow to get your "drunk driving" ticket? If it was under .12 it was just a revenue ticket. What were you pulled over for? If it was for other than weaving and hitting curbs it is also a revenue ticket. Nobody wants drunks on the road but this draconian law is ruining good peoples lives. The average drunk craches at about a bac of .24-.26 but the revenue agents are just hiding in bushes looking for any reason to pull you over after 10 or 11 at night hoping to catch someone who didn't completely stop and they hope you might have a few in you. Why can't they drive the roads and look for the obvious drunk drivers that are out there harming themselves (90% of drunk crashes are 1 car, off the road accidents) and once in a while others. Why do we need this .08 law? My condolences go out to you and your family and you will do well as soon as you get out of here.

to the prosecutors wife that wanted to make an example out of Paris Hilton for driving on a suspended? Seems that she has had a warrant for her arrest since 1999 for driving on a suspended, in this time she has crashed three times. Guess it wasn't her day to made an example of...

and so has the prosecutor. maybe he should be given the 'nifong treatment'. disbar him, arrest his wife, put them BOTH in jail, her for being a fugitive, and HIM for harboring a fugitive. THEN let's see how many more prosecutors are disobeying the law.

like paris hilton but what they did to her is a travesty. This pompous nifongesque idiot wants to be tough on crime all the while knowing his wife is wanted. He also has been busted for using court workers to babysit his kids, take care of his house etc. It's a real thin line between the good guys and the bad guys anymore. At least a theif walks up and tells you he is going to rob you. These guys play to the cameras and sneak up on good decent folks to get them into the government snare. Once they have you it is tough to get out.

"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." I got hit with this law, and I refuse to pay up. I am currently in the process of getting a lawyer, and fighting this law on the grounds that it violates the 8th amendment in the US Constitution. Read "nor excessive fines imposed". Call me crazy, but I don't see how this isn't a matter for the supreme court.

Keep us up to date

On an earlier post, it was stated that WOOD TV posted on their website a statement made by a spokesman for the governor that said she would support this legislation if lawmakers find a replacement for the income generated by the Driver Responibility Law. If true, wouldn't that be an admission by at least one branch of government that the bottom line of this law is the bottom line of the state budget? What did the Driver Responsiblity law replace as a revenue generator? Can it be replaced with that, or is the answer nothing? What is the philosophy behind the necessity of this law and it's mandated fines, and what are the implications for other areas of our lives? Are there comparable situations that need to be scrutinized for responsiblity enforcement? Should the law should be blindly followed because lawmakers passed it and anyway, it coincides with your personal behaviour or belief, or you find it easy to follow yourself? Is it good law? Does it enrich one class at the expense of another? Many people already hire lawyers at every traffic ticket to erase points, does it in turn increase income to lawyers, or do most people who get these not bother or cannot afford one? Does income potential alter a lawyer's perspective of the law? Sometimes, to me at least, it all seems like a racket. Cop gives you ticket, you go to lawyer, points erased for a fee and a fine. Cop gets commendation, Court gets money, lawyer gets money, you don't get points. While I personally have not be levied one of these, a person that my husband knows was given one, had his license suspended and did not have the money to pay the fine. We paid it so he did not get caught, go to jail, and lose his job. (We believe he would have driven anyway, he had to get to work. Rural areas do not have mass transit to rely on) He is divorced with 2 small children and works as a cook in a small resturant. He is working off the $300.00 doing odd jobs for us, kind of like an indentured servant.

You can keep up to date on the woodtv blog. A GR attorney has filed a lawsuit and brief to appeal a decision by the retards at the court of appeals that was not favorable. And from reading the text of his brief, he knows his shit about the facts of how this driver law is illegal. The courts don't want to see it his way, but he hasn't given up since starting 2 years ago. It's just a tax revenue scheme. That's all it was ever about, from conception until now. They have NOTHING to replace it because it was copied from NJ. That's why they said they will not repeal it unless something else can be found. But as it stands, hopefully it will be struck down and the state will owe everyone back the ill gotten money they took, and a few of the people behind it should goto prison for scamming the citizens. They copied it directly from NJ without brains enough to realize NJ has public transportation and MI does not. Even with that in NJ, people still owe the money and the government tries to collect with harassing calls, whether you want your license back or not. I'd say easilly there are over 1 million suspended license drivers on the roads because of the ramifications this law has in every state that has it. MI citizens seem to be the only ones with enough balls to get fed up being bent over the barrel. I'm surprised it took this long to fight back, considering NJ has had to deal with this law for 10 years or so. www.blogs.woodtv.com/?cat=12

I need guidance on the Driver Responisility Fees. I was told that I had to pay one fee and then another one came and then another one came(1) first fee: $125 (2)2nd fee: $200 (3)3rd $175. How many Driver Responsible Fee's do I have to pay before I can get my licence back? Please, someone help me understand!

Does anyone know of a lawyer who takes on these cases? My hubby was slammed with these fees, we took out a loan to pay them, and the state is still harrassing us claiming it is unpaid! They even took our taxes! We get monthly bills from the state claiming he owes $900.00 but we have paid this! When he called to say that he had paid they said that they had it on record that he did in fact pay. He asked them why he was still getting bills and they told him they did not know.... When he went to the Sec of State to reinstate his lisence they would not do it cuz they said we still owed! My husband is not a drunk driver. He is the most moral upstanding person I know who works hard to support his family. He got caught driving with no insurnace on a suspended license for a ticket from more than 10 yrs ago! We are a one income family living from payday to dayday. We do the best we can. But we cannot always afford the fees, costs, insurance and taxes that the state imposes on us to drive. Now my hubby drives to work everyday "illegally" just to support his family. His nerves from driving and possibly getting caught and jailed and fined are starting to bother his health. I am watching a normally healthy and fun-loving guy become depressed! Is there any help out there?

You missed my post below, with link at the bottom. A GRapids attorney has been filing lawsuits and appeals to get this law thrown out for being unconstitutional, since the shit heads in Lansing refuse to act on supporting this bill 4006 to repeal the law. His latest brief was filed the beginning of June 2007, so it will take a while to know the results of the hearing, whenever one is held. Best advice is to call those shit heads at the treasury or MARCS and tell them to quit fucking around and send proof you paid the bill to your house and take it to the SOS office. I think they will need it. It sounds like they check some computer system to know if you paid, or it takes a while after you pay before it registers. Or maybe you missed a payment so they are charging interest or late fees. who knows List of blogs relating to this topic www.blogs.woodtv.com/?cat=12 post

I just sent a $5000 payment, because they sent me a letter saying that's what I owed. Now they come up with another $500 bill. I asked if I could set up a payment plan for the last fee and they said I could, but they couldn't clear my license. I had to do everything I could to come up with the $5000. I don't know why I still live in this State. It's no wonder why everybody's leaving.

This law as well violates the Fifth Amendement, are right to a trial.

It's a wonder why any of us continue to live in this state. It is a joke with all the fees and fines that a person can incur when we are all trying to survive and live a good life. It is rediculous that the state of Michigan would come up with a drivers responsibility fee. A person has to pay the ticket issued and an additional fee that the state wants us to pay right away. Not giving a person time to gather the money, although we would rather not have to pay it but we have to if we do not want to our drivers license revoked. The state of Michigan wants its citizens to continue to struggle. The state is in a hardship which puts the citizens in the same position, most people have been laid off and looking for work and others have not been employed because of lack of work. Those with jobs are barely making it because of high gas prices, utilities, auto payments, auto insurance and now we have to pay the state money that we do not have. The state of Michigan needs to find a better way to treat their people. I'm relocating to another state. Signed, Fed up with Michigan.

I have started a new website and will continue to update it with information as a I garner it from various places. The thing I'm hearing now is that the hold up is the governor and her veto or balance the budget pen and not the reps/senate. The site is http://www.michigan-driver-responsibility-law.com/welcome.html Please stop by and if you have any information to help us send it our way.

I'm getting out of here too.

I was just on the phone with two people with the department of treasury about my "driver's responsibility fee". I was told that I had a fee that was due back in March. They show that I had called them back in February about fees that I was paying. I was never informed at that time that I had owed any fees. On top of that, they had an address that I had changed when I made that first phone call on record, not my current address, which I had given them. Because I was never informed of the fee, for had I ever received any correspondence from the state about the fee, I now have to pay an additional 125 dollars to get my liscense back, on top of the fees that I have to pay for the most recent infraction. I got screwed by the system, and the state isn't going to do anything to help me out. I told them that even though I didn't know about that fee, that I would pay it off, but they won't do anything to help me out to get my liscense back. The more and more that I get taxed by this BS law, that our elected officials sprung on us without regard to what it was going to do to the citizens that they represent.

I bought a porsche, a twenty year old porsche 928 from a toyota dealer in Tulsa, for the sum of $12,000.00 - I expected the Great State of Michigan to charge the 6 percent sales tax, what i did not expect was the woman at the S.O.S. to calculate the plate fee, on the orginal base price of the car in 1988, which was $69,000.00 now i am stuck paying $259.00 a year for plates on a car i drive every other weekend, the price should have been based on what i Paid for the car NOW, not what it sold for new, I wonder where these people at the state level come up with these tax idea's how can they think this was fare and would help the tax payer? - This just is not right! - i wonder how the leaders of our state sleep at night?

I agree with this person. This states has way too many police officers harrassing the citizens of this state ... mostly the Melvindale Police Department. They have about 25 cops for a 2 mile square very small city. They spend their time sitting on corners issuing tickets. They also use their power to harrass. They also lose their audio tapes from police cars when a citizen complains about their conduct. The chief of police sits backs and does nothing. Now his wife is running for the mayor. We will have no justice now if she is elected.

All the revenue they generate. With that many cops in a small town the crime rate is about zero, right?

I already did. I moved to Florida a few months ago. It's wonderful. Got a great job, no income tax, no commie state government and NO snow! And its booming here. I ain't never moving back..............

in January...can't wait

I believe that if we all were to stand in a major park on a saturday and have people sign petitions regarding how this law not only imposes hardship on families, they would get the point. Or maybe someone should organize 10 buses from each state filled with people and bombard the steps of their offices. And maybe we should all try to go too have face to face meetings with these so called people who care about us so much.

I think we all should sue the State of Michigan. I would love to get at least 10,000 people to file a class action law suit against the state to show just they have made our lives a living hell. They are too concerned with lunch, brunch, and going on vacations. Not to mention our having to pay for their health insurance. We need to really get these peopl out of office and not let them back in again. All we have to do is remember their lies from the past and how they did not keep their word to us the citizens. I wish we could sue them I would jump on the band wagon. The state of Michigan is the reason why the crime rates are up. The state of Michigan is really just a Gigantic PIMP and we are the Prostitutes.

My family and I are out of the State of Michigan. I picture Kalamazoo being another Benton Harbor in about 5 more years. All of the jobs are leaving and the small business are not going to be able to survive for much longer. We are tired of Jennifer Granholms promises and not delivering and she herself nor her family are feeling the pressures of these imposed laws. Granholm should have never gotten back in office, what were we thinking. What ever happened too the money from the Lottery being used for schools? This is when Engler was in office, I thought this was a law that was passed. We are moving to Charlotte N.C. Michigan is not going to get any better not at all.

What does your paying your privilaged daughters $70 ticket and $300 hundred dollars have to do with the drivers responsibility fee. Was her license suspended? Did you have to pay a reinstatement fee? If you have so much money why don't be a good citizen and help another person get theirs back.

why are you commenting on Michigan Law?

We should send them hooked on phonix.

He says that, you clearly do not read your Bible. He wants us to forgive others so that when we have to come to him for forgiveness he will do it. But if we go too him with unforgiveness in our hearts how can we expect him to forgive us when we could not even follow a commandment. I do understand your pain, my niece was killed on her way to my mothers funeral by someone who clipped the back of their vehicle. Her son watched her fly out the window he was 10. So please forgive this person and release yourself, because you still sound very angry yourself.

Jenny Jenny who can we turn too?

I don't know if we the people even have power anymore like we use too. Jennifer should never had been voted back into office. Unfoutunately we really did not have much of any great choices that people could trust. Maybe we voted her back in because at least we were familar with her old lies and we did not want to have to deal with an new govenor and new lies. I wish we could get her out right now, she is driving us more and more in debt. Families are suffering from this imposed law that makes no sense. This law is causing break ins and the selling of drugs for the younger generation to pay this fine. But Michigan has a much larger problem. Kalamazoo and some of its officials were caught in a prostitution ring that has been going on since 2003. Police officers, procecutors, and even one FBI agent was allowed to resign. And for some unknown reason somone closed the case, and no one seems to know who closed the case. ( yeh right! Kalamazoo Gazette wants the names of those who were dipping into the prostitue and some even had a personal relationship with this woman. But the Judge may not release the names. Kalamazoo Gazette is saying it is the freedom of information act. They are fighting to get the names of these PEOPLE WHO SERVE AND PROTECT US AND REPRESENT US IN COURT AND SIT ON BENCHES. GO FIGURE!!!!!!!!!!

Only the FBI Agent was allowed to resign because he had a personal relationship with this prostitute.

When you sell your house in Michigan the buyes getted popped up. Then when I buy a new house I get popped up. Only good financial solution because of this is to leave Michigan- and people are

to forgive. but we will be forgiven EVEN IF WE DON'T. God also wants us to NOT BE EVIL. we will NOT be forgiven if we are. assisting evil IS BEING EVIL.

michiganders allowed you to stay THAT long. these guys must be SLIPPING. you should have been sent packing YEARS AGO.

Introduced by Rep. Andy Meisner on May 24, 2007, to give the Michigan higher education student loan authority the authority to transfer money to the Michigan merit award trust fund, which was created to hold revenue from the 1998 tobacco company lawsuit settlement. Unlike money controlled by the authority directly, there is no restriction on the legislature using money in the merit award fund (which is a “trust” fund in name only) for any other purpose. The bill is part of an agreement to avoid spending cuts in the current fiscal year budget by borrowing up to $500 million, plus another $100 million from the student loan authority, which is itself borrowed money. Passed in the House (101 to 5) on May 30, 2007, to give the Michigan higher education student loan authority the authority to transfer money to the Michigan merit award trust fund. Unlike money controlled by the authority directly, there is no restriction on the legislature using money in the merit award fund (which is a “trust” fund in name only) for any other purpose. The bill is part of an agreement to avoid spending cuts in the current fiscal year budget by borrowing up to $410 million, plus another $80 to $90 million from the student loan authority, which is itself borrowed money.

Yes it is not fair that you are charged for the original sticker price. However I just bought a 98 cadillac catera for 2,600 dollars, and when I went to the secretary of state to get my plates I was charged around 200 dollars because my car was originally 33,000 dollars, 9 years ago. One thing to compare this to is going to buy a regular xbox. In 2000 xbox's were going for what 400 to 500 dollars, and now that they are 150 only 6% is being charged to the current price not to the original price of 500. Lets put it this way, "it 's just another way for the government to get the money to fund our politicians retirement plans, which are also outrageous."

My husband is gtting screwed too! Hes been trying to get his license back for years but he still has to go to work everyday too. We are now up to 5000.00 and just got popped again yesterday! thats 6000!!!!! If it wernt for these fees that we cant afford to pay, he could get his license back! We have 4 children and live pay check to paycheck too and to boot, I got a ticket and paid it but then I got DRF fines as well and now my licence is suspended! These fines are BS and we should not have to pay additional fees on top of our court cost, fines etc. Did anyone find any way to beat this yet???? I kepp hearing that some judges are waiving those for people who are driving suspended just because of these fines. Any truth to that????