House Bill 362: Moving Violation Points Accountability Act

When a driver is ticketed for a moving violation by a police officer, he or she can go to court to contest their guilt. Usually the court date comes months after the ticket was issued. If the driver is found innocent, their are no sanctions of course. But what happens if the driver is found guilty of the charges? Of course they have to pay the fine (plus court costs) and the MVA assesses "points" against their license. If somebody accumulates 8 points, then their license gets suspended.

Of course the points aren't assessed on a driver's license when they are pulled over. They only go into effect when/if they are found guilty. That may occur several months after the actual infraction. If they continue (ie: delay) their court date, it may come as much as a year later.

However, even though the points go into effect at the time of conviction, Maryland law says the points will expire 2 years from the violation. So there is incentive for drivers to delay their court dates in order to shorten the duration in which the points apply. It's a little quirk in our law. But repeat bad drivers exploit this loophole often.

For this reason, I have introduced House Bill 362: The Moving Violation Points Accountability Act. This bill eliminates the loophole by saying that moving violation points expire two years after the conviction (instead of the violation). This eliminates the incentive to delay court dates and ensures that bad drivers are held fully accountable for their actions.

You can read the actual text of the bill by clicking here

[UPDATE 2/10/2009]: 

You can view the powerpoint presentation I presented in the House hearing today by clicking here.

You can hear the audio recording of my testimony by clicking here.