STOP THE NH DMV LICENSE SUSPENSIONS

The sweet sweet feeling of having your license for the very first time. You know now that you have a lot more freedom now. No more having to worry about begging your parents or older friends for rides. Now fast forward 2 years from now. You can consider yourself a good driver. Youve never been pulled over, not even for an out tail light. But all of a suddenly one day your feeling a little daring and you decide to go 10 above the speed limit (which is the speed that everyone else is going), and you get pulled over. You get fined $250 then 1 month later get your license suspended for 20 days and to get your license back you have to pay another $100 to take a defensive driving class and restore your license. So how much does that suck? Well I can tell you first hand that it sucks. I had to rely on my parents and friends for rides to college and I wasnt able to work for my job because my job required me to drive. So what is my point besides complaining a whole bunch? Well the NH DMV needs to have their license suspension policies for kids 20 and under abolished and re-written. They are very unfair and unjust especially for first time offenders. Perhaps with a lighter suspension policy then driving offenses would decrease. Today I will share with you how these NH DMV suspension policies are unfair and unjust, recommend how to get NH DMV to change their policies, and urge you all to join me in writing to the DMV to help them see how suspending our license do not help improve our driving or teach us a lesson.

According to the NH DMVs website, Suspension of your driver's license is a serious consequence for convictions of serious violations. So whats the problem with that? Well the key words there serious violations. Well also on the NH DMVs web site you find how they define serious violations and that is, a series of laws that one person will break during a driving period. Its kind of aggravating because my traffic violation was needless to say, not a serious violation. So why then did I loose my license? Because the state of NH feels they need to make an example of kids like me. That is wrong! I almost ended up loosing my job because they felt that suspending my license to make an example out of me would also teach me a lesson about driving. To be truthfully honest it didnt. Im sure all of you will agree that not only this state but this country wants every single one of us to maintain a job and go to school, but there are so many cases were kids our age who got their license suspended lost jobs and saw a major decrease in their school work. In one case a boy named Donald Quite from Manchester, NH lost his license for doing 20 over the speed limit. He told me that, at this point in time I was in my sophomore year at Keene state and commuted to school due to money issues. After loosing his license he was no longer able to commute to college and he lost his job as a Meals on Wheels driver. Being without a job and not being able to get a ride to and pay for college everyday he was forced to drop out. So it is very obvious that the suspension policies are a problem in New Hampshire.

So what should be done? There is a variety of different things that could be done. One would be instead of the suspensions (hand out sheet with 20/45/60 day suspensions) they could instill probationary periods. Instead of just having to surrender your license to the DMV you would be put on 1 year probation were if you were to have another moving violation then you would have to surrender your license to the DMV. Another step that could be taken is to instead of suspending the license at the hearing to sternly talk to the person who is on trial. Have the hearing officer let him/her know that is a privilege to have a license and that this will not tolerate this happening again. That will most likely really make the kid think about how to improve his or her driving. A third action that can be taken to resolve this problem would be to abolish the suspension policies because just being fined is a good enough lesson. Who would seriously speed again after a $250 fine? It is quite obvious that they are very pointless and being abused by the state to set examples. Any of these steps would prove effective in solving the license suspension problem of NH.

Sign this if you feel that the NH DMV LICENSE SUSPENSION POLICIES NEED TO BE CHANGED!