NC DOT has published its analysis of data regarding vehicle crashes during the spread of COVID-19 throughout our state. The results may surprise you.
Motor Vehicles
Fielding a Few Questions About License Revocations for Failure to Appear and Comply
I wrote last week about the expiration of emergency orders that had temporarily halted clerks from reporting to DMV a person’s failure to appear or to pay monies owed in a Chapter 20 criminal or infraction case. When DMV receives such a report, it imposes a license revocation pursuant to G.S. 20-24.1, unless the person does one of the following before the revocation goes into effect:
- disposes of the charge;
- demonstrates that he or she is not the person charged with the offense;
- pays the penalty, fine, or costs ordered by the court; or
- demonstrates to the court that his failure to pay the penalty, fine, or costs was not willful and that he is making a good faith effort to pay or that the penalty, fine, or costs should be remitted.
Someone asked me recently about these sanctions for nonappearance and nonpayment — or incentives for appearance and payment — depending upon one’s perspective. How many revocations are imposed for failures to appear and failures to pay? Do other states have similar license revocation schemes? What other ways exist to incentivize appearance and payment?
2020 Motor Vehicle Legislation of Interest — To Me and the Kids
It is somewhat rare for one of my children to know more about recently enacted legislation than I do. But it happened a few weeks ago when the General Assembly adopted legislation that allows my sixteen-year-old to get his driver’s license without taking a road test. This post will cover that legislation and other recent amendments to the state’s motor vehicle laws.
Case Summaries – North Carolina Court of Appeals (July 7, 2020)
This post summarizes published criminal opinions of the Court of Appeals decided on July 7, 2020.
Meet CASSI: North Carolina’s First Fully Autonomous Vehicle
The General Assembly clearly was preparing for the future in June 2017 when it enacted regulations governing the operation of fully autonomous vehicles. Just two-and-a-half years later, that future has arrived on North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus. There, students, staff and visitors to campus can take a ride with CASSI, a driverless vehicle. 
Buckling Up: Part of the Strategy to Reduce Deaths from Impaired Driving
North Carolina’s Impaired Driving Task Force held its first quarterly meeting of 2020 a few weeks ago. Bill Naff, program manager for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), spoke at the meeting about strategies to reduce impaired driving fatalities. You might be surprised to hear about one strategy that was near the top of the list: Get every vehicle occupant to buckle up. 
Commission Recommends Changes to DWI Laws and Correctional Policies
The North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission released last November a report recommending several changes to the state’s impaired driving laws and correctional policies. The report marked the culmination of more than three years of study that included examination of DWI sentencing and correctional data as well as consideration of input from law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and providers of substance abuse treatment. The report’s fifteen recommendations address issues ranging from pretrial conditions of release for defendants charged with impaired driving to the place of confinement for defendants serving active sentences.
More on Efforts to Reduce Impaired Driving
This is not the first (and likely will not be the last) blog post about research findings and strategies to reduce impaired driving. A few months ago, I wrote about a veteran researcher’s recommendations to expand ignition interlock and conduct more high visibility enforcement. Last week, I wrote about the risks posed by impaired drivers, the prevalence of impairment by alcohol versus other impairing substances, and the percentage of impaired drivers involved in fatal crashes who have previously been convicted of impaired driving. This week’s post addresses research in two areas related to efforts to reduce impaired driving: (1) the impact of transportation network companies, like Uber and Lyft, on the incidence of impaired driving; and (2) British Columbia’s success in reducing impaired driving through a program imposing administrative, rather than criminal, sanctions.