01/24/06  Way to go, City Council!!

Some comments from some smart people on the subject of towing:

		Officer CS:  Last year, Dallas PD wrote about 94,000 citations for Failure to Maintain Financial Responsibility (FMFR), which is not having liability insurance.  Of the citations written:
			29% Whites	32% Hispanic	1% Indian
			37% Black	1% Asian	1%Other
The city captures several pieces of information that I couldn't get, such as how many were involved in accidents. The location where the tickets were written was also very difficult to determine without intensive data correction. Where were the tickets written? All over. A large percentage of the citations were written south of I-30, but I couldn't determine what percentage. It's difficult to make any conclusions from the data available. Many of the citations were written to drivers that don't live in Dallas. There is no way to determine how many people received warnings or how many traffic stops were actually performed. The number of officers and number of traffic stops vary from division to division. The only time an officer is forced to write a citation for FMFR is at an accident scene. At all other times, the officer has discretion to issue or not issue a citation. I firmly believe some Council members are off-base with their claims that minorities and "poor" will be targeted for towing.  It's hard to say someone was targeted when they are involved in an accident. The issue of race and traffic enforcement is very complex and can't be boiled down to black officer / white driver or black driver / white officer. Without a good working dataset, making any conclusions regarding race, location and enforcement is going to be impossible. With over 94,000 citations to decipher, I don't think I'll have time to work it out.
		Chip Northrup: Towing policy works ... and it's for everyone The plan to tow uninsured motorists in Dallas will be a great incentive for people without insurance to get some ? fast ? as the law requires.
That is the fundamental assumption of the state's "no fault" liability system ? everyone must be insured so fault does not have to be determined in each accident, and both parties can be compensated by insurance. The fact that someone is poor or not fluent in English is no defense, since that person must be able to read English well enough to get a driver's license and must be able to assume the responsibilities and liabilities from driving, such as passing a safety inspection. This is a good law that's overdue. All parts of the city will be well served in its enforcement.
		Michael Perry:  Dear Mayor Miller and Council Members: I was happy to hear you all voted in favor of the proposed towing policy in Dallas to be reviewed in two years to make certain there is no targeted group.
I have been involved in two separate accidents that were no fault of my own in Dallas and each time the driver at fault had no driver?s license or insurance.  I would like to remind everyone that the City of Dallas is a majority minority city ? check the statistics for yourself.  The majority of minorities living in multiple family housing units are poor with multiple families living in a single apartment/home. This situation is not isolated to the southern sector or northern sector of Dallas. It is rampant all over the City of Dallas.  When the analysis is done in two years please take these statistics into consideration before arriving at any conclusions.

This is one of the smartest decisions this council has or will make.  It is the beginning of the end of the politically correct mafia's dominance over common sense.  It is the ultimate insult to minorities or poor people to assume they are incapable of or unwilling to follow basic laws of the road.

Previously, I told you about a problem in our neighborhood that where some jerks were using the front yard of a rental duplex facing Walnut Hill as a used car lot.  City staff warned them several times, and they always pled ignorance of city rules against their illegal business activity.  They would wait a few days (if that long), and the cars would be back on the front yard for sale.  Finally, Code Inspectors started treating those jerks like adults and held them responsible for their bad deeds.  Not only did the inspectors issue criminal citations to the tenants who were breaking the law, but the owner of the property got a citation for allowing the business activity on his property.  Guess what!  The landlord got those jerks out of his rental property. 

It's the same concept that will make people follow the law when they know their car gets towed if they do not obey the law requiring car insurance when you drive on public streets.  As soon as some jerks actually have their cars towed and sold, the other jerks will get the message.

As right as they are about towing, the council made a mistake on verified response regarding business burglar alarms.  It was a compromise over the original plan, but it sends a very bad message.  Ch. 11 reported Monday night the $15,000 used to mail out the flyers promoting verified response (not very effective flyers) was paid for by funds donated by SECURITY GUARD companies, whose employees the burglar alarm people will have to hire to respond to burglar alarms.  Not a good thing!

But, back to the good news -- remember you read it first on DallasArena.com last Saturday:

Council likely to OK towing compromise; Effort to stop uninsured drivers would be checked for profiling Monday, January 23, 2006 by EMILY RAMSHAW / The Dallas Morning News

... Her colleagues had just reached an informal compromise on a controversial measure to impound vehicles of uninsured drivers in accidents, a deal that involved revisiting the program in two years to check for racial and geographic profiling. ... "The logistics need some work," Dr. Garcia said. "That being said, I'm going to support it because it's a compromise ? because it's a step in the right direction."    With Dr. Garcia's support, the council will probably cast a unanimous vote Wednesday for the towing compromise, which was negotiated by Mayor Laura Miller, the measure's author, and Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill late last week. Under the compromise, police would: ? Have the vehicles of uninsured drivers involved in accidents impounded until they prove they have insurance. ? Keep statistics on whose cars are towed, based on gender, race and location in the city. ... ? Notify the city manager and the police chief when the pound reaches 95 percent capacity and is at risk of overflowing. ... "A majority of the City Council was ready to approve [the measure] with no stipulations," Ms. Miller said. "Because some people had some issues, I thought it would be nicer for us to get closer to a consensus." ... Advocates of the measure say it will keep people who aren't authorized to drive from causing costly and sometimes fatal accidents. And they believe a corresponding reduction in accidents will lower insurance rates for law-abiding drivers.    Driving with auto insurance "is the law, and laws should be enforced," Mr. Hill said. ... will immigrants and low-income residents ? those least likely to have auto insurance ? be unfairly targeted? ... will moving police officers from patrol to traffic have a detrimental effect on crime? ... Some continue to question the merits of a program that, while pretty on paper, hasn't always had the desired effect elsewhere in the country.    In a review of Seattle's program, for example, blacks made up 40 percent of those whose cars were impounded (and 10 percent of the population). About 50 percent of the time, car owners couldn't afford or chose not to retrieve their vehicles from the pound.    "There are still some questions. What about Grandma and Grandpa who forget to put their insurance card in the glove compartment?" council member Pauline Medrano asked. ...

The only thing wrong with the towing compromise is that it does not include drivers stopped for speeding or other moving violations.  If you get caught driving without proof of car insurance, your car should be towed.  If Grandma or Grandpa don't have proof of insurance in their wallet or in their car, they are breaking the law.  If they are involved in an accident and don't have proof of insurance, their car should be towed. 

I don't care what ethnic percentages make up the owners of the towed cars.  If someone robs a bank, do we stop arresting bank robbers because we have already arrested too many bank robbers of one race and are short numbers from another ethnic group or the jails are full of other bank robbers? 

If this council votes UNANIMOUSLY on Wednesday to approve towing cars of uninsured drivers, they will have done us all a good thing.  For that matter, if only 8 of the 15 vote for towing cars of uninsured drivers, they will have done us all a good thing.

And, yes, I had a car totaled several years ago by an uninsured driver.

sb