Daily BrewB.C.’s SkyTrain tracking down 37,000 people who haven’t paid fines
If you were a precocious British Columbia teenager who was once fined for sneaking onto the SkyTrain, you could be refused your next driver’s licence renewal.
A B.C. crackdown has left nearly 40,000 possible facing possible licence refusals due to sins of the past, including at least one woman whose transgressions date back to childhood.
The issue relates to an agreement the TransLink transit agency came to with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia in 2012, which essentially gave the Crown-owned insurance group the right to refuse to issue driver's licnces over unpaid transit fines.
That deal essentially expanded a "motor vehicle indebtedness" program, which gave ICBC the same right for missed Autoplan payments or unpaid speeding tickets.
Earlier this month, CBC News reported that some 14,000 B.C. residents face refused licence renewals over unpaid tolls from the Golden Ears Bridge. One woman, for example, had racked up more than $5,000 in unpaid fines.
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The Province recently reported on the case of Rayanne Tupman, a 25-year-old mother of two, and nursing student, who has been told she will not be able to renew her driver's licence until she pays $2,000 in transit fines she racked up as a teen.
According to the newspaper, Tupman used to sneak on to the SkyTrain when she was 15 and ride for free. On the occasions that she was caught, she was issued tickets, which were never paid.
She now argues that because she was a minor she was unable to understand the repercussions of leaving the fines unpaid and that her parents should have been informed.
It should be noted that she admits fault and plans to pay. Still, she could have a point.
Minors have legal guardians for a reason. We have our juvenile records sealed, and we're not allowed to drive until a certain age. To put it simply, the teenaged brain is not finished forming.
Doctors at the National Institute of Mental Health have conducted tests that suggest the brain continues to mature until the around the age of 20. Some of the last regions to develop are those responsible for impulse control and planning.
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This isn't intended to offer Tupman a clean slate. She's taken responsibility and will pay the fine. Still, if a 15-year-old child was caught drinking and driving, you can be sure authorities would address the issue with the child's guardians.
If they were caught committing a serious crime on the SkyTrain, that issue would be brought up the chain of command to an adult. If a minor is caught sneaking a free ride, it should have been handled with communication through her parents. To do less is to give the matter short shrift.
A decade ago, both Tupman and transit officials treated these fines like a meaningless slap on the wrist. Now, because money is tight, TransLink suddenly claims they were serious all along. And the woman Tupman grew up to become is left in the lurch.
How many of the 37,000 others being held hostage by mistakes they made as minors, who made bad decisions while they waited for their frontal lobes to develop?
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