Addressing Collisions Involving Unlicensed Drivers and Drivers with Suspended or Revoked Licenses

Introduction

No matter how well our highways and vehicles are designed and maintained, ultimately highway safety depends upon the behavior of users, especially drivers. Every state has a driver-licensing program that is charged with ensuring that drivers who are issued a license are competent to operate on the roadway system. However, states generally require relicensure only once every several years (usually four or five; Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 2002)¹, and this interval has been lengthened by many states in an effort to cut costs and reduce delays at license-issuing facilities. Some states do not even require in-person renewal, and those that do usually administer only perfunctory evaluation. There are also strong pressures on licensing programs to limit imposition, including costs, on renewal applicants. At the same time, licensing agencies have a legal responsibility to the greater public to license only qualified drivers and to keep unqualified drivers off the road.

Most drivers respond appropriately to enforcement measures aimed at reducing unsafe driving, and most drivers generally refrain from illegal driving in order to avoid legal sanctions (general deterrence). If they should be apprehended for a traffic violation, it is likely that the consequences will have the desired effect and discourage them from repeat offenses. However, there remain two groups of drivers who continue to drive without proper licensure: those whose license privilege has been taken away by suspension or revocation (S/R) and those driving without having ever received a license.

A recent report (Griffin and DeLaZerda, 2000) analyzing 5 years of Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data found that one out of five fatal crashes involves at least one driver who is not properly licensed (unlicensed, S/R, expired, canceled or denied, unknown). Because exposure data were not available, mileage rates of involvement could not be calculated for each category or for validly licensed drivers.

Exhibit II-1 shows the proportion of unlicensed or improperly licensed drivers in fatal crashes for the year 2000, the most recent year for which data are available. Here about 17 percent of drivers in fatal crashes are not properly licensed, a proportion far higher than that estimated for all drivers. It should be noted that this table is based on drivers, not on number of crashes.

EXHIBIT II-1
Proportion of Drivers Not Licensed or Holding No Valid License for this Class of Vehicle, Fatal Crashes, 2000

First Harmful Event in Crash	Unlicensed/No Valid License, Percent
Overturn	18
Pedestrian	10
Pedal cycle	8
Motor vehicle in transport	17
Parked motor vehicle	24
Bridge abutment, rail; guardrail; concrete barrier	20
Sign, post, pole	22
Culvert, curb, ditch, embankment	22
Fence, wall	21
Tree, other fixed object	19
Involvement in any crash type listed above*	17
*Not every first harmful event is included, but for all events in original table, 17% of the total drivers were unlicensed or held no valid license for the class of vehicle operated. Based on the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) Web-based encyclopedia, available at http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/ (Accessed August 12, 2002).

Despite the marked over-involvement of improperly licensed drivers in fatal crashes, traffic violations are often not treated seriously in the court system, where prosecutors and others consider burglaries, assaults, and other crimes of greater importance (even though people are at much greater risk of a crash injury than of being the victim of a crime). The use of separate traffic courts that handle only traffic offenses will increase the likelihood of appropriate sanctions.

These unlicensed/suspended/revoked (U/S/R) drivers are especially difficult to reach and to influence. However, there are some interventions that have shown promise and are worthy of further implementation.

The most severe sanctions have been evaluated primarily on the basis of DUI² offenders, not drivers who are S/R for other reasons. However, DUI offenders have proved to be some of the most intractable, so measures showing an impact on this group are likely to be effective with other U/S/R drivers.

¹ Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. U.S. Driver Licensing Renewal Procedures for Older Drivers as of May 2002. http://www.highwaysafety.org/safety_facts/state_laws/older_drivers.htm (Accessed July 19, 2002).

² Some jurisdictions use DWI, for driving while intoxicated, instead, and some states use both DUI and DWI, relating the terms to level of intoxication. In this document, DUI is used, even when a particular state may use DWI. The use of DUI in this report does not imply a particular level of alcohol intoxication.