Can’t you get arrested for driving with a suspended license , not just cited?
Dominos!
But wouldn’t the police have your car’s license plate number on a list of ones to look for?
Do you have any idea how many cars that is?
Alley Dweller, most suburbs like you’re talking about have some level of bus service that I’ve seen. Worst case scenario you could bike a few miles to a “park and ride” (very common these days), which is a location a bit out of the central city where a lot of suburban types live where you can park your car and then hop on the bus. Most of these places have bike racks you could lock your bike too (or you could stow your bike on the bike rack on the bus and take it in to the city with you.)
I don’t know personally of any suburbs of major cities where you’d be truly unable to get around.
The real issue would be truly rural areas. My great-grandfather was a rural postman (he was born in the 1800s), and for the first part of his career he did indeed run his route on horseback. And in fact, unlike what njtt said, most of the people he was delivering to absolutely did have some form of animal-based transportation. It may not have been a horse, but they might have mules or something that could pull a wagon. Mind in such a rural area, anyone who lived out there was involved in farming, because you didn’t live out there unless you were. That meant they needed those animals anyway, and how would they have gotten anything to market if they had no wagon or team to pull it?
While not every individual person would own a form of transportation, almost certainly everyone’s family would. But even still, getting to the nearest town might be a full day’s ride, which would mean an overnight trip. So it wasn’t something they did on an ordinary basis. They were much more self-sufficient, and aside from various sundries they were mostly food self-sufficient. They’d buy some stuff at the nearest store that they didn’t have ready or easy access to make themselves. There was also a lot of sharing. If one family was going into town, they would offer to pick up stuff for other nearby families, so that way each family would only have to make a trip once a month or so.
Further, my great-grandfather would regularly bring stuff on request from the nearest stores to people on his delivery route. Not an official service of the USPS at the time, but something many, many rural delivery postmen did during that era.
Those requests accelerated when he became one of the first people in his county to own a car (obviously not because of wealth, but just because he was one of the first whose jobs actually justified owning one.)
Now fast forward over 100 years and a lot has changed. Some of the areas where he ran a route are still very rural. However, almost no one in those areas is a self-sufficient farmer. Most of the farms have either been broken up or are only minimally maintained as hobby farms. The people who live on them are not self-sufficient and probably only grow one or two crops as side income. They to a one will work somewhere that requires a pretty long commute. A lot of them are poor, and are living in houses out there because they have been paid off for generations and are basically free to live in, it may not make sense for them to live out that far, but it’s comparing a free house that has little resale value to moving closer in to the city and paying rent or buying a house they probably can’t afford to finance.
Back in the day, while the closest store was a bit of a trip, there were feed stores and general stores even out in the country that would serve some of the needs of these people (that’s why they only had to make trips all the way into town very infrequently.) With the way society is today, these houses now probably have no stores like that anywhere nearby, so they truly have no ability to get to essential things without a car. It may have worked for people out there four generations ago, but society was very different then as were the people. The people lived on working farms that produced enough to get by day to day, and there were close by feed/general stores for small purchases, and everyone had some form of transportation or way of using neighbors to get access to town for other things.
It’s not so much about “Getting food” it’s carrying it back home.
There is not a one-to-one correspondence between cars and driver’s licenses. Let’s say a husband has his license suspended, does that mean that his wife should be pulled over every time she uses the family car? What if one of the kids has their license suspended? What if it’s a leased car and the lessor’s name is on the title?
One thing local police departments like to do is follow people out of traffic court when they get their licenses suspended or revoked. They will try to drive home with surprising regularity.
In some states (NC for instance) you can legally drive a scooter (under 50cc) without a license.
Several times I’ve realized my inspection has expired. I eventually take care of it, but in the interim I drive cautiously, avoiding police cars as much as possible. I imagine that is what people driving without licenses are doing.
As a friend of mine said, “A broken leg means you can’t drive. A suspended license means you shouldn’t drive.”
During one particularly hard economic time in my life, I lost my required ins coverage. I became very adept at driving with my rearview mirror. Only had to do it for right about a month, but that was some anxiety filled driving.
In a small Colorado town I lived in for a few years, I would check the police reports in the weekly paper. Lots of arrests were for the driving under suspension problem. The little town I was in was about 20 minutes from a bigger little town, which is where most of the neighbours shopped and worked. Bus service in that town was great, but it ended about 10 miles from us.
chappachula nailed it.
What do you mean “why do you need a car to get food?” You need a car because you live four miles away from the nearest store, have no access to public transportation and using a bicycle would be hazardous because half of that distance is a county highway with no shoulder. It is called suburbia.
I live in the suburbs, don’t drive, have no car, and don’t have trouble walking to the store to get food. If I need to keep food cold, I use a freezer bag.
This. The overwhelming majority of people with suspended licenses (probably over 80%) just keep on driving, and hope that they don’t get stopped again.
Lots of anecdotal evidence that “Well I live in one of those spots and it’s easy!”
It’s not easy for everyone, or even most people. Not every suburb is the same. Several friends, for instance, live in suburbs at least 5 miles from the closest store. In between is lots of rolling hills and other developments of 100 houses. The closest store? Not actually someplace where you can buy food. You have to go further for that. The town has hardly any bus service to speak of, and it certainly doesn’t go near their houses, only the downtown area. In fact, a lot of neighborhoods I’ve been in have no bus service to speak of.
My parents house is on a private road that opens straight on to a 55mph 4/6 lane highway with no sidewalks and some steep hills. Biking would have been very dangerous. The closest grocery store was at least 4 or 5 miles away. Nobody delivers to their house due to location (not even pizza places). Work for them was 25 minutes by car straight up this highway. Absolutely no bus stops. No trains. No park and rides. No taxis. It would have been a deathtrap to bicycle it. And I know for a fact that my mother and father would be unable to.
So there’s two anecdotal evidences to the contrary.
The fact of the matter is, if you own a car your life is built around it. You live in a place regardless of whether it has bus routes, and a lot of places in the USA don’t have bus routes. You live somewhere that stores aren’t necessarily close by. You work 40 minutes away. It’s fine, because you have a car. Well, when you don’t have a car anymore it’s no longer fine.
An interesting thing I’ve noted is I’ve watched my employers turn down potential hires because “They can’t drive. The buses here are shit, and they’ll never be to work on time so don’t even bother hiring them.”
I am pretty sure a large portion of them simply keep driving, albeit cautiously (I know someone who does). And yes, restricted licenses are there for people such as these, which allows for you to drive to work and get food. They must be applied for, however. In the interim…
Rides from Mom, Dad, and friends. There’s also a market and a little restaurant down the street I can walk too if I need something to eat. A couple of times, I just drove for the fuck of it.
It’s finding a job thats difficult. DUI without a license does not look good on a resume, and even if I did get the job, how am I supposed to get there? Friends and family can only do so much. They have their own lives to live, too.
The worst part is how much of a problem it can be. Say you lose your license for a year, and get caught driving. That’s another year. Do it again. Take on a couple more years. It can turn into a vicious cycle very quick.
I am not going to pay for the actual article, but according to the abstract most people simply drive anyway.
This article attests that a significant number of people in the areas they focused in continued to drive.
Sorry for the double post, but this article’s abstract also correlates with a high rate of driving anyway while suspended.
Seems well-known by the traffic authorities that people drive while suspended. There’s news articles all over the place on it if you search the net, but I figured scholarly articles are a bit better.
The funny thing is that, in many cases, if they drove cautiously in the first place, they wouldn’t have had their licenses suspended.
Gotta agree with the above posters. Here in the Great State of Washington, according to what I continually read in the papers, they just go ahead and drive anyway. Particularly if blind drunk.