SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Stats on DOL website prove Durkan is lying about suspended license drivers

Nov 28, 2018, 1:53 PM

A study on the Washington state Department of Licensing's website states that drivers who drive wit...

A study on the Washington state Department of Licensing's website states that drivers who drive with a suspended license are three times more likely to cause a fatal crash. (KIRO 7)

(KIRO 7)

We have some exclusive news for you that proves that our leaders around here are either unimaginably stupid, or attempting to deceive you so that they can look like social justice crusaders. Sometimes we catch them red-handed — and this is one of those days.

Jenny Durkan and City Attorney Pete Holmes want to lift a little over 200 warrants for people driving with a suspended license because they say it’s not fair to people of color and poor people, who disproportionately have these types of warrants. They assured us that this action would have no impact on public safety.

I have to ask the question, are Pete Holmes and Jenny Durkan really that stupid, or are they trying to deceive the public so they can burnish their reputation as grand social justice warriors?

RELATED: City getting rid of select warrants for social justice PR moment

On Tuesday night, I found a very fascinating 37-page document. Guess where I found this document? Why, it was on the Washington state Department of Licensing’s website. I’m guessing that Jenny Durkan and Pete Holmes would have access to information on the state DOL website, right? The title of this document was, “Estimation of Fatal Crash Rates for Suspended/Revoked and Unlicensed Drivers in California.”

This study covered a 23-year period, from 1987 through 2009. The study was conducted in California, but consistently matches the stats from around the country. Guess what this 37-page document on the Washington state DOL website says? For every year studied, suspended license drivers are over-involved in fatal crashes as the at-fault driver. And, if you take the entire 23-year period, the fatality rate for suspended license drivers is, in fact, about triple that of legal, validly-licensed drivers.

So when Jenny Durkan and Pete Holmes say that they are going to forgive people with a suspended license because there is no public safety risk, we can determine from data available to all of us on the state Department of Licensing’s website that they are lying, either from ignorance or from their desperate, manipulative social justice agenda. There is no third option here. It is either stupidity or willful deception.

I personally have known a woman since college, about my age now, whose life was forever physically impacted when a suspended license driver crashed into her about 25 years ago. Back then, I started doing the research. I knew then and I know now that people who drive with a suspended license are a far greater death risk to my life, my loved ones, your life, and your loved ones.

Not to mention, when Jenny Durkan and Pete Holmes stand up there at this press conference — unchallenged, of course, because who can challenge them? — and say that we need to lift these warrants because they’re unfair to the poor and minorities, it is in fact extremely condescending to the poor and minorities. I know a lot of low-income people and people of color who do not break the law. They do not use their economic or racial status as an excuse not to follow the law. But our liberal enablers running this region are willing to put people three times more likely to kill innocent citizens on the roads because they claim our criminal justice system is “unfair.”

You know what is unfair, Jenny Durkan and Pete Holmes? I think it’s unfair when you put people who are demonstratively more deadly on our roads. I think it’s unfair when you send a clear message that driving with a suspended license is a crime you don’t care about as you spin your lie that it has no impact on public safety.

In a city that has sent such a clear message to heroin addicts around the country that we will not prosecute drug use, in a city where we have de-policed so much, in a city where we have the highest property crime rate in the nation, sure, let’s start allowing people with a suspended license to kill innocent people on our roads.

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Dori: Stats on DOL website prove Durkan is lying about suspended license drivers