Virginia plans to end driver’s license suspensions for court debt

Virginia’s governor announced plans this week to stop suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid court fines and fees, a change that could affect more than 600,000 people.

A Washington Post analysis earlier this year found that more than 7 million people nationwide may have had their driver’s licenses suspended for failure to pay court or administrative debt, a practice that advocates say unfairly punishes the poor. A spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles said 626,537 drivers had their licenses suspended as of Dec. 1 for failure to pay such costs.