Will Licensing Illegal Immigrants Have An Impact On The Problem Of Hit - and - run Accidents?

Will Licensing Illegal Immigrants Have An Impact On The Problem Of Hit - and - run Accidents?

Hit - and - run accidents are a serious problem in Orange County, Los Angeles, and throughout California, claiming 185 lives and injuring 20, 260 people in the state in 2009, according to the California Highway Patrol’s Statewide Entire Traffic Records System. Authorities have suggested that one cause a driver may not reach at the scene to oversee sustain to someone with whom he or broad has been involved in a car or other type of traffic accident is the bugbear of penalties for driving without a license, explains a lawyer. Some proponents of issuing licenses to undocumented immigrants claim that it may reduce their likelihood to lose the scene of crashes, thereby reducing the digit of hit - and - run accidents in the state.
Under California law, as outlined in Vehicle Code Section 20003, any driver who is involved in a collision with another vehicle resulting in injury to or death of its occupants is required to letup and hang in at the scene of the incident. If necessary, the driver is required to administer assistance to the occupants of the vehicle, as well as hand over them with his or her nomen and current directions, vehicle registration, and driver’s license. When drivers fail to set with these requirements by fleeing the scene of the accident they will be subject to penalties, including imprisonment in state prison, or in county jail for not more than one stint, or by a fine of not less than one thousand dollars, or both.
In recent months, several people have been seriously injured or killed in hit - and - run accidents throughout California. On February 6th, a driver struck a 13 - stint - aged teenybopper in a Root Valley crosswalk, spring her critically injured in the roadway. On February 8th, a 61 - space - aged man was struck and dragged 150 feet before the vehicle stopped pdq to release him, flying start him to die in a Fontana street. On the same day, the driver of a stolen Nissan Maxima struck a mother and her 3 - age - senescent daughter in a crosswalk approaching Anaheim, seriously injuring the woman and ludicrous the child. Thus on Sunday, February 12th, two vehicles hit esteemed ballet dancer Zina Bethune in Los Angeles; the driver of the succour vehicle did not bar to control support. According to bosky information reports, authorities have only identified one of the drivers responsible for these collisions.
In propriety to be eligible for a driver’s license in California, one must current a Social Rosiness character and a intimacy of apartment in the state, requirements preventing undocumented immigrants from legally driving. Some in the state, including Los Angeles police bad Charlie Beck, have explicit substructure for issuing licenses to illegal immigrants, claiming that subjecting them to a screening and testing process would not only touch up safety but also authorities’ potentiality to track these drivers. In addition, Beck has suggested that, in the absence of the threat of penalties for unlicensed driving, undocumented immigrants would be more likely to live on at the scene after accidents.
While issuing licenses to undocumented immigrants has the potential to purify safety by ensuring they are tested on the state’s driving laws, it is strenuous to predict the impact it may have on the incidence of hit - and - run car accidents in Orange County, Los Angeles, and elsewhere, explains a lawyer. The threat of penalties for unlicensed driving is likely not the only impetus motorists escape the scenes of crashes; they may also recreancy the consequences of being into driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol or in a stolen vehicle, as was the case in the accident near Anaheim.