Ballot initiative aims to curb unlicensed drivers

LAKEWOOD – Voters likely will decide in November whether police should impound the vehicle of every unlicensed driver they stop in the city.

City Council on Aug. 10 will review a citizen-initiated ordinance that would require “immediate impounding of motor vehicles driven by an unlicensed driver.” The initiative also would require owners of vehicles impounded under the ordinance to post a $2,500 bond that would be surrendered to the city if police catch another unlicensed driver at the wheel of the vehicle within a year. It also would impose a $200 impoundment fee.

Council can adopt the ordinance or send it to voters. The 11-member City Council is expected to send the issue to the ballot box.

“Getting unlicensed drivers off the road is a big deal because if one hits you, you have to have enough insurance to cover any injuries to your car, because they’re not going to have any,” said Daniel Hayes, a resident of north Jefferson County.

Hayes enlisted two Lakewood residents to be the “Petitioner’s Committee” in order to get the issue on the city’s ballot.

Daniels has adopted the unlicensed driver issue and coordinated petition drives to place the question on ballots in Lakewood, Denver and Aurora in November.

The Denver version is under challenge by the city, which claims one of the petition committee members does not live at the address she provided to election officials. A law firm has challenged the Aurora version, saying the form of the petition was incorrect because the mandatory warning to petition signers does not appear on each page of the petitions.

Opponents of the issue say the proposal would stretch already thin police resources and take a measure of discretion from officers. It also has been criticized as cost-heavy.

“Almost everybody knows someone who has been hit by an unlicensed driver and it’s just a nightmare,” Hayes said.

Critics also accuse Hayes of pursuing the issue as a way of pressing an anti-immigration agenda, saying the ballot initiatives target people who are in this country illegally.

Hayes concedes that watching the way what he calls “unlicensed illegals” are handled by traffic judges prompted his crusade, but said the proposed ballot questions target all unlicensed – and therefore uninsured – drivers.

“They’re not the victim, we are,” Hayes said. “The person riding a motorcycle that doesn’t have an ‘M’ (the motorcycle endorsement) on their license, the truck driver that somebody hired without checking to see if they had a commercial drivers license, these are not the victims. It’s all unlicensed drivers.”

The initiative likely to go before Lakewood voters makes provisions for people who simply forgot or can’t find their valid license. It also protects rental car agencies from being forced to pony up for a “vehicle bond”.

 The bonds, Hayes said, are available on Denver’s “Bail Bond Row” near the new Justice Center complex downtown. The cost is about $375 to $400 for a year’s coverage.

Securing the more than 4,000 signatures needed to get the issue on Lakewood’s ballot proved easier than in Denver or Aurora, Hayes said.

“In Lakewood, we came up with almost a thousand more signatures than we needed. I think that’s because in Lakewood, people who say they are Lakewood voters are Lakewood voters,” Hayes said, referring to a number of signatures that were disqualified in Denver and Aurora.

“We got a lot higher percentage of successful signatures in Lakewood than we usually get,” he said.