Letting Unauthorized Immigrants Get Driver’s Licenses Makes Roads Safer
Reminds me of what happened to the conservative “conventional wisdom” on drug testing recipients of state assistance. And what is really up with tax revenues from unauthorized immigrants. And what role they actually play in an economy based in part on seasonal work and emigrant.immigrant workforces that move with the work.
So as Trump talks wall and who pays, remember who stands on the side of falsehoods, misleading urban mythos. Coming to the wrong conclusions for policy just because policy based on falsehoods stands on a foundation of ice in high Summer. Did I say ICE?
After implementing one such law in January 2015, California saw a 7- to 10-percent statewide drop in hit-and-run accidents that year, Stanford researchers report Monday in PNAS. That equates to roughly 4,000 fewer hit-and-runs for the year. In that time frame, more than 600,000 unauthorized immigrants got licenses, and the numbers of accidents and traffic fatalities were unchanged by the law.
“Overall, the findings suggest that providing driver’s licenses to unauthorized immigrants led to improved traffic safety,” the authors conclude.
The findings offer some long-needed data to the debate on such policies. Currently, 12 states and Washington, DC have adopted laws allowing people living in the country without legal permission to obtain licenses to drive. California’s law, dubbed AB60, allows unauthorized immigrants residing in California to drive legally. And it explicitly prohibits law enforcement officers from reporting license holders to immigration officials.
Critics contend that licensing unauthorized immigrants will lead to more accidents and less safe roadways. They reason that such motorists: will likely end up driving old, poorly maintained cars; are unlikely to buy insurance; may not be able to decipher English road signs; and may hail from places where fleeing the scene of an accident is acceptable.
More: Letting unauthorized immigrants get driver’s licenses makes roads safer