LICENSES

Pennsylvania Act 95 of 2018, signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf, is now in effect to eliminate driver’s license suspensions for nondriving infractions in the commonwealth moving forward.

The law amends Title 75 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes to reflect a driving privilege suspension will no longer be imposed for certain non-highway safety violations, including substance use violations.

“The General Assembly stepped up and enacted this common sense legislation that promotes smart sentencing reform but there is more work to do,” Gov. Wolf said. “We need to break down even more unnecessary and especially difficult roadblocks to success and stability. Having a valid driver’s license often is the key to finding and keeping a job, especially in parts of Pennsylvania where public transportation isn’t readily accessible.

“We must ensure penalties promote rehabilitation, instead of the opposite. We need to make this our goal when it comes to probation and parole, and bail policies. If our policies make a second chance harder, especially in a way that is disproportional by economic status, they need to change.”

The law Act 95 amended was one of many Congress enacted to punish drug crimes in the early 1990s when the War on Drugs sought to significantly reduce drug crimes.

Congress had threatened states with reduced federal highway funding if they didn’t enact the automatic driver’s licenses suspensions for drug crimes.

Over the next two decades states began using a provision of the federal law that allowed them to opt out of these suspensions. Pennsylvania’s Act 95 allows the state will no longer automatically suspend upward of 20,000 driver’s licenses each year for reasons that do not include driving offenses.