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Just so everyone knows if you get caught operating after suspension of your license, first offense is no longer arrestable, but it is now a civil offense whose fine has been jacked up to $500.00 minimum.

Second offense is a jail only disposition.

Nice. I'll be sure to remember that when I lose my license. Why should anyone be allowed to drive on a suspended license and not pay either a hefty fine $5,000 spend a month in the slam? I don't know about you guys in the deep south. But up here in Mainiac Land we got us a damned epidemic of driving after suspension violators. They're the ones who typically go out and kill somebody. I say you get suspended and you drive, you're toast. Big fine or jail time. No tolerance. Mass has unbelieveable gun control laws, rediculous unless you're a felon, and then you don't care anyway. But everybody drives and it's more dangerous than if you handed guns out at the voting hall in November.

Anybody ever get hit by somebody, suspended license, expired registration, no insurance, expired plate, expired inspection sticker, illegal?

i think if your license is suspended and your caught driving
it should be waived but only in cases where it was absolutely necessary to save someones life when communications are not available. Other than that scenario i would be in agreement.

I was involved with an uninsured motorist. She weighd about 225# and drove a 4x4 Full-size Bronco, in 2wd, onto an ice covered highway. Lost control, spun, I swerved left, then right, then left, then she went right across my bow, and I plowed her fat ass into a snowbank. Luckily she was unhurt and so was I. My pickup was wrecked and her frame was bent. She lied to the cops. Provided them with proof of insurance, but, it wasn't valid as she hadn't paid the bill and it was cancelled 8 months prior. Cost me $500 deductable and a surcharge on my insurance. When we found out she was "uninsured" I called the police. They didn't care. It's illegal to not have insurance, but it's apparently OK to provide false proof of insurance. This is all in Maine of course.

We had several suspended license fatalities in the past few years here in the Portland area. Truck driver killed a few kids. His license had been suspended a dozen times and was at that time. Lady pulled a u-turn on 295 and caused a multi-car wreck. She was under suspension. I read about them being stopped every week in the local dispatch notes.

Which can be a suspended sentence, as the "mandatory" 10 day sentence for a first offense ALWAYS was up until last week when the new law passed.

For those of you who occasionally over-imbibe and walk around in public--disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace are also now civil infractions for first offenses.

The rationale for all of this is to eliminate the necessity of appointing free lawyers for people charged with these offenses, who can't pay. Under Mass. law you are entitled to free representation by counsel, if you're indigent, if any of the charged offenses can be punished with a jail sentence--no matter how remote the chances of that are.

They passed some other "revenue-enhancement" legislation that affects the court system:

People who are placed on "administrative" probation (ie, those who are given a CWOF or are otherwise bound to "good behavior" by the court, but who don't have to be supervised by a probation officer) now pay $50 a month instead of the previous $21. People who are actually being supervised by a probation officer pay $65 and this wasn't changed.

Mike your right no one is going to jail for a 2nd offense suspended or revoked license in Massachusetts. The thing is, with it being a civil fine only, there will never be any second and subsequent offense, because it will never appear on anyones BOP because its a civil infraction. Very few people get attorneys for the offenses anyway, because none of them ever go beyond the arraignment. Who wouldn't take a CWOF when its thier 5th offense and in six months it gets dismissed if you don't get caught again.