As some of you know, I live in a very rural area with long commutes. There's no public transportation, and it's hard to find carpools because people are very spread out. The chances of finding someone who lives near you AND is going to the same area at roughly the same time on a regular basis is low. But another parent at my daughter's school mentioned that one of the families there just moved to my neighborhood. So I got ahold of her, proposed the carpool idea, and we exchanged numbers. I hadn't met her before, but she was pleasant and I do know her kids. I also know her to be a regular volunteer at the school, which means she has to pass a yearly background check. So I wasn't really concerned.
Until I ran her name through a judicial database (publicly available). I hadn't actually known her name before I met her, so I didn't have a chance to run it before proposing the carpool. She has a LOT of traffic violations on her record. Obviously this wouldn't impact her eligibility to volunteer at the school, but it does matter to me if she is going to be driving my children.
Here's the deal. All the violations are minor, but there are a lot of them. Some of them were dismissed, others not. But I tend to believe that law enforcement catches only a small percentage of actual violations. Among them are failure to provide proof of mandatory insurance, passing in a no-passing zone, and driving without a license (though there is no record of a license revocation). There is also failure to register a vehicle, and parking tickets, which don't matter to me. But I always wonder what prompted the case in the first place. I mean, they don't random pull you over and check your registration here in the U.S. Usually something catches their attention first. So I don't know... I worry that she is not a responsible driver. A lot of these things can be oversights (forgetting your registration in another vehicle, forgetting to re-register a vehicle, going around a vehicle who is turning even though it's technically a no-passing zone, etc.) It's just the volume of citations that worries me. Would you let someone with a few traffic violations transport your child? Should I cancel the carpool?
Until I ran her name through a judicial database (publicly available). I hadn't actually known her name before I met her, so I didn't have a chance to run it before proposing the carpool. She has a LOT of traffic violations on her record. Obviously this wouldn't impact her eligibility to volunteer at the school, but it does matter to me if she is going to be driving my children.
Here's the deal. All the violations are minor, but there are a lot of them. Some of them were dismissed, others not. But I tend to believe that law enforcement catches only a small percentage of actual violations. Among them are failure to provide proof of mandatory insurance, passing in a no-passing zone, and driving without a license (though there is no record of a license revocation). There is also failure to register a vehicle, and parking tickets, which don't matter to me. But I always wonder what prompted the case in the first place. I mean, they don't random pull you over and check your registration here in the U.S. Usually something catches their attention first. So I don't know... I worry that she is not a responsible driver. A lot of these things can be oversights (forgetting your registration in another vehicle, forgetting to re-register a vehicle, going around a vehicle who is turning even though it's technically a no-passing zone, etc.) It's just the volume of citations that worries me. Would you let someone with a few traffic violations transport your child? Should I cancel the carpool?
