RESTRICTED LICENSES
IN MAINE, many drivers whose licenses are suspended or revoked can apply for restricted licenses, which allow them to drive only to work or school. Some suspended drivers are ineligible, including people with more than one drunken driving conviction. But eligible individuals can file a petition with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, which must also be signed by their employer. In cases where the petitions are granted, officials often restrict the hours that person is allowed to drive.
AS OF JAN. 8, 1,114 people in Maine had restricted licenses, according to the Maine Secretary of State's Office.
Two weeks before his 17th birthday, Daigle was caught driving with a 0.13 percent blood-alcohol content. The state's legal limit for adults is 0.08 percent, but minors are barred from driving with any alcohol in their system.
Daigle said he and some friends had been drinking at a bar in Bangor and were on their way home to Medway when they got pulled over by police. As a result, Daigle lost his driver's license for nine months. After that incident, his father warned him to stop driving, he said.
"But no matter what he said, I wouldn't have listened," Daigle said.
Since that arrest, Daigle, who is now 20, has accumulated an additional conviction for drunken driving, and another for driving with a suspended license.
"I really didn't care," he said during an interview last year at the Cumberland County Jail in Portland, where he was being held following convictions for theft, aggravated criminal mischief and drunken driving. "I was young and stupid." He has since been released.
Every day in Maine, thousands of suspended drivers get behind the steering wheel, according to state estimates and national studies. And each day, court statistics show, police catch only a few dozen of them.
Some of these drivers figure the chances of being pulled over are small enough that it's worth a gamble. Others have chronic alcohol or drug problems, and without substance-abuse treatment there's little hope of changing their behavior. Others think they have no choice -- with a rural economy and little public transportation, they have few alternatives to driving. Still others are career criminals.
What distinguishes all of these people from most of the traveling public is that they don't respond to the system of traffic rules that's designed to keep Maine roads safe.
Maine Public Safety Commissioner Anne Jordan, a former prosecutor, recalled courtroom encounters with suspended drivers who simply ignored the judge's orders.
"The court would say to this person, 'Now, you cannot drive until you do x, y, z,' " Jordan said. "And five minutes later, they're getting into their car in the parking lot and driving off. There are just some people who have a total disregard for the law."
Daigle's pattern of lawbreaking -- both on the roads and off them -- illustrates the challenges that police face in trying to deter scofflaw motorists. Before the age of 20, his criminal history already included convictions for 19 motor-vehicle break-ins, video-store theft, and, after he kicked out the window of a police cruiser, aggravated criminal mischief.
Law enforcement officials express little sympathy for the truly dangerous drivers, but they also acknowledge that some of the people who get caught driving with a suspended license are not a great menace to the public.
"They suspend for anything today," said Robert Schwartz, executive director of the Maine Chiefs of Police Association. "Because you fail to file insurance, and you didn't go to court, I don't think you have shown a pattern of a bad driver."
Shary J. Jones, 41, of Casco was convicted in March of driving with a suspended license in the parking lot of the Rent-A-Center store in Windham. After a trial, she was ordered to pay a $250 fine, plus $60 in other fees. She is appealing the conviction.
Jones' record shows six driving convictions since 1989, but three of them are for failing to produce evidence of insurance, and none is for a serious moving violation. When she was pulled over in Windham, her license was under suspension for writing a bad check to pay an earlier debt.
In an interview, Jones said that she's a single mother who is strapped for money. She said she needs to drive to get to the grocery store and to take her child to school. Under certain circumstances, suspended drivers in Maine can apply for a restricted license that allows them to drive to work or school, but not...
Reader comments
Click here to view or add comments on this story
Were you interviewed for this story? If so, please fill out our accuracy form