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Ohio drivers have been stung by more than 300,000 fines for missing deadlines to renew their driver's licenses and vehicle registrations since the $20 penalties went into effect in October.
About one in six drivers renewing licenses and one in 10 renewing registrations were hit with the fine in October, November and December, according to statistics released yesterday by the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
The fines, which were slipped into the state transportation budget last spring, have yielded more than $6.4 million in new revenue for the State Highway Patrol while further aggravating tax-weary drivers.
"Keeping the patrol funded is very important," state Sen. J. Kirk Schuring, R-Canton, said yesterday. "How we do it is also very important. Playing a game of 'gotcha' with motorists is not the right way to go."
Since Oct. 1, drivers more than seven days late on a renewal have been assessed a $20 fee. The penalty was part of a series of new and higher fees that lawmakers stuffed into the two-year, $9.6 billion transportation budget, largely to replace gas-tax revenue that previously had been a major funding source for the patrol.
Lawmakers also increased the fees for vanity license plates, temporary tags and vision screenings.
But the late fees appear to be causing the most consternation.
"It's a clever government scam -- a disguised tax," said Mark Jeffers, a computer-security specialist from Dayton who paid the fine and complained about it on an online message board.
"It's easy for them to defend 'Well, you wouldn't have to pay it if you registered your car on time.' Disgusting."
The Ohio Insurance Institute issued an advisory this week after hearing from aggrieved drivers.
"This means that if you have two cars that require plate renewals and a driver's license that also needs to be renewed, you'll be charged an additional $60 if your plates and license aren't renewed within seven days following your birthday," institute President Dan Kelso said in the advisory.
While noting that they didn't come up with the new fees, officials at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles say they've done everything in their power to make sure motorists know about them.
"In response to additional concerns that Ohioans were still not aware and since renewals are done on an annual basis, we anticipate we will continue to receive questions for at least the first year," bureau spokeswoman Lindsey Bohrer said.
"We have placed a late-fee reminder notification on the BMV's main Web site, we have created reminder posters which will be displayed in all BMV deputy registrar's (offices), we have sent reminder e-mails to all Ohioans who have given us their e-mail address through the online renewal system and are also exploring options of putting reminders on mailing envelopes."
Schuring said he's hearing complaints that motorists are getting penalized with little warning. He wrote a note to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles yesterday asking officials to make sure drivers receive adequate notification.
One agency that isn't complaining is the State Highway Patrol. The highway safety fund, which pays the patrol, gets $19.50 of the new $20 late fee; the deputy registrar gets the rest. The highway safety fund received more than $6.4 million from the late fees in the last three months of 2009, according to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
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