Driver records

Congress passed the Driver's Privacy Protection Act in 1994 to protect personal information in driver records. The DPPA requires states releasing driver information to ensure that the release is authorized by the driver and that the information will be used only for specifically authorized purposes, such as law enforcement and insurance coverage. Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) hoped to prevent stalking when she introduced the measure, but it has stopped reporting in many states that relied on driver records.

"There was stupendous public good in that reporting," said Charles Davis, director of the Freedom of Information Center at the University of Missouri.

In 1986 and 1987, for example, Elliot Jaspin, then a reporter for the Providence (R.I.) Journal-Bulletin, looked into the records of school bus drivers. The story, one of the pioneering uses of databases for investigative reporting, relied on an analysis of computer records to show the high rate of motor vehicle violations and the high rate of felony convictions among the drivers. The stories reported on the state's haphazard system for certifying drivers.

The story inspired more reporters around the country to use databases to investigate government institutions and processes. Such stories led to changes in law and public awareness of serious problems and corruption.

In November 1996, then-Columbus Dispatch reporter Michael Berens analyzed Ohio drivers license data to show that under Ohio's system of traffic enforcement, there was a record number of drivers whose licenses were suspended for not filing a report with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. The DPPA provisions had not taken affect in Ohio by that time.

The series detailed how an obscure traffic accident reporting law resulted in the suspensions of 110,000 drivers licenses in just a five-year period; many were the hospitalized accident victims. The law required motorists to file a one-page report with the state — an extra report beyond the traffic accident report commonly filled out by police at the scene. Failure to file this obscure report resulted in automatic license suspension. The requirement, a 1955 law that was enforced beginning in 1992, was abolished in March 1997 (H.B. 210) as a direct result of the series, according to Berens.

The computerized findings of Ohio driver records also showed uneven enforcement of a law that stripped high school dropouts of their licenses based on attendance). Rich school districts seldom, if ever, applied the law. Poorer districts commonly did, using the law to strip licenses from young mothers who left school to give birth. As a result of Berens' series, the Ohio Department of Education initiated a review of the process, recommended that pregnant students not be penalized for school absences, and strengthened policies to provide a fair and equitable enforcement of the law.

The series also sparked review by Franklin County judges on a controversial formula that awarded defendants $30 for every day in jail to be paid against their fines. Failure to pay a $90 fine was three days in jail, for instance. Many judges did not ask if defendants could afford to pay the fine and simply sent them to jail for failure to pay.

The practice was abolished, and all defendants were asked about their financial status at the time of their sentencing. Destitute defendants were not jailed strictly for failure to pay.