LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio (SCPR), a member-supported public media network. Hear our news on-air at our partner site:
The feud between drivers and cyclists runs deep in Los Angeles. Now, a local cycling advocate is asking the city to set up more license checkpoints for drivers.
Alex de Cordoba was riding his bike in Echo Park when, he says in a Huffington Post column, he was "nearly killed by a hit and run driver." A week later, while driving to work, he noticed a checkpoint for unlicensed drivers. That morning alone, he reports, police took 100 unlicensed drivers off the road.
In the rest of his column, de Cordoba calls for more such checkpoints in the L.A. area. He writes:
Driving is a privilege. More importantly, it's a potentially deadly activity requiring skill and training. If you cannot prove you are trained to operate deadly machinery, you have no business putting people in danger. If you have been suspended from driving and continue to drive, you're a menace to public safety and deserve to be stopped.
Current regulations around unlicensed driving in California are detailed in the Safe Streets Act of 1994, which was originally passed with the intention of lessening the number of drunk drivers. The act lists some statistics, including one that states that a driver with a suspended license is four times more likely to get in an accident as one with a license, and another that estimates over 700,000 Californians drive with a suspended license, and about 1 million drive without a license at all.
But certain parts of the Safe Streets Act have recently been called into question by immigration advocacy groups. They say it unfairly targets undocumented immigrants who can't get drivers licenses.
What do you think? Should there be more license checkpoints?