Driving In Fear: Unpaid Tickets, Spiraling Debt And A Fort Worth Court’s Plan To Help

“I’d get in the car and I’d be like, ‘God, please cover me, that no police are going to get me today.’”

By Christopher ConnellyFebruary 12, 2020 3:32 pm, , ,

From KERA:

These days, when Ashley Bryant drives around in her black Nissan, she does it without the anxiety she carried for six years whenever she got behind the wheel.

“Every time I’d do this, I’d get in the car and I’d be like, ‘God, please cover me, that no police are going to get me today,’” she says.

Bryant used to have a bit of a lead foot, she says, and by 2012, she’d racked up half a dozen tickets. She’s a certified nursing assistant, and simply couldn’t afford to pay the tickets. When she didn’t, she ended up with an arrest warrant from the Fort Worth Municipal Court. Her license was suspended. Every drive – to get groceries, to pick up her kids – was stressful.

“It’s scary,” she says. “You’ve got to look behind you, make sure the police aren’t going to turn around and get you, because you know you’re going to go to jail because you’ve got a warrant.”

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