By Daniel Rivero, fusion.net
In many parts of the country, driving is less of a joyful experience and more of a necessary evil. The traffic is soul sucking, the highway exhaust fumes horrendous, and the radio plays the same songs too many damn times.
Yet a huge portion of our lives would come to a screeching halt if we didn’t have the freedom to drive around.
Earlier this year, the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights in California, an advocacy group, released a report about the kind of people who lose their driving privileges in California. Through its research, the group found that in many minority communities across the state, “driver’s license suspension rates range as high as five times the state average.” Widespread police practices that pull over minorities at higher rates than white people exacerbate the problem, the report notes.