Records are made to be broken. But not every record is an achievement.
For proof, we recently dropped in to visit Vic Fleming, Little Rock's traffic judge for the past 22 years.
An eye-opening record was broken -- twice! -- in Judge Fleming's court in 2018.
Youngest Driver Charged with Driving without a License: 11 years old.
Youngest Driver Charged with Driving without a License: 10 years old.
The latter, the current record holder, came to Fleming's attention in November. The defendant -- a kid of 10 is still a defendant -- appeared in court.
Turns out he took his grandmother's car for a spin around the parking lot of her apartment complex. Turns out his grandma and family were not especially proud of this record.
Good for them.
Youngsters such as these two serve to illustrate the whole. Because it's not just Fleming who has a clientele that declines to have a license to drive. Figures from the state Department of Finance and Administration show that across the state, from Jan. 1, 2018, to Dec. 12, 6,725 people were ticketed for driving without a license. And 16,950 were ticketed for driving on a suspended license.
What would possess nearly seven thousand people to drive without a license? When it comes to the young, Fleming points to entertainment media, which glamorize driving and give a false impression of the difficulty and danger involved.
Consider our hero, involved in a dramatic chase and crash in which no one would have possibly survived, but who bounces out of the wreckage and chases down the bad guy.
This influence, Fleming believes, is reflected in his visits to middle schools. He asks a classroom of kids -- how many of you believe you can safely drive a car? All hands go up.
Then he says: "Leave your hand up if you know what liability insurance is."
A different result ensues.
The two -- safe driving and liability insurance -- are connected. The latter is, in many ways, the essence of the former.
"Kids need to be told what liability insurance is and its role in society," the judge says.
As a rule, Fleming says, someone driving without a license is someone who is driving without insurance.
Penalties for driving without a license can be severe: Up to a $500 fine, court costs, and 90 days in jail.
Fleming asks young people if they have that much money in the back. Naturally, they don't.
There's never a time like the present, he said, for parents to impress upon their kids what a driver's license is, what is its purpose, what liability insurance is, and what is its purpose.
Fleming tells a tale in court about a driver without license or insurance. He made a left turn in front of a motorcyclist. The motorcyclist was killed.
Two families were devastated financially by $100,000 in medical and funeral bills.
He asks defendants: "Do you have $100,000?"
Do you?
Fjfellone@gmail.com
Metro on 01/05/2019