The DWLR Cycle
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The ability to drive is an essential, if not necessary, skill for most adults to enjoy a productive life. However, an alarmingly high number of North Carolina drivers are not lawfully licensed to drive on our roads. Contrary to popular belief, most license suspensions are the result of what many call the "DWLR spiral," referring to the situation in which a person receives a relatively minor traffic violation (failure to wear a seatbelt, expired registration) and fails to address that ticket in a timely manner because of a lack of funds or understanding of the court system. Their license is then suspended indefinitely for having a failure to appear on that ticket. They then continue to drive, not knowing that their license is suspended, and subsequently pick up another driving charge, plus Driving While License Revoked (DWLR). Even if they address the underlying ticket causing the initial suspension, if they are convicted of a moving violation while in a state of suspension, their license will be necessarily be revoked for a one-year period.

Very often, failure to address a relatively minor traffic violation can snowball into serious legal consequences like probation, jail time, and permanent revocation of one's driver's license. A person in their teens or early twenties will collect a couple of minor citations, fail to handle them properly, and quickly find themselves stuck in the DWLR cycle. By the time they are able to financially address these tickets, their license is suspended for a period of one to three years, or in a permanent state of suspension. This cycle not only presents a serious impediment on an individual's ability to work and care for one's family, but also places an increasingly heavy burden on the court system.