Maryland man pushes to make traffic violations transfer to PA

A Maryland man who's son was killed in a motor vehicle accident, wants to know why there was no punishment for the man who held a Pennsylvania drivers license. The PA driver was driving in Maryland when he his a boy who was driving a dirt bike illegally on a Maryland road. The PA driver was speeding, going 60+ in a 35mph zone, and he was charged with speeding, reckless driving, and other violations according to the article. The issue the Maryland man now has with Pennsylvania is that no record of the crash or the violations exist on the PA drivers record. This lack of violation and accident allowed the Pennsylvania driver to be accepted into the ARD program some time after the accident, something that would not have happened if the District Attorney had known of the accident and violations in Maryland. This leads to the question...should out of state violations be counted on a Pennsylvania drivers record?

Ed Kohls' son, Connor, was killed in front of his home and dragged to the curve in 2008. The driver of the vehicle, David Auble, was from York County, but the citations he received in the crash never transferred to his Pennsylvania license. About a year later, Auble would receive ARD for a DUI charge in York County -- something York County's district attorney said wouldn't have happened had Auble's Pennsylvania driving record included the fatal crash. (DAILY RECORD/SUNDAY NEWS- BIL BOWDEN)

The problem with allowing out of state driving violations to effect your PA driving privilege, you have to be sure that the charges are equal. Some states have different requirements for convictions of same named violations. It could no be fair to be given a reckless driving for speeding in Maryland, and that violation carries the same weight in Pennsylvania (6 month license suspension) or Virginia (jail time). So is this a serious enough problem to assign a task force to review every driving law in each state? I'm sure if it was your child in the accident, it would be.

I believe we are on our way to a system where drivers can be properly held accountable for violations throughout the United States, but it's going to take better agreements and cooperation between all the states. As the system works right now there is too much confusion when violations occur out of your home state, the average driver does not have enough information to choose the best action to resolve these violations. The Pennsylvania Supreme court is spending too much time giving opinions on how to handle all types of violations and suspension matters resulting from these points of confusion.

You can find the article here.