Why California’s dangerous drivers get to keep their licenses

FILE A badly mangled car from a non-injury crash Courtesy OnScene Media Ivan Dimov was convicted of reckless driving in after fleeing police in Washington state while his client allegedly dumped heroin out the window Before that he got six DUIs in California over a six-year period None of that would keep him off the road The California Department of Motor Vehicles reissued him a driver s license in The next year on Christmas Eve he drove drunk again running stop signs and a traffic light in midtown Sacramento going more than mph court records show He T-boned another car killing a -year-old man who was going home to feed the cat before heading to his mom s for the holiday Kostas Linardos had tickets including for speeding reckless driving and street racing and had been in four collisions Then in November he gunned his Ram truck as he entered a Placer County highway and slammed into the back of a disabled sedan killing a toddler court records show He s now facing felony manslaughter charges In December of last year while that incident was open the DMV renewed his driver s license Ervin Wyatt s history behind the wheel spreads across two pages of a latest court filing Fleeing police Fleeing police again Running a red light Causing a traffic collision Driving without a license four times A dozen speeding tickets Yet the DMV issued him a license in Wyatt promptly got three more speeding tickets court records show Prosecutors say he was speeding again in when he lost control and crashed into oncoming traffic killing three women He s now facing murder charges in Stanislaus County The California Department of Motor Vehicles routinely allows drivers like these with horrifying histories of dangerous driving including DUIs crashes and numerous tickets to continue to operate on our roadways a CalMatters scrutiny has ascertained Too often they go on to kill A great number of keep driving even after they kill Selected go on to kill again With state lawmakers grappling with how to address the death toll on our roads CalMatters sought to understand how California handles dangerous drivers We first inquired the district attorneys for all counties to provide us with a list of their vehicular manslaughter cases from through early last year Every county but Santa Cruz provided the information Because California has no centralized court system and records aren t online we then traveled to courthouses up and down the state to read through tens of thousands of pages of files Once we had defendants names and other information we were able to get DMV driver reports for more than of the defendants providing details on their latest collisions citations and license status The court records and driving histories reveal a state so concerned with people having access to motor vehicles for work and life that it allows deadly drivers to share our roads despite the cost Personnel may call driving a privilege but they treat it as a right often failing to take drivers licenses even after they kill someone on the road We detected nearly of the drivers charged with vehicular manslaughter since have a valid license That includes a driver with two separate convictions for vehicular manslaughter for crashes that killed a -year-old girl in and a -year-old woman in In July of last year the DMV issued him a driver s license How we informed on California s deadly drivers The agency gave licenses to nearly people less than a year after they allegedly killed someone on the road we determined And while the agency has since suspended particular of those often after a conviction the majority remain valid In Santa Clara County a man prosecutors charged with manslaughter got his current license just a month and a half after the collision that killed a mother of three young children And multiple drivers accused of causing roadway deaths don t appear to have stopped driving recklessly Records show that nearly got a ticket or were in another crash or both after their deadly collisions A commercial driver drove his semi truck on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic killing a motorcyclist in Kern County in Less than a year later he still had a valid license when he barreled his semi into slow-moving traffic hitting four vehicles and killing a woman in Fresno County records show Another man sentenced to nine years in prison for killing two women while driving drunk got his privileges restored by the DMV after being paroled only to drive high on meth in Riverside and weave head-on into another car killing a woman It is somewhat shocking to see how much you can get away with and still be a licensed driver in the state of California Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire reported I don t think anyone fully understands what you need to do behind the wheel to lose your driving privilege Almost as thought-provoking as the information in the drivers DMV records is what s not there Hundreds of drivers DMV records completely don t list convictions for manslaughter or another crime related to a fatal crash we revealed The apparent error means selected drivers who should have their driving privileges suspended instead show up in DMV records as having a valid license The cases we reviewed cut across demographics and geography Defendants include farmworkers and a farm owner They include off-duty police officers and people with lengthy rap sheets drivers who killed in a fit of rage and others whose recklessness took the lives of those they loved the greater part high school sweethearts siblings children The tragedies span this vast state From twisty two-lane mountain roads near the Oregon boundary to the dusty scrubland touching Mexico From the crowded streets of San Francisco to the highways of the Inland Empire From Gold Country to timber country to Silicon Valley to the almond capital of the world So much death More people than are killed by guns Dangerous drivers are able to stay on the roads for a great number of reasons The state system that targets motorists who rack up tickets is designed to catch clusters of reckless behavior not long-term patterns And while there are laws requiring the DMV to suspend a driver s license for certain crimes like DUIs there is no such requirement for multiple vehicular manslaughter convictions It s often up to the DMV whether to act Routinely it doesn t The DMV declined to make its director Steve Gordon who has been in charge since Gov Gavin Newsom appointed him in available for an interview to discuss our findings Chris Orrock a DMV spokesperson commented the agency follows the law when issuing licenses We use our authority as mandated and as necessary he announced Even when the DMV does take away motorists driving privileges state authorities law enforcement and the courts are often unable or unwilling to keep them off the road We identified cases where drivers racked up numerous tickets while driving on a suspended license and faced little more than fines before eventually causing a fatal crash even though agents could have sent them to jail Taking away someone s driving privilege is no small decision It can consign a family to poverty affecting job prospects child care and healthcare decisions Still the stakes couldn t be higher More than people died on the roads of California from to early Kowana Strong thinks part of the complication is that lawmakers and regulators are too quick to treat fatal crashes as an unfortunate fact of life as opposed to something they can address Her son Melvin Strong III who went by his middle name Kwaun was finishing college and planning to start a master s scheme in kinesiology when he was killed by Dimov the driver with six prior DUI convictions Kwaun was a bright and innocent young man she explained just starting his life It s just another accident as far as they re concerned Kowana Strong revealed Holes in the DMV s point system Young people think they re invincible It s the old who know how unfair life is Jerrod Tejeda revealed His daughter Cassi Tejeda was just She was months from graduating from Chico State with a bachelor s degree in history and a plan to be a mentor Outgoing and athletic she craved to tour see the world and make her own life She had a girlfriend who was visiting Courtney Kendall was and a learner at Louisiana State University On a Sunday afternoon in January a Volvo SUV topping speeds of mph ran a red light and smashed into their Jeep court records show The collision killed them both The greater part arduous part besides the occurrence is every day that goes by you re reliably wondering what if What would they be doing in the current era Jerrod Tejeda announced Would they be married Would they have developed into the career that they chose Where would she be living Jerrod Tejeda holds a framed photo of his daughter Cassi Tejeda at his home in Visalia on March Photo by Larry Valenzuela CalMatters CatchLight Local A scrapbook of photographs of Cassi Tejeda on the table of Jerrod Tejeda s home in Visalia on March Photos by Larry Valenzuela CalMatters CatchLight Local Tanya Kendall lamented not being there to protect her daughter hold her hand or say goodbye Instead I was left with the unbearable task of choosing what outfit she would be buried in Buried Your Honor Not the gown she would wear to her graduation from LSU the one she will never attend the mother wrote in a letter to a Butte County judge adding that she and her husband stood in their daughter s place accepting her diploma Such pain was preventable The driver of the Volvo Matthew Moen had a blood alcohol level more than three times the legal limit according to court filings And it wasn t his first time drinking and driving Moen was caught driving drunk in Oregon in He never completed the requirements of a diversion effort and had an outstanding warrant at the time of the fatal crash the Butte County district attorney s office explained In January he was convicted of DUI in Nevada County for driving with a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit given a couple weeks in jail and put on probation for three years Cassi Tejeda and Courtney Kendall Photo via Butte County District Attorney His license was valid at the time of the fatal crash records show Across the country states grapple with how to effectively spot and punish drivers who could be a danger on the road Often they rely on a basic point system with drivers accruing points for various types of traffic violations and thresholds for when the state will take away a motorist s driving privileges But like a great number of California has such high limits that drivers with a pattern of reckless behavior can avoid punishment The state suspends a driver s license for accumulating four points in a year six points in two years or eight points in three years What does it take to get that multiple points Using a cellphone while driving is zero points A speeding ticket is a point Vehicular manslaughter is two points Between March and March Trevor Cook received two citations for running red lights got two speeding tickets and was deemed responsible for two collisions including one in which someone was injured court records show A third red-light ticket was dismissed At-fault collisions add a point to a driver s license according to the DMV But the incidents were spaced out enough that none resulted in a suspension So Cook had a valid license on April just a month after his last speeding ticket when he blew through a Yolo County stop sign at more than mph At that exact moment Prajal Bista passed through the intersection on his way to work after dinner and a movie with his wife according to details of the crash that prosecutors included in court filings Bista was driving the speed limit and on track to make it to work minutes early The force of the collision nearly split Bista s Honda Civic in half Investigators determined Bista had been wearing his seat belt but the crash tore it apart They discovered his body feet from the intersection On March Cook pleaded no contest to felony vehicular manslaughter Just a month later on April the DMV issued Cook his current driver s license agency records show Less than two weeks after that he got a ticket for disobeying a traffic signal Melinda Aiello chief deputy district attorney in Yolo County disclosed her office didn t know anything about the new license or the red-light ticket until contacted by CalMatters What s more the manslaughter conviction like hundreds of others we exposed isn t listed on Cook s driving record Cook s license was still listed as valid in California DMV records as of early But for now he s off the roadways Last summer Cook started serving time in state prison It s stunning to me that eight months later his license is still showing as valid and the conviction for killing someone while driving is not reflected in his driving record Aiello stated You killed somebody I d think there might be particular license implications Orrock the DMV spokesperson commented he couldn t speak directly to why so countless convictions are missing But he revealed we acknowledge that the process and coordination between the judicial system and the DMV must continually evolve to address any gaps that have been identified And we re looking into that Kill someone get your license back There are laws requiring the DMV to suspend a driver s license for various convictions A first DUI conviction for example is a -to- -month suspension Felony vehicular manslaughter is a three-year loss of driving privileges The agency isn t necessarily required to give a license back if its driver safety branch deems a motorist too dangerous to drive agency authorities declared But CalMatters determined the agency regularly gives drivers their licenses back as soon as the legally required period ends And once crashes tickets and suspensions fall off a driver s record after a sparse years it s often as if the motorist s record is wiped clean So even if the driver gets in trouble again the agency often treats any future crashes and traffic violations as isolated incidents not as part of a longer pattern of reckless driving Perhaps that s why Joshua Daugherty is licensed to drive in California In July Daugherty drifted onto the highway shoulder while driving near Mammoth Lakes overcorrected to the left and lost control court filings show His Toyota Tacoma cut across the lane into oncoming traffic where an SUV broadsided it Daugherty s girlfriend -year-old Krystal Kazmark died Police noted that Daugherty s eyes were red and watery and his speech was slurred when they arrived He explained officers that he d smoked a couple of bowls of marijuana earlier in the day according to records filed in court Kazmark s mother was devastated Like other victim relatives we spoke to for this story Mary Kazmark tried as best she could to summarize a life into a scant words an impossible task Her daughter liked to sing journey cook draw snow-ski water-ski wakeboard hike read entertain friends and plan parties She was a responsible kid her mother disclosed unfailingly the designated driver with her friends She oversaw guest reservations at one of the Mammoth Lakes lodges Mary Kazmark revealed she tracked down Daugherty on the phone a sparse days after the crash He just revealed I can t believe this happened again And I was like What do you mean She eventually learned it wasn t the first time Daugherty s driving had killed In August in a strikingly similar circumstance Daugherty was speeding along a Riverside County highway when his Ford Expedition drifted onto the shoulder Bystanders stated police he veered back to the left lost control hit a dirt embankment and went airborne the SUV flipping onto its roof A -year-old girl riding in the back died Daugherty was convicted of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter He was sentenced to days in custody and three years probation according to a summary of the scenario filed in court Because of the earlier manslaughter conviction police recommended he be charged with murder for the death of Krystal Kazmark But the Mono County district attorney s office charged him with a mere misdemeanor Joshua Daugherty and Krystal Kazmark Photo courtesy of Mary Kazmark Felony charges typically require a prosecutor to prove gross negligence A prosecutor in another county described the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor this way A felony is one in which you tell the average person the facts and they say Wow that s really dangerous A misdemeanor is one which they say That s dumb but I ve apparently done it The Mono County district attorney s office refused to comment on the circumstance because the prosecutor and the elected DA at the time have both since retired The office did provide a prepared message explaining the charging decision It was determined that there was not a substantial likelihood of conviction at trial it revealed Daugherty pleaded guilty and was convicted in January He was sentenced to a year in jail The DMV suspended his driving privileges after the fatal crash a DMV record shows But losing his license wasn t enough to keep Daugherty off the road records show Two months after his conviction for killing Kazmark before he revealed to jail police caught him driving on a suspended license Still the DMV reissued Daugherty a license in July To recap That s two convictions for two dead young women plus a conviction for driving on a suspended license and the California DMV says Daugherty can still share the road with you It s so sad You make a mistake and then you don t learn from it and then you cause another person to lose their life Mary Kazmark commented It s unbelievable that he can continue to drive Orrock declared the DMV couldn t comment on individual drivers When law enforcement reports a fatal crash the agency s driver safety branch flags all drivers who might be at fault It then looks into the collision and decides whether the agency should suspend those motorists driving privileges If the driver contests the action there s a hearing that could include witness testimony Suspensions are open-ended Drivers need to ask for their license back and agency personnel decide whether the suspension should end or continue These discretionary suspensions typically last for about a year And while leaders commented the DMV can continue a suspension if they think a driver poses a danger Orrock explained they need to give drivers an opportunity to get their license back He declared there s no process in the state to permanently revoke a license Get your license back get in trouble again Roughly drivers accused of causing a fatal crash since received a ticket got in another collision or did both after the date they allegedly killed someone on the road The reports don t show whether the drivers were ascertained at fault only that they were involved in an accident That s about of the drivers for whom we could get DMV reports Drivers like William Beasley From to Beasley collected five speeding tickets and a citation for running a red light in Sacramento County court records show Then around a m on a sunny Tuesday in October he killed a man William and Deborah Hester were moving across the street to go to a dentist appointment at a veterans facility when Beasley s silver pickup sped toward them They thought they would make it across But the truck didn t stop At the last minute William Hester shoved his wife out of the way She heard the truck smash into her husband s body and screamed according to court records Beasley still didn t stop He fled the area and tried to hide his truck Investigators used nearby cameras and license plate readers to track him down days later Beasley admitted to being in a collision He later pleaded no contest in Sacramento to hit-and-run and misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter A probation summary in the circumstance revealed Beasley was nearly blind in his left eye From left William Hester and Loriann Hester Page Photo courtesy of Loriann Hester Page Mr Hester is with me every moment of my life Beasley disclosed in an interview I took away a father a grandfather a husband and they consider me a murderer That s not who I am My accident with Mr Hester was just that an accident Nothing more he disclosed adding that he worked as a courier for years and sometimes got speeding tickets because he was rushing In May the DMV took away his driving privileges In November Beasley got his license back because I could and I needed to he declared adding that people deserve second chances particularly for accidents Almost straightaway less than three weeks after getting his license he was in another collision his DMV analysis shows In early he got in yet another His license was suspended when his car insurance was canceled records show It makes no sense to me that they would give him a license and give him the opportunity to hurt someone else stated Loriann Hester Page William Hester s daughter Her father s death broke the family she announced He drove a tank in the Army played guitar in a band liked to ride horses My dad was such a wonderful kind man she explained He would consistently walk in a room and demanded to make everyone smile Beasley explained he doesn t plan to drive again I am years old he announced I am blind in one eye I have had a situation where a man was killed he lost his life I am not going to repeat that situation at all Still on the road license not suspended The DMV does have the ability to act promptly In various cases it suspended a driver s license shortly after a fatal crash However we ascertained numerous cases in which the DMV did nothing for months or years often not until a criminal conviction In July truck driver Baljit Singh drove his semi on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic killing a motorcyclist in Kern County court records show There are no suspensions listed on his DMV record during that time even though the agency has the discretion to suspend someone s license without a conviction Less than a year later as his incident wound its way through the slow-moving court system Singh plowed his semi into the back of a car in Fresno County killing a woman records show He ultimately pleaded no contest to felony vehicular manslaughter in Kern County He pleaded no contest to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in Fresno for the second fatal crash The DMV certainly took away his driving privileges in February of last year Prosecutors say Jadon Mendez was speeding in December in Santa Clara County when he lost control and caused a crash that killed a mother of three young children A insufficient weeks later he got a speeding ticket And yet the DMV issued him his current driver s license on Jan days after the fatal crash There were no suspensions listed on his DMV record as of early this year even though Mendez was charged with manslaughter in May The judge in his episode ordered him not to drive as a condition of his release But such court orders don t necessarily show up on a driver s DMV record That might be why he didn t get in more trouble in December when he got a speeding ticket in Alameda County Prosecutors didn t know about that ticket until CalMatters requested about it announced Angela Bernhard assistant DA in the Santa Clara County district attorney s office Mendez s manslaughter occurrence is still open and his license is still listed as valid When urged about the Mendez affair and others Orrock acknowledged that while there s a DMV process for deciding when to revoke or suspend a license sometimes the process takes a while to happen When the DMV doesn t act at all In plenty of cases the DMV doesn t take action even after a conviction In May a semi driver named Ramon Pacheco made a U-turn in front of an oncoming motorcycle killing -year-old Dominic Lopez-Toney who was finishing his rotations to be a practitioner Court records show Pacheco had gotten in trouble behind the wheel before He had been arrested for DUI in caused a collision in and got a ticket in for making an unsafe turn It wasn t enough to keep him off the road Neither was killing a man Months after San Joaquin prosecutors charged Pacheco with vehicular manslaughter he got into another collision for which he was also deemed majority of at fault As the affair dragged on Lopez-Toney s large but tight-knit family wrote dozens of letters to the court pleading for justice Dorothy Toney wrote that more than a year since her grandson s death she was still haunted by images of his mangled and broken body and the gruesome details in the police summary Somedays she wrote I wish I had been there to gently hold his hands and tell him how much I loved him The letters are full of shock and outrage that the driver had faced so meager consequences Allowing this truck driver to continue driving and engaging in civilian exercises with only a mere consequence of probation is appalling wrote Lynelle Sigona the victim s aunt Pacheco ultimately pleaded no contest to misdemeanor manslaughter and received probation His DMV record as of Feb indicates his driving privileges were never suspended his commercial driver s license is valid Pacheco s defense attorney Gil Somera mentioned his client isn t a reckless driver His prior incidents are relatively minimal he stated given the fact that truck drivers drive thousands and thousands of miles a year Pacheco needed to turn around and didn t think there was another place he could do so since he was approaching a residential area Somera added Pacheco wasn t being inattentive or reckless Somera disclosed And it s unfortunate and sad and tragic this young man died because of this decision he made to make a U-turn In the wake of the tragedy Lopez-Toney s mother has become an advocate for truck safety Road safety and truck safety is not a priority right now with our legislators with our regime Nora Lopez revealed Changing our mindset our attitudes our tradition on the roads is not impossible Nora Lopez holds a framed photo of her son at her home in Castro Valley on March Her -year-old son Dominic Lopez-Toney was struck and killed by a semi-truck days before starting his surgical rotation at a San Joaquin hospital Photo by Christie Hemm Klok for CalMatters First Nora Lopez has buried her son s urn in her garden and planted a sage bush beside it Last Framed photos of Lopez-Toney at his mother s home in Castro Valley on March Photos by Christie Hemm Klok for CalMatters In an interview at her Castro Valley home she talked about her only child He was smart and caring liked snowboarding and animals loved food On vacations they would take cooking classes together Lopez noted He studied molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley and was almost done with biological school She still has the dry-erase whiteboards in his old room One is filled with his small and neat review notes another has what appears to be a to-do list There s a note that says Surgery Lopez noted that s when he was due to start his surgical rotation in a San Joaquin hospital just a couple of days after he died She mentioned he just longed to help people and serve the Native American group as a medical expert a future that a driver snatched away It s because of a man s recklessness and carelessness no regard for humanity she noted While felony manslaughter is an automatic three-year loss of driving privileges a misdemeanor typically carries no such penalty It s discretionary it s up to the DMV to decide whether to do anything And the man who killed Lopez-Toney is far from alone in facing no apparent punishment from the DMV We located nearly drivers with a valid license whose DMV record shows a conviction for misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter but for whom there is no suspension listed When shown a copy of Pacheco s current driving document Lopez sat in silence for several seconds Does this make sense to you It makes no sense to me she revealed With his record how does he still have a license Are we going to put that loaded gun back in their hands Research on dangerous drivers appears to be thin and largely outdated Liza Lutzker a researcher at UC Berkeley s Safe Transportation Research and Mentoring Center stated much of the focus in the traffic safety world is on creating better design and infrastructure so people who make honest mistakes don t end up killing someone I think that the issues of these reckless drivers are a separate and complex concern Lutzker disclosed The system we have clearly is not working And people are paying with their lives for it Jeffrey Michael who researches roadway safety issues at Johns Hopkins University and spent three decades working at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration disclosed he understands officers might be hesitant to impose harsher penalties more broadly for fear of the unintended consequences We live in a society where driving is really essential he reported But he noted the findings show the agency requirements more scrutiny and analysis of who is on the roads These are not unresolvable problems he reported Leah Shahum executive director of the Vision Zero Architecture a nonprofit promoting safe streets stated sometimes authorities prioritize preserving people s ability to drive rather than ensuring safety We don t all have the right to drive Shahum stated We have the responsibility to drive safely and ensure we don t hurt others She added that numerous people need to drive in this car-centric state That does not mean there can be a license to kill If we know somebody has a history of dangerous behavior she noted are we going to put that loaded gun back in their hands The gun metaphor was common in the thousands of vehicular manslaughter cases we looked at across California One prosecutor described dangerous behavior behind the wheel as akin to firing a gun into a crowd In letters to the court surviving relatives and friends described the hole left behind writing about an empty seat at a high school graduation a photo cutout taken without fail to home baseball games It s a void one young man tried to explain to leadership the sudden violent blink-of-an-eye moment where life forever changes For him it was at p m on Feb on Lone Tree Way in the Bay Area city of Antioch Two brothers ages and were going to meet their dad at a Burger King They crossed to the median and then waited for a break in the traffic before continuing to the other side The older one made it across according to court documents His younger brother stepped into the street just as a driver gunned his car to miles an hour over the speed limit The older boy watched as his younger brother just disappeared This is the first piece in a series about how California lets dangerous drivers stay on the road CalMatters is a nonpartisan and nonprofit news organization bringing Californians stories that probe explain and explore solutions to quality of life issues while holding our leaders accountable