> Re-reading, I notice the article doesn't state the source of the debt. If it's unpaid traffic tickets, then I do think it makes sense to suspend the license, but an afternoon of traffic school should suffice for most moving violations. If it's unpaid taxes, hell no.
When I was younger, I was working three jobs to keep my head above water. I got a speeding ticket and forgot to pay it. My license was suspended. I had to not only pay the fine but to pay to reinstate my license. I could only afford to pay in installments to reinstate my license. I missed one payment and my license was suspended yet again. This is a trap that now seems crazy I could have ever fallen into, but it is a vicious cycle.
I got a speeding ticket once in Orlando, Florida. I didn't forget to pay it, but they had a very strange system. I had to pay, physically, at the address listed on the ticket, which I did. After I paid it, I had to physically deliver the receipt of payment to a DMV for them to register it in the system.
I paid the ticket within the time-frame, but I forgot to do the second step, and my license was suspended. I didn't realize my license was suspended until I got pulled over a few months later, and the cop informed me that I was driving without a license, and that's a felony in Florida. Apparently I also didn't have auto insurance either, because my insurance company wouldn't insure someone without a license.
Fortunately for me, the cop was sympathetic to my story, and just gave me a regular speeding ticket, and the next day I had to get my sister to drive me to the DMV, and I was able to get everything sorted out (this was before Uber was a thing). I had to pay an extra $100 for my license to be reinstated.
It was a huge pain in the ass, and added a lot of extra steps for something that realistically could have been solved with an email from the payment place to the DMV. I was lucky to have the vacation time banked and was able to miss work to fix this, but it would have been so much harder if I had hourly wages.
I think Florida has made this less horrible now (I haven't lived there in twelve years, and I don't own a car anymore), so maybe this particular thing has been resolved, but my point is that sometimes you can have your license suspended even when you pay on time.
When I was younger, I was working three jobs to keep my head above water. I got a speeding ticket and forgot to pay it. My license was suspended. I had to not only pay the fine but to pay to reinstate my license. I could only afford to pay in installments to reinstate my license. I missed one payment and my license was suspended yet again. This is a trap that now seems crazy I could have ever fallen into, but it is a vicious cycle.