When David Pantoja was an Uber driver, his specialty was the "drunk run" from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
“There's no traffic at that time,” he said. “People out from the suburbs are in the city at nightclubs. You get good fares because they live way out there in the boonies. It's good money.”
For about three years, Pantoja earned nearly $1,000 per week until he accumulated red light traffic tickets and was suspended from the platform for two weeks. Thankfully, he was also employed by UPS.
“They put those red-light cameras in areas that are in the middle of the streets,” Pantoja told Southland Marquee. “It’s nothing but a money grab. I could justify them near schools but to put them on a busy intersection in Chicago? No…in my experience, they cause more accidents.”
That’s because drivers are trying to avoid running red lights, according to Pantoja.
“Accidents may have increased in certain intersections because people are hesitant to go through a yellow light,” he said. “If they see that yellow light, they will slam those brakes.”
Pantoja is among 21,000 drivers that the City of Chicago asked the state to suspend – triple the number from 2010, officials in the city's finance department told ProPublica.
“If you're going to put red light cameras in the city, spread them out evenly,” he said. “Don't put them in the underserved areas. They have them in the minority neighborhoods more than other neighborhoods up on the north side. There aren’t any of them in downtown at all.”
Cook County maintains a city code that gives Chicago the right to revoke an individual's business license if they do not pay or are unable to pay issued tickets. Sec. 54-391 of the Cook County Code of Ordinances states that the license of any person who has failed to pay any fine, assessment of costs or other sums of money owed to the county pursuant to an order of the Department of Revenue, an order of the Department of Administrative Hearings or court order by the due date indicated in the order or within 30 calendar days of becoming a debt due and owing, can be suspended by the Department of Revenue in accordance with its rules and after affording a hearing. The license shall be suspended until such time that the fine, assessment of costs or other sums of money is fully paid.
Pantoja blames politicians.
“All the aldermen take money from these companies,” he alleged. “They get a nice little kickback. They fund their campaigns under the guise of public safety and it’s not really.”
Some residents view the city's ticketing system as aggressive. The system includes hundreds of cameras across the city, which generate tens of millions of dollars a year, according to Block Club Chicago. The news organization also found that cameras bring a high cost for motorists – particularly, from the city's black and Latino neighborhoods. For example, a ProPublica analysis determined from millions of citations that between 2015 and 2019, households in ZIP codes with a majority of black and Hispanic residents received tickets at nearly twice the rate of those in white communities.
“It affects people in those neighborhoods because some of them don't make that much money and those tickets are $100 a pop,” Pantoja said. “They go by the miles so I'm pretty sure the city's raking in a nice amount of money on this.”
Chicago is the only major U.S. city with a program that deactivates gig workers, primarily ride-hail drivers, for their unpaid ticket debts, NPR reported. The city's policy required Uber and Lyft to suspend more than 15,500 people in 2019. Chicago's ride-hail suspensions hit the city's majority black and low-income neighborhoods the hardest, according to a 2019 WBEZ analysis of data obtained through public records.
The Cook County Code allows a department or agency to deny renewal, suspend or revoke a general business license. A notice is sent to the applicant and a copy is sent to the Department of Revenue. The notice is prima facie, meaning the document itself is legally sufficient to deny issuance, deny renewal or suspend a business license. A license can only be suspended, denied or revoked after a proper license administration hearing is held and after the applicant is given seven days' notice. The director of revenue can grant one continuance after a show of good cause.
“It impacts some people who have cars that now they get their licenses suspended because what the city does with Uber is get you off the platform and then comes the license suspension,” he said. “They want to suspend your license.”
Pantoja added that he paid off $3,000 in traffic violations to be restored to the platform.
Chicago drivers have two options if their license is suspended because of outstanding debt from parking tickets, according to the City of Chicago website: Pay all the parking ticket violations and fines in full (payment must be made to the City of Chicago Department of Finance) or challenge the license suspension by filing an appeal with the secretary of state within 21 days of notice of suspension.