One of the most common offenses on Fort Lewis is "Driving with a Suspended or Revoked License." According to Jennifer Beuning, chief of the Police Services Division, our law enforcement and access control personnel routinely discover drivers who are operating motor vehicles with suspended drivers' licenses. During the last three months of 2009, we charged 235 drivers with this offense. The military administrative penalty for this violation is a suspension of driving privileges for five years, in addition to any civilian criminal penalties. This obviously has an impact on both professional and personal lives.

In most cases, the drivers who commit this offense are very much aware that their licenses have been suspended. These are usually people with previous driving under the influence cases or who have failed to pay traffic tickets or appear in court. However, there are situations in which drivers might not be aware that their licenses have been suspended by their home states.

State licensing agencies can suspend licenses for such things as:

â- Failure to renew professional certifications

â- Failure to make alimony or child support payments

â- Failure to pay parking meter violations

â- Missing court dates

â- Failure to answer subpoenas

â- Failure to pay property taxes

â- Hunting or fishing violations

â- Failure to re-register vehicles

This list is not all-inclusive, but the point is simple: States realize how important cars are to all of us, and this is an effective way of getting our attention. Most of us need to drive to get to work, transport our families and take care of our daily needs.

Most states (such as Washington: https://fortress.wa.gov/dol/dolprod/dsddriverstatusdisplay/) allow you to check the status of your license online. If you have any reason to believe that the status of your license might be in question, or if you have been deployed, you should immediately check. Taking care of administrative problems or paying a fine can usually be accomplished quickly. This will prevent the cost, embarrassment and inconvenience of being stopped and finding out that your home state has suspended your driving privileges.