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An Editorial Opinion of The Demopolis Times

A new bill working its way through the Alabama Legislature would make it easier for parents to find out if their teenagers have received a traffic citation. 

Currently under state law, parents, legal guardians or legal custodians are notified if their minor has been cited for a tobacco violation. HB 285 wants to expand that to include when a minor is cited for a traffic infraction.

This law makes a lot of sense, but unfortunately, it took a tragedy for it to come before the state legislature. According to WAFF 48 in Huntsville, the bill was inspired by April Vafeas, whose son Tyler Jeffrey (TJ) Morgan and his girlfriend died in a car crash in which neither was wearing seatbelts. 

“Although I am not 100 percent that they would be alive if they had had those seatbelts on, I am fairly certain that they would be,” Vafeas told WAFF. 

The report goes on to quote Vafeas, “After his funeral, we were going through his things and I found three different citations for failure to wear a seatbelt and they were all issued when he was a minor.”

She said that she was never informed about the tickets from either her son, her insurance company or law enforcement. 

“If I could have taken his truck away from him for a month,” Vafeas told WAFF. “You know, driven him to school. 16-year-old boys do not like for momma to take them to school. That is something I would have addressed if I had the chance to.”

It is unclear if passage of this bill would have prevented his death. However, if parents do not know, they are not able to do something to address the issue.

We agree that this is something that should be on the books. In a small community like ours, there’s a good chance the parents may find out anyway if their child gets a ticket, especially if the police officer knows the parent well. If the incident didn’t occur here locally, parents may or may not ever find out about the incident until it’s too late. 

This law would apply to those under 19 years of age, for any traffic infraction. The bill doesn’t make it clear how the agency would inform the parents, except that they would “make a reasonable effort to notify the minor’s parent, legal guardian, or legal custodian of the infraction unless the minor has been emancipated by court order or operation of law.”

If passed, the law would take effect on Oct. 1.

We think this law is a good idea, and we hope our local legislators will support this bill if it comes up for a vote.