By Vidal Anguiano Jr.

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Chicago's Traffic Violation Fines are A Familiar Story

Thanks to extensive coverage from Propublica's Driven into Debt journalistic series, we have learned a lot about Chicago's ticketing practices and the debt now owed by already financially strained residents.

The Big Picture of Chicago's Traffic Violation Debt

Since 2007, Chicagoans have racked up almost $600M in traffic violation related debts.

Most Money Coming from Drivers Living in Lower-Income Zipcodes

Most of the debts owed to the City are owed by drivers living in zipcodes with a median low-income.
[Low(<$49K/yr), Middle ($49K-$80K/yr), or High (>$80K/yr) income groups based on their home zipcode's median income]

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Since 2007, Chicagoans have racked up almost $600M in traffic violation related debts. Though this tells us about the state of Chicagoan traffic violation debt as a collective, it can be difficult to assess the burden being carried by individual Chicagoans.

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Since 2007, Chicagoans have racked up almost $600M in traffic violation related debts. Though this tells us about the state of Chicagoan traffic violation debt as a collective, it can be difficult to assess the burden being carried by individual Chicagoans.

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Since 2007, Chicagoans have racked up almost $600M in traffic violation related debts. Though this tells us about the state of Chicagoan traffic violation debt as a collective, it can be difficult to assess the burden being carried by individual Chicagoans.

993K Drivers Owe Money for Traffic Violations

Dating back to 2007, there are at least 993K drivers (here indicated by unique license plate numbers) who still owe money to the City of Chicago for traffic violations. These violations include tickets for expired city stickers, expired license plates, red-light cameras, and parking tickets, among others.

Debt Held by Each Group is Proportional to the Number of Drivers in Each Group

At a high level, we can see that many Chicago residents are sitting on great sums of debt from traffic violations.

High Concentrations of Traffic Tickets Cause Huge Financial Shock

It's one thing if a driver, over a 1 year period, has accumulated $700 in traffic violations. It's another thing if they accumlate the same amount within 30 days. If for each driver, we could examine the greatest sum of fines issued within a 30 day period, we can get a better sense of the financial shocks drivers can experience.

Greatest Sum of Debt Accrued over 30 Days as Percent of Monthly Income

Looking at every driver's ticket history, we can find the 30 day period where the greatest sum of fines was accrued. We can then use this value and compare it to their monthly income to get a sense of the financial strain they might face due to tickets. Each dot represents 100 drivers.

Less Than 25% of Monthly Income

The vast majority of drivers accrued at most 25% of monthly income in ticket fines within a 30 day period. Hovering your cursor over a dot highlights a unique driver's case, showing the greatest sum of fines accrued in 30 days, their monthly income, and the percent of monthly income owed from traffic violations.

NOTE: Transparency of dot indicates being on lower end of the % range, while heavier dots indicate being closer to the higher end of the % range.

Between 25% and 40% of Monthly Income

Ninety-four thousand drivers accrued a proportion of fines equivalent to a month's housing expenses. According to rules for Section 8 housing vouchers used by low-income beneficiaries, sources suggest they spend between 30% and 40% of income on housing.

Between 40% and 75% of Monthly Income

Fifty-two thousand drivers accured a sum as much as twice the cost of recommended housing expenses.

More than 75% of Monthly Income

Sixteen-thousand people accrued tickets in nearly equivalent amounts to the their monthly income or more.

Getting a Closer Look

The short-term accumulation of debt can, and has caused long-term repercussions for many drivers, whether in the form of missed rent payments or inability to pay for other essential needs. Others have gotten their driver's license revoked, their vehicle confiscated, or have filed for bankruptcy. I hope this offers a look into just how dire the circumstances can be for so many drivers in Chicago.

Thank you, and stay tuned for updates.

The data used for this project is publicly available and provided by Problublica.

You can find the code for this project on my GitHub.

Inspiration for the presentation of this project was taken from this tutorial .