Although David Neustadter has been a licensed limo driver for 49 years, he lost the right to work with Uber in Chicago six months ago.
“I'm not allowed to park in Chicago because if I do, they're going to boot my car,” he told Southland Marquee.
That’s because of the ticket debt he accumulated as a result of hidden cameras.
“If you get tickets and you can't pay them, then you can't drive for Uber at all,” Neustadter said. “That camera thing … you can't just crawl down the street at just 20 miles an hour.”
The professional driver was surprised to learn that he owes about $2,600 in ticket debt.
“It took a big impact on me for a while, but I'm getting back on my feet now because I've been working with other companies to pick up people from their overflow and I just have a few of my own customers that I drive,” Neustadter said.
Neustadter’s tickets are among the more than 3 million automated traffic camera violations issued each year by the city of Chicago, according to ProPublica Illinois.
The cost of a citation can range from $25 for broken headlights to $250 for drivers who park their cars in handicap parking spaces without the proper credentials.
“Up and down these expressways, I try to do the speed limit but you’ve got people doing 90 to 120 miles an hour, and on the side streets, it's almost the same because they're going super fast, twice the speed limit,” said Neustadter, who lives in Naperville.
ProPublica Illinois also reported that drivers in and around Chicago owe about $1.45 billion collectively in ticket debt since September 1990.
But the city’s low-income, mostly Black neighborhoods are disproportionately impacted. Neustadter blames the law firm that represents the city of Chicago.
“That program actually is really harmful to a lot of people who can't afford to be paying all that expensive money for tickets,” he said. “It’s a scam because you don't even know when the red light camera is there unless you see it.”
In fact, ProPublica 2007 data analysis shows that the most accumulated ticket debt per adult is in eight of the 10 majority-black Illinois zip codes.
Neustadter, who is African-American, previously earned $500 to $600 a week driving for Uber for a few years. Now he’s struggling to make ends meet.
“I have a small check coming from the Veteran’s Administration and Social Security that I’m living off of,” he said.
Although it’s been widely reported that the city of Chicago mails notices to car owners with deadlines for when they can pay or, in the alternative, appeal the moving violations, over time the money owned mounts due to interest or collections efforts if not paid in a timely manner.
In Neustadter’s case, because of a missed payment on his payment plan of $160 a month, he was forced to start over even though he had nearly paid off the debt.
“I was paying on it for over a year so I should have had a balance of like $500 or $600 but then I got into an accident and I wasn't able to work for six months,” he said. “When I started to repay them again and get back on track to pay them, they didn't take out any deductions for the ones I’d already paid so I still owed the same amount. If you miss any payments, then you start all over again.”
The Cook County Code of Ordinances Sec. 54-391 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 shall be suspended until such time that the fine, assessment of costs or other sums of money has been fully paid."
As previously reported by National Public Radio, deactivating gig workers, primarily ride-share drivers, for their unpaid ticket debts is unique to Chicago. About 15,500 Lyft and Uber drivers were suspended in 2019 under the city's policy and data analysis by WBEZ determined that those ride-share suspensions have disproportionately impacted Chicago’s majority Black and low-income neighborhoods the most.
“There are more Uber drivers of color in Chicago and with all these red light cameras giving you tickets, it's making it harder and harder to make money especially in Chicago,” Neustadter said. “It’s going to get a whole lot worse if they don’t stop this program.”
While other drivers are relying on bankruptcy, according to Pro Publica Illinois, Neustadter can’t because he previously filed for bankruptcy in 2017.
“It’s a rough life for me trying to make a living," he added. "Ever since Uber came out, it took a big chunk out of the limo business and a big chunk out of the taxi business. Then the city comes along and starts ticketing you like crazy.”
Special note from the Southland Marquee: This story is part of a collection highlighting how Cook County and City of Chicago policy affect freelancers, small business owners, and ride-share drivers.