A Case Study of Financial Suspensions in Wichita: What Factors Keep Drivers Suspended?
This dissertation in practice identifies the factors within a financial suspension of a driver’s license system that inhibit drivers from regaining the ability to drive legally in the City of Wichita and Sedgwick County, Kansas. This was done by documenting the system that generates, maintains, and resolves financial driver’s license suspensions. Then, a qualitative case study approach explains how people interact with this system through interviews with drivers whose suspensions began with a financial suspension and practitioners who work with drivers to help them regain the legal privilege to drive. These interviews illuminate a three-stage lifecycle driver’s experience within this system: suspension, compounding, and intervention. The results illuminate three changes that would improve the likelihood of reinstatement. First, drivers need better access to actionable information to guide their restoration efforts. Second, restoration tools need to be extended to extended to administrative suspensions. Third, a continued reduction in the number of situations that result in revocations. These changes would help drivers break out of the compounding cycle and have a better likelihood of regaining their legal driving privileges. The dissertation, in practice, concludes with recommendations that practitioners and City Managers can implement to manifest change in the system that will result in more successful restoration efforts.
Case Study, Complexity, Driver's License Suspension, Systems Theory, Systems Thinking, Transformational Leadership
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