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” on CalMattersLicense to killThe California Department of Motor Vehicles’ investigation was recently honored in two separate national journalism contests.
The report by reporters Robert Lewis and Lauren Hepler revealed that while California’s DMV has the authority to investigate drivers who cause fatal crashes, it rarely does so — with tragic results.
The series was excellent with Frank A. Bleton Award for Reporting Local Accountability in the Poynter Journalism Awards. The awards recognize journalists and news organizations across platforms for outstanding work in writing, reporting, innovation and leadership. The Frank A. Bleton Award is sponsored by The Seattle Times.
The judges said of the investigation: “Through an exhaustive search of court records and compelling storytelling around victims’ families, CalMatters showed how the state of California failed to keep hundreds of deadly drivers off the roads. This is accountability journalism at its best: shining a light on dangerous flaws in a system and pushing those in power to fix them.”
Congratulations to the other winners: The Los Angeles Times staff for “LA Firestorms” and Daniel DuClos of The Capital Times for “Dismissed.”
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And the investigation was named a finalist for excellence in local and regional investigative reporting in the Scripps Howard Journalism Awards.. The awards are one of the most prestigious journalism competitions in the US, honoring journalism across all media.
Congratulations to the other winners: first, the San Francisco Chronicle for “Failed to death” and the other finalist is KARE 11-TV for “KARE 11 Investigates: Housing Hustle.”
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To better understand why California is seeing an increase in traffic deaths, CalMatters built a database of vehicular homicide cases — sending reporters to courthouses in all 58 counties and spending nearly $20,000 on public records. From that database, reporters Lewis and Hepler presented an ongoing series of stories revealing how government officials—DMV leaders, judges, elected officials, prosecutors, police and court officials—routinely allow dangerous drivers to operate in California.
Since then, nearly 200 drivers who killed someone on the road have had their driving privileges suspended or revoked, and more than 30 counties have pledged to begin reporting manslaughter convictions to the DMV. Legislation is in the works in Sacramento.
In FebruaryA bipartisan group of lawmakers has announced an unprecedented legislative package aimed at challenging California’s road safety permit laws. To date, 16 bills have been introduced, many of which have publicly cited CalMatters’ findings as inspiration.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.