The state’s driver responsibility program, which critics have called a debtor’s prison that has left an estimated 1.5 million Texans without drivers licenses, is on its way out in favor of other fees for impaired driving convictions and $2 more on everyone’s insurance premiums.

The Texas Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed HB 2048, which repeals the driver responsibility program but provides money for trauma care in the state that the program originally was intended to fund. The bill, by state Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond, increases all traffic fines in the state by $20, adds $2 to motor vehicle insurance bills for all Texans, and adds up to $6,000 to the fines and fees of a drunken-driving conviction.

The House passed it unanimously earlier this month.

The bill, if signed by Gov. Abbott, would take effect Sept. 1, and immediately restore the ability of tens of thousands of Texans to renew their driver licenses.

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The program is almost universally considered problematic, with advocacy groups saying it traps low-income Texans in a system that forces them to drive illegally to work, in order to pay off excessive fines.

“The vast majority of people caught in this cycle desperately want to resolve what they owe and to drive legally,” the groups Texas Fair Defense Project and Texas Appleseed wrote in a March report. “However, Texas law currently puts up virtually insurmountable financial and procedural barriers to legal driving.”

In a tweet on Wednesday, the Texas Association of Counties called it a “burden on our county courts.”

Emergency room operators around the state supported the changes, so long as trauma funding was not impacted.

“If based on the funding mechanisms incorporated in the legislation, the funding will grow as the Texas population grows and more drivers purchase automobile insurance,” Memorial Herman Health System said in a statement.

dug.begley@chron.com