Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

Thousands of San Franciscans who had their driver’s licenses suspended for missing their date in traffic court now have a significantly better chance of getting back on the road legally.

On Tuesday, city officials are expected to announce that San Francisco Superior Court has lifted suspensions for 88,000 people who had their licenses revoked for failing to appear in court to address traffic tickets.

The move, unprecedented in California, is intended to make it easier for low-income people to get their licenses reinstated if they avoided traffic court because they couldn’t pay a fine.

“Missing your traffic court date has nothing to do with dangerous driving and everything to do, really, with poverty,” said Anne Stuhldreher, director of the San Francisco Financial Justice Project, an initiative within the treasurer’s office that evaluates and reforms fines and fees that are painful for the city’s poorest residents. The Financial Justice Project is part of a coalition of government organizations and community groups, including the court system, formed to address the issue.

“Not having a driver’s license is a huge barrier to employment,” Stuhldreher said. “A lot of employers require a valid driver’s license to get a job. We can hold people accountable without putting them in financial distress, and we don’t want to balance our books on the people struggling the most in our community.”

In 2015, after years of cajoling by civil rights groups, San Francisco Superior Court became the first court system in the state to stop suspending licenses for people unable to pay traffic fines. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation in 2017 eliminating the practice statewide.

San Francisco Superior Court stopped suspending licenses for failure-to-appear violations in traffic court in 2017, but that did little to address the backlog of licenses that had already been suspended. For the court, lifting the existing suspensions was a matter of resources, said Stuhldreher, which prompted Mayor London Breed to provide $15,000 to help the court sort out who was affected.

“The last thing that people in this situation need is to lose their license over missing a court date,” Breed said in a statement. “We should be helping lift people out of poverty, not making it that much more difficult to do things like get to work or pick up their kids from school.”

Exactly how many people will benefit is unclear. Some of the 88,000 formerly suspended licenses belong to people who have died or left San Francisco. Still, the effort should make it easier for “thousands” of residents to get their licenses reinstated, Stuhldreher said.

Getting that license back If your driver’s license was suspended for failing to appear in traffic court in San Francisco, you may be able to get your license back. First, call the DMV MandatoryActions Unit at 916-657-6525to find out if you have any other holds on your record. You’ll need to provide your name, date of birth and driver’s license number. To reinstate your driver’s license, visit your local DMV field office. The DMV encourages customers to make an appointment. Vision and knowledge tests might be required if your license has expired. The DMV charges a $55 reinstatement to get your license reissued. If your license has also expired, there is an additional $33 fee. For more information: www.dmv.ca.gov

Anyone seeking to get their license back will still need to pay the fees and fines, but the court system has options in place that allow people to pay in installments and, in some cases, get their fines significantly reduced based on financial hardships.

Officials hope the rest of the state will again follow suit in eliminating license suspensions for failing to appear in traffic court. Across California, traffic courts send the DMV about 40,000 requests each month to put a hold on someone’s license because they missed their traffic court date, Stuhldreher said.

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa