In 2019, the Texas Legislature forgave an estimated $2.5 billion in debt when it abolished its "Driver Responsibility Surcharge" in all but DWI cases. This surcharge was an extra, 3-year civil penalty added onto certain criminal traffic infractions like DWI or driving without a license or insurance. Surcharges were created in 2003 to pay for a roadway network that was never built, and instead half the money was diverted to hospitals, who became reliant on the money, with the rest going into the state treasury. However, the majority of drivers who had surcharges assessed could not pay them. Many people who couldn't afford either surcharges or insurance continued to drive and racked up huge sums in debt they could never expect to pay. A little-advertised Amnesty program and an indigence program that still required partial payment helped some, and were criticized by some who felt it was unfair that they paid and others didn't. But local Sheriffs began to complain that the law was causing the jails to fill up with people driving on suspended license and the judiciary insisted the law was unfair and counterproductive to public safety. Finally, in 2019, the Legislature found different sources to fund hospitals and eliminated the surcharge, along with around $2.5 billion in debt owed by around 1.4 million people. The same year, the Legislature eliminated red-light cameras statewide and effectively canceled those debts, and re-defined "undue hardship" in the Code of Criminal Procedure to allow judges to waive traffic-fine debt for more people.