Why Dr. Shawn Joseph requires a chauffeur: He’s horrible at driving & paying tickets.

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Shawn Joseph, the director of Metro Nashville Public Schools gets a lot of ridicule from parents, teachers, citizens, and even members of his school board, over his choice to use a personal driver during his day-to-day business as Director of Schools. He often tells people that his day is too busy to be bothered with driving, when he could use that time to tend to other business, such as making phone calls, and answering emails.

Perhaps the real reason that Dr. Shawn Joseph prefers not to drive, is that he’s horrible at it. While the Nashville Metro Court Clerk confirms that Joseph hasn’t received any citations while in Davidson County, Scoop: Nashville reached out to his prior counties and states – and learned that Joseph has a history of bad driving that goes back decades and crosses multiple states. Speeding and reckless driving are the common themes throughout. While a ‘personal driver’ is NOT part of Shawn Joseph’s contract with the city, the city is required to provide him with an automobile during his tenure, and ALL expenses associated with it – including insurance, gas and maintenance. That’s a nice way to get out of paying his own inflated insurance rates due to reckless driving charges, speeding, and unpaid traffic tickets.

His most recent charge was in 2014, while in the Commonwealth of Virginia, when he was clocked doing 85 in a 55, making it a reckless driving charge. Joseph plead the charge down from a misdemeanor crime with possible jail time to a speeding infraction, reduced to 84 in a 55, to meet the lower threshold. He was able to plead guilty to the reduced charge and $217 to close that case.

Dr. Shawn Joseph wasn’t always so quick to pay his fines to close traffic cases. In fact, as of last Tuesday, the District Court of Howard County, Maryland, confirmed to Scoop: Nashville that Dr. Shawn Joseph, who they confirmed via DOB, and SSN, still has an unpaid ticket in their jurisdiction – from 1997!

In May of 1997, the Howard County Police Department pulled over Dr. Shawn Joseph, who was doing 54 in a 35 mph zone. He failed to appear in court on the ticket, or pay the fine. To date, the ticket is outstanding in the District Court of Maryland. Due to the age of the ticket it had not been included in any points or suspension of his current license, however since the case was brought to their attention they told Scoop: Nashville it would now be reviewed.

It’s unclear if Dr. Joseph will choose to pay his old tickets and close the accompanying cases – after all they’re not having any impact on his insurance payments, since the city of Nashville is paying for his personal car, along with all expenses, including his driver and personal insurance.

Here’s Dr. Joseph’s employment contract with the city:

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