Why I hate the BMV (Warning! Rant ahead!)

[Tinner]

I'm really frustrated right now, and since I can't solve the problem right this second, I'm going to vent a little.

In July of 2003 I got a speeding ticket.
On the way to my grandfather's funeral.
For doing 30 in a 25.
To top things off, since I was in a hurry to get there (out of state) I had foolishly left without my new insurance card. I had just switched companies, and the one in my wallet was expired.
Aside from being a prick and giving me a ticket for doing 5 miles over the limit, the officer was cool about the insurance thing.

"No problem he says. Just take your ticket and your new card up to the courthouse on Monday when you get back. Piece of cake."

So, bright and early Monday morning, I hustle along to the courthouse to pay my fine, and show them my proof of insurance.
Everything goes fine ... or does it?

Flash forward to October 31, 2003 - I get laid off from work. I am either unemployed, or underemployed until February of 2005.

Jump to March 2005, I have finally gotten a decent job as a loan officer. It's commission sales, but the money situation is getting better. I'm finally starting to dig out of the hole 2 years of poor employment has left us in.

Ten on the way home from a friend's house, I get pulled over for not signalling a lane change.
No biggie right? The officer is super friendly, and I'm being respectful and polite. I know he's gotta give me a ticket. It sucks, but that's the law, and he's got me dead to rights.
He takes my license, registration and proof of insurance and goes back to his car to write the ticket.

He comes back a few moments later and asks me, "Did you know that your license was suspended?"

Um ... gee, no I didn't. I certainly wouldn't have been driving if I knew that. When did that happen and why?
Turns out someone, either at the courthouse, or the BMV never processed the fact that I DID provide proof of insurance back in 2003!
So they suspended my license in September of 2003.
And never notified me of it!

So, I get taken to jail, and after freaking out my wife when she picks me up at the pokey, we go about doing the court thing, investigating what happened, and taking care of the problem.
Long story short. There's NO way to prove that I actually showed PoI back in 2003.
The court gives me 90 days probation, and I need to pay about $1000.00 in fines, fees etc.

That's about $1000.00 more than I have at the time.

Oh yeah, you can't just do this anywhere, you have to go to a regional reinstatement center to handle it.
Oh yeah, you'll need to increase your insurance premium as well, because now you have to carry bonded insurance.
Oh ... if you have any questions, you can call the BMV's help desk. But of course, they never actually answer that phone.

So, here I am, August 2005, all the fees but the final one are paid, and the paperwork is complete.
I just need to call the BMV and verify that they have all the paperwork they need, pay the last fee, and I can drive again.

And they still aren't answering their &^%^*% phone!!!

 

[Arnwyn]

What's the "BMV"?

 

[Templeton580]

*

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Sorry to hear that, that blows!

My wife went through something similar when we were first married. The main difference for her was that she fought the ticket because they tallied fines more than was allowed by statute in New York State. After several years she got the fine lowered to the legal limit and paid it. Her mother, a court clerk, checked on the status of things a few months later and noticed my wife's license had been suspended for failure to pay. She had never received any notification of the suspension. Fortunately for her (and me) we had kept an extensive file on this whole thing and had the cancelled check as proof the fine had been paid.

 

[Mystery Man]

A similar thing happened to me and I was ticketed but I actually didn't have insurance. A complete screw-up and oversight on my part(long story). It's not like I wasn't insured on purpose or anything, and I still shudder to think what might have happened. But at my court date I didn't even bother to argue the point that I missed it by a couple of days because I wasn't paying attention, the judge was already dealing with a whole host of idiots trying the same tactic and he was getting pissy. I just humbly pleaded guilty and was sent on my way with an order to get insurance within a certain time and it was the special insurance for morons they make you get when you're...a moron. This moron has another year and a half on that sucker.

 

[Desdichado]

I've only ever been ticketed for non-insurance when I've forgotten to change out the card. And when that happened, I took my card into the courthouse and got the ticket waived. I also had expired license plates, but got that ticket waived when I showed that I had renewed them (actually, a day or two after getting the ticket.)

I had to pay the speeding ticket though -- 55 in a 40 or something like that. It was a ridiculously low speed limit for the type of road it is, though. Nobody drives the speed limit on that road. I was unluckly enough to be driving it very early in the morning when nobody was on it, or I would have just blended in and never been pulled over.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Yep, Yep, Yep,

The great, honorable police department.

The whole analogy to a "few bad apples spoil...." is what comes to mind.

I was recently pulled over for going 45 in a 30 on my way to work (the way I take every day). The fact the Speed Limit 45 sign was 100 feet away didn't matter. You aren't allowed to go 45 until you pass the sign apparently.

Never mind the 30 speed limit is at the bottom of a hill where you have to ride your brakes the entire time SLOW DOWN to 30.

Never mind that the road in question is a 2 lane highway (could be turned into 4 lane).

Never mind it was built in the 70's to become a 4-lane highway (and built with said speeds in mind).

Never mind that when I go 30 (I do now), I get people honking at me & giving me the finger because NO ONE (non-local) drives that slow.

The Speed Limit is 30. Since the small town I live in annexed it several years ago, the town sets the speed limits, not the State. Thus they can set it at whatever they want. And, since that road is the primary entrance to the Casino we got on the river.....

It's a speed trap. EVERYONE knows this. (I know it now, when I tell locals about it, they say "Yep, spped trap, officer X sits at one of these 3 spots & tags people going to the casino.") The only reason that speed limit is what it is is so this small town can generate extra revenue.

So the cop pulls me over,

"Do you know how fast you were going?"

"45, that's the speed limit isn't, like that sign right there?" (I'm going with the innocent mistake, I figure ticket town still awaits me.

"Nope, its 30. Blah blah blah (lecture here), see your license & insurance"

Give it to him, he asks me "Do you have a current insurance card?" I'm about to have a heart attack as that is the only insurance card I have, but I take it back & get ready to dig throught the glove box in hopes of a miracle. Then I notice my card has valid through 2006 in BIG LETTERS 5 DIFFERENT PLACES. So I tell the officer that's the only one I have, is he SURE it isn't the right one (subtley pointing to the HUGE BLACK TEXT).

Officer "Oh, I guess this is right"

Goes back into his car & runs my plates. Clean. Not a damn thing he further use to entertain himself with. Then he notices my Driver's Liscense (it's been 6 years since I had to renew it) has one address & my car has another. YES! Only harden crimanals ever move!

So the officer grills me on why I've moved twice in the past 5 years. While 'Because' seemed like a really good answer, I don't think that's what he wanted. So I politely explain (no, justify) why I could possibly need to re-locate, ever. I tell him how I graduated from the town on my DL. I then explain how, due to a tough job market we moved in with my mother-in-law for a while, then moved to an apartment, then bought a house in this small, rural town when my wife got a job there.

The (not a nice word) grilled me for 20 minutes about why I "moved around so much" after all, only crimnals would live in more than 1 place for their entire lives. Man, he was a jack (donkey). But, I remained calm & politely explained, in detail, every move I'd done in the past 10 years. But, miracles of miracles, I used the phrase "Then we moved to here & bought a house."

Yep. I was no longer a casino bound drug dealer, I was an upstanding citizen. One within walking distance of the courthouse. Heck, I helped put in their new computer system & will be doing the same with their new phone system. The judge is a nice guy. Suddenly I was a tax payer who could make his life miserable by going to every town hall meeting, and demanding to know why things worked in manner X.

Once he realized I was a local person who could fight the ticket (again, by walking down the street and talking to judge bob), he began to lecture me, told me, ignorance is not an excuse, obey the speed limit, blah, blah, blah. But, he let me go with just a warning.

Maybe he never had any intention of giving me a ticket. Always planned on just giving me a warning. Maybe he always lets people though the speed trap with just a warning. But I doubt it.

I should point out most of my dealings with police have been extermly positive. Most police are pretty good guys. But there are some real jerks out there who get a high off of the power they wield. And this was one of those.

Oh, this is a small town. Pretty devoid of crime. Not a lot of violence going on. More Mayberry RFD than Miami CSI.

Thus, I now am sure to obey the speed limit. Even on the other side of town where the limit drops from 55 to 20 at the city limits (still well outside of the town). I get people behind me all the time ticked off at my inability to drive a reasonable speed (or, in some cases an irresponsible excess of speed). They don't realize what us locals know: a reasonable speed doesn't matter, all that matters is what the city WANTS the speed to be.

In closing, Remember,

A bureaucracy is designed to work independant of personal thoughts or beliefs, thus those incapable of either make the best bureaucrats.

Or as my friend puts it "My poor life choices have led me to a career at the DMV."

 

[Turanil]

I don't have a car myself. I am not proud to admit that on a board so much frequented by US people. However, after reading this thread, I am glad to not have one, and don't wish to, ever!

 

[Desdichado]

Only harden crimanals ever move!

I'm not sure I want to know anything more about "hardened crimanals..."

 

[RangerWickett]

Tinner, I'd say it'd be worth the effort to try once or twice more to contest it, even if you just talk to someone at the courthouse. Maybe spare a day or so to be nice and persistent, and just maybe you'll get out of the fine. If possible, see if you can find the cop who gave you the ticket in the first place, explain the situation to him, and see if he'd be willing to put in a good word for you. You were in the right here, and it's your civic duty not to let the bureaucracy screw you over. If enough people let government be unfair, then the unfairness becomes standard, the government becomes lazy, and more people suffer.