When my driver's license was set to expire last July, I was, for once, actually on top of getting it renewed. And to add to this rarely seen personal efficiency, I realized that since the hubby's birthday was a month after mine he should come along and renew his too.
Mine went off without a hitch. 30 minute wait? Check. Old license? Check. Eye Test? Check. Fake smile photo? Check. Hurrah - I was told I could expect my shiny new government papers in the mail within 2 weeks.
The hubby? His story didn't end so well. When he got to the desk,he was told he couldn't renew his license because he had an outstanding traffic ticket.
Note that I have not had a traffic ticket since I was 17 years old, and that one was a crock. No speeding tickets, no accidents, no parking tickets, no missed tolls, nothing. If you think that's awesome, you're not married to me. I have little to no patience with Dear Hubby in that regard, and I thought his lead foot had been curbed years ago. So when I heard "unpaid traffic ticket," I think we all saw my eyes get pret-ty narrow.
But then DMV man continued with, "from Indiana." Seriously? There's a outstanding traffic from a state we left 10 - 11 years ago?
We figured we were pretty lucky that we had gone in a month early, because this would clearly take a little research. Yep, in July, that's what we thought.
When we got home, we looked up his record up on-line, and fortunately for him the last ticket he got was the last ticket I remembered - July, 1998. I remember it because I was pregnant, which made me doubly mad. Did I mention I've never had a ticket? Well, a ticket that I deserved?
Plus, because I have a story for practically everything, I even remembered the day he paid it...
He chose to take it to court because he said it was not possible for his old car to be going that fast.
I was secretly skeptical about DH's defensive strategy. But when I saw the weather that day, I thought maybe we were going to catch a break. A late summer storm was knocking over trees and flooding low lying areas....I'm no lawyer, but I've heard if the cop doesn't appear, the ticket gets tossed.
So, maybe the cop that wrote the ticket would be working overtime handling traffic! Or maybe just staying home where it was cozy and dry! Any wonderfully heroic important cop things related to the storm would be awesome.
But not only did he show, he brought friends. The technician who calibrates the radar was there, as was a witness to the calibration. Heh. DH's "my car doesn't go that fast!" plan was destroyed in less than 30 seconds. And the taxpayers paid 3 guys overtime to do it.
So yeah - we both remember paying it, with chagrin as well as a check. But could he prove he paid it? Uh, no.
Bear in mind that in the 14 years since that ticket was issued, he had renewed his Indiana license, traded it for an Illinois license, and then traded that for a Michigan license. And none of these states, including Indiana, had noticed that he had an unpaid ticket. Because, and I think you already know this, government is efficient like that.
His first call to the city it was issued in was not helpful. The next call, to Michigan, was. They told him that there is a 10 year statute of limitations. They also told him they showed the ticket was issued in late 2003, but if he could prove the ticket was actually over 10 years old, they would give him his license. But simply seeing it on the Indiana website we found it on wasn't adequate, because clicking the link gave a "Copy Not Available" message. They needed a real photocopy, because that's what they needed.
But at least we had a firm objective, so he called the originating city again. He was told the ticket had gone to collections in late 2003. Aha! That explained the date the Michigan records were showing. Another piece of the puzzle fell in place. This would work sort itself out in no time, right?
Uh, no. Things went pretty much nowhere after that.
He asked the collection agency for a copy of the ticket. That was a mistake. Not only did they not have one, he awakened them to chance that the debt might get paid, and they started calling us frequently. Like, every Saturday morning at 9:00 sharp, plus at random times during the daytime all week long. Since July.
He called the city again, and they referred him to the court. The court referred him to the city. They both swore they'd get together and figure it all out. They didn't.
Count how many things you can find wrong with the following paragraph:
He kept calling. At some point, DH he found out that the reason this ticket had not shown up when it was relatively current. Get this: While cleaning out an empty office in the old court building one day, a clerk found an errant box of tickets. Because nobody could determine if they had been paid or not, they decided to treat them all as outstanding. (Actually, she said they "had" to treat them all as outstanding. DH didn't ask why they "had" to, because he's much better at not openly mocking the people officials he still needs help from than I am.)
Where that box ended up is still a mystery, because nobody could find a copy of the ticket. I immediately suggested he recommend they build another new court building and then clean their offices again but again - he's better at being incredibly patient than I am.
He went the boring route. I joined him. He called the mayor, he called the traffic court judge, he emailed, I wrote real letters and signed his name to he signed them, we both offered to drive over. After a while, everybody just stopped responding. Well, everybody except the collection agency, who informed us several times in menacing tones every week that the $150 ticket was now going to cost us just under $600.
The sad part? In another phase of our life, we probably would have just paid it and moved on. But that's just not an option for us right now. So, for the past 8 months, I've been the only driver in the house, which has led to some unique situations, like sometimes hoping simultaneously that various job prospects both will and won't pan out. It's one thing to consider driving an hour to and from a job each day. It's another to consider driving two hours every morning, and two hours back, which is what I would have needed to do if any of the Ann Arbor interviews had panned out for him.
Thanks, government, for keeping us safe and helping us when we need it the most.
Yesterday afternoon, desperation inspiration struck. He called our local state representative and told the whole sad story to her staffer. You know what? This morning, DH got his license. It was easy! Her assistant called Indiana and talked to the judge who wouldn't acknowledge our correspondences, the Mayor's office who wouldn't return our calls,the clerk who couldn't find the ticket and then the DMV in Michigan, and voila.
We should have done that! Oh wait...
It appears that even the local ruling elite don't even pretend to answer to us anymore. Thank heavens our party dues were paid up, I guess.
Of course, we still had to pay the $7 late renewal fee. They "had" to charge us that. And something else I learned - our insurance might go from $50 a month to $300 a month for 6 months to penalize us. After all, he was uninsured all that time. Meaning, of course, that it would have been cheaper to pay the ticket. In July.
SIgh. At least I'm really looking forward to my 9:00 Saturday morning phone call.
I've never had to do this but Dave Ramsey would suggest you get a can blow horn and while talking to the collection agency blast the the horn into the microphone. They might stop calling after a few blasts.
Posted by: Triple Hash | 04/13/2013 at 06:21 PM
If only there were a way to send Bear Spray
through the phone lines.
Posted by: AngelaTC | 04/13/2013 at 07:09 PM