Journal AlabamaMike's Journal: Screwed By The Man (aka Interstate Insanity) 2
I just had to write about this today. A friend of mine recently moved from here in NH to an undisclosed location much further south of here. During his tenure here in New England he had all sorts of fun playing "Who Can Suspend My Driver's License?" with both New Hampshire and Massachusettes. Basically it all boils down to this: Don't ever get a Mass. DL. If you do, don't ever leave Mass, or if you do leave Mass, don't EVER move to New Hampshire. The situation sets itself up like this: Move to Mass, get a Mass DL. Then move to NH and get a NH DL which SHOULD render your Mass license invalid. Ahh, but there's the rub: NH doesn't notify other states when someone surrendures their license to them (NH.) So, at this point you have both an MA and a NH license, even though this is supposedly both illegal and impossible. Now add to the fray a few speeding tickets. Funny enough since MA and NH share records you actually get charged for an offense in either state in both states (I know this sounds insanely complex, but stick with me.) In other words, if you found yourself in this situation, and you get a ticket in NH, it goes against both your NH and MA license. Even better, if you're over the point limit in one of these states, they will suspend your license which causes your license in the other state to be suspended as well. Now you're in some fucking odd mobius strip of bureaucracy where neither organization that suspended your privileges can tell you why you're suspended, other than your license is suspeded and you need to contact the other organization to find out why. I'm not joking, this really happened! To make matters worse, my friend acted in good faith and paid umpteen fines to BOTH states to get his license straightened out ( mind you this has happened more than once, and he's done this double fine procedure everytime.) To top it all off, at the end of this past year he took a "Driver's Education" course in MA just to keep them from suspending his license (literally, the State of Mass shook him down on this one ... he gets a letter that says "Take this class, or get suspended again!" If you don't realize what a suspension in one state will get you, re-read the above.) The course should have been the end of it. He hasn't gotten another ticket, and he's paid through the nose to keep his privileges on the up-and-up. Which brings me to the punchline of this story (if it was funny, it would be a punchline, at least): He tried to get a license in his new home state, only to find out his license from up here was suspended! I shit you not, this actually happened. Which brings me to my point ... Who can you turn to when this happens? What organization governs this type of interstate insanity? Are you just completely screwed? He's been on the phone with them, and they actually want him to show up in person to fix this. Now since he lives over 1500 miles away that seems a little unlikely, but hey, what are your choices? It reminds me of the whole Consumer Reporting Services scheme. If something goes on your credit report, it's GODDAMN difficult to get it removed. Even if it's not licit, best luck getting it taken off. You could make a full-time job of monitoring and policing your credit report. Hmm ... maybe that's a business idea. A service that monitors and polices credit reports for its clientele. Yeah, I know I'd pay to have someone handle that insanity for me. Who knows, maybe I could open up a division off that company for monitoring and policing driving records (since it's obvious that the states can be trusted as much as the credit reporting agencies.) Best of luck, DB ... I hope this gets resolved in a short amount of time, and without an exchange of money (unless they are paying you.)
Until next time,
A.M.
Until next time,
A.M.
An update (Score:2)
All too familiar (Score:2)