But it seems that this has happened to PennDOT at least once before (some identifying details removed):
The EXACT same thing happened to me. I too was cited for underage drinking in 1992 (I had an out-of-state drivers license at the time). Life went on until the DC DMV linked into a national data network in 1997. When I went to renew my DC license after that date, I was told that PA had placed a flag on my record and that I could not renew. The nice people at the Penn DOT told me that I never signed a form acknowledging my license suspension and that I would have to sign it and begin to serve the suspension. They were insanely inflexible. I ended up tracking down the District Magistrate in the town where I got the citation and she was kind enough to have mercy on me. She retroactively changed my violation from underage drinking to disorderly conduct. As a result, I could avoid the license suspension. Sadly, the DC DMV never could properly clear the flag in their system (the also charged me $100 to "reinstate" my license). Every time I had to interact with them after that, I had to explain the situation all over again. Not sure what I would have done if the Magistrate didn't help me. I don't think I have ever been as mad as I was when talking with Penn DOT.Once is a fluke, twice a coincidence . . . but what are the odds that the only other person this has happened to just happens to read my blog? I suspect that PennDOT is well aware that this is a problem with their system. On the other hand, why should they fix it? It almost certainly happens mostly to out-of-state residents at this point. It's not like those people have any juice to get them fired, and their business is hardly going to be outsourced to Taiwan.
Though I'm against underaged drinking laws as a matter of principle, I do think that Pennsylvania would have been perfectly within its legal rights to suspend my license when I was 19, if I had had one. I don't, however, concede that if, at the age of 19, one does not have a license they can suspend, that they get a sort of "IOU" which gives them the right to suspend one's license at any arbitrary point in the future. Nor do I understand what purpose this serves, other than spite. I mean, one could hardly call it a deterrent--I'm no longer eligible to reoffend, and for most 19 year olds, their 35th birthday is about as emotionally real as Santa Claus.
Would it help if I apologized for not having learned to drive until I was 23?
I've never had an alcohol-related incident in Pennsylvania, or elsewhere lucky enough (Lord knows that, if I'd been drinking, I'd have been in trouble if the South Bend cop on campus at Notre Dame arrested me, and that kind priest wouldn't have bailed me out of jail at seven a.m.), but I do believe that, at the very best, PennDOT is, in fact, in competent.
I came to this realization just this summer. I spent the first month of my summer vacation back home in Indiana; I left the DC area on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, early enough not to hit too much traffic, save a frustrating delay in western Maryland.
And a silly stoppage in PA: Apparently, in the state's infinite wisdom (My friend from Pittsburgh attributes it to the Democrats' running the state.), PennDOT had narrowed I-79 to one lane of north-bound traffic for construction during one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.
I hope, Megan, realizing the evils of PennDOT (and the relative mediocrity of the beer), that you've learned never to quaff Rolling Rock again. Yuengling, too.
What principle causes you to oppose underage drinking? And what is underage?
When should governments ever be disallowing anyone to do something that affects only themselves?
Why should the rights (and responsibility) of parents to control their minor children be violated?
Underage drinking AND driving is a whole different matter- it affects others.
Establish "residence" in Maryland or Virginia. They do not honor decisions by courts in other states. You do not have to live in MD or Va in order to have residence; their congressmen don't live there. Thus, like your congressman, you can live in DC, reside in MD, and have an MD license.
Then you can devote your life in DC to making laws senseable and reasonable; and making bureaucrats intelligent, selfless, and helpful.
Good luck and thank you! Keep your daytime job!
I grew up in Louisiana which had an 18 year old drinking age until forced by the Federal government to raise the age.
How did they do it? They did so by threatening to withhold highway construction funds unless the state buckled under.
And what prompted the Feds to do this? Lobbying by groups like MADD.
Just another little smackdown on liberty and state's rights.
Actually, I doubt PA is aware of a problem. What seems to be happening is you've got two bureaucracies: the Liquor people say, hey, we've determined someone was drinking underage. And DOT says, if Liquor determines underage drinking, we suspend the license for x days. The problem is in the communication between the two agencies. I'd guess no one set up a meeting between them and said, okay, when a Megan M exists, what's our business rule for handling it? (Possibly it might require a meeting with the Feds as well, given the situation Greg mentions.) Without a rule, the IT systems don't cope.
Megan,
I don't think PDOT's actions are unintentional. Part of your punishment for drinking under age was to go have your driver's license suspended. It's not their fault that you didn't receive this punishment in a timely manner. Now that you have a license, you can receive the punishment as you should have years ago. (You should feel lucky that they don't insist on some sort of interest charge for the period your punishment was deferred.)
Never mind that the purpose for the punishment is no longer served. PDOT's objective is to set the galactic books in order. Heaven forfend that someone somewhere escaped punishment! It would be like allowing some murderer who was insane at the time of the crime escape punishment after he's no longer insane. (Now that he's sane, he can appreciate just how wrong his actions were, so he should be locked up!) The penal system would lose all respect if people didn't serve every minute of their sentences and you, young lady, need to feel the lash of having your license suspended!
It's not a mistake. It's purposeful. It also makes no sense at all.
Nathan P. Onger,
I thought Vader killed all the Yuenglings?
Deterence is only one function of sentencing someone for committing a crime. Another might be incapacitation (i.e., keeping you off the streets). But another function is simply punishment or retribution. The suspension of your license was designed, in part, to inconvenience you. It would appear that it is now doing just that. Should it be any different if you had been charged a $500 fine or sentenced to 50 hours of community service, but had been unable to pay or serve at the time?
Nevertheless, I believe the law is unjust and you have my sympathies.
The insanity of laws around morality that automatically link something like underage drinking with your driver's license. If you had been drinking and driving - definitely go hard on you, especially if you didn't have a license as well.
Just for underage drinking in a bar? Don't just blame the bureaucrats - they only enforce the foolish rules that politicians want in order to look tough on crime.
"Would it help if I apologized for not having learned to drive until I was 23?"
Helpful advice: Do NOT mention this in your interactions with the people you interact with. If you volunteer the information (especially to a grunt) you'll probably get flagged for having driven without a license on top of everything else.
Finally, having worked in a bureaucracy myself for a time, I have some understanding of what goes on and how to get what you want from a bureaucracy.
Your default position is you've done everything you've been told to do, is there a reason you haven't you been taken out of the system? Ask non-threatening questions instead of making demands.
If specifically asked, then yes, say that you were not a driver at the time of the offense and did not become a driver until X years later.
1. Be polite and cheerful, assume that you're going to get what you want, even if there's a hiccup along the way.
2. Assume the bureaucrat is on your side. No, really, chances are they will be if you give them a chance. The number of bureaucrats who enjoy making people's lives miserable for no reason is vanishingly small. The number who don't mind making things more unpleasant for unpleasant people is a good deal higher.
3. If the bureaucrat says bad things about the bureaucracy then join in (but don't outdo them). If they seem to take it seriously, do likewise.
4. Repeat everything you're told in your own words. This can save untold time and heartache in that it quickly uncovers when there's been a mismatch in what's said and heard.
5. Don't expect anyone to take your word for anything. It's not about you, but enough other people lie (often outrageously so) that everything needs to be confirmed by an outside source.
I have often said that PennDOT is a cruel joke played upon the people of Pennsylvania by its government. The residents of the commonwealth often take a rather dim view of the risible agency, especially after it responded so ineptly to the Valentine's Day snowstorm in 2007.
I'm just glad to learn that i'm not the only one who gets screwed over for having unique circumstances. In my case, here's what I've dealt with:
-I like playing DDR on PS2 with Red Octane Ignition pad. Oops, hdtvs aren't compatible with the game (too much lag) unless I get an upscaler ... which are all out of stock ... or get a PS3 to upscale ... which can't take my pad's input.
-I have excruciating back pain, but none of the standard measures (MRIs) suffice to convince anyone that it's really "that bad".
And probably more I can't think of offhand.
I, too, got busted for underage drinking before I ever learned to drive (grew up in Brooklyn, first got my license at 26 for the specific purpose of driving my wife to the hospital to give birth!) Luckily it was in New Orleans (what a place to get busted for underage drinking, right?), so it had no repercussions whatsoever. In fact, I often wonder if the cops were even on duty or just wanted my sixer.
What principle causes you to oppose underage drinking? And what is underage?
When should governments ever be disallowing anyone to do something that affects only themselves?
Why should the rights (and responsibility) of parents to control their minor children be violated?
Underage drinking AND driving is a whole different matter- it affects others.
Tom, MM doesn't oppoose underage drinking. She opposes "underage drinking laws".
The proper question would be at what age does MM believe kids should be allowed to drink.....
just out of curiousity, why did it take you until you bought a new car to get a DC license? if you'd done it within the 30 days DC law requires, you'd have solved this problem months ago, and have spent time at the DC DMV in the fall, which is the fastest time to be there, traditionally.
you do seem to have a bit of an issue following licensing guidelines, maybe this is your karmic reward.
Re: Appropriate age to begin drinking.
I don't drink. Never have. Still, while I believe it is appropriate for government to set rules for how old someone must be to buy alcohol, I don't think it's appropriate for government to tell parents when they can let their children drink. I'm told parents in Europe routinely serve their children wine with their evening meal. First wine diluted with water, then the occasional glass on special occasions, then a regular serving. By introducing alcohol at a young age, it's thought children will be less likely to abuse it in their teenage and early adult years. That's the theory and I've no idea how valid it is. I just don't think government should substitute it's view for the view of the parents.
Will some parents do a poor job of supervising their children's drinking? Sure. But government should not undermine the 99.9% of parents who try to do a good job for fear of the very small minority who are actively bad parents. It's hard enough being a parent without your children wondering who's really in charge -- the parent or the government.
Nor do I understand what purpose this serves, other than spite. I mean, one could hardly call it a deterrent...
Not a deterrent to you, anymore. But if I were a teenager in Pennsylvania reading about this horror show I'd sure think twice about drinking in public.
My only advice is, don't tell them that you only bought the beer to feed your starving family. Didn't work for Jean Valjean, won't work for you.
Well, there should certainly be a statute-of-limitations or equivalent on this.
But just a thought: with the requirement of driving license suspension, and not having one, would PennDOT have let you get one so it could be suspended?
Whatever did we use before the wonderful "Catch-22" term?
As to underage drinking, think of the advert with Orson Welles and think "beer should not be drunk until at least twenty minutes old."
A friend of mine actually had penndotsucks.com for awhile, and people everywhere had the bumpersticker.
If you want I might still be able to get you one.
Point being, everyone hates penndot. They are (much like everything in PA) an entrenched hive of nepotism and unions.
lol about the one lane in Pennsylvania. I have just finished a road trip through the entire state of Pennsylvania on I-80. I swear that of the 306 miles I traveled across the state, at least 50 or so of those miles had the left or right lane closed. And, during the trip, I did not see any active construction being done.
It was as if the entire concept was to maximize the level of travelers innefficiency while minimizing the actual benefits being produced.
If a private business treated their customers with such disrespect they would never stay in business.
Nor do I understand what purpose this serves, other than spite.
More likely, its a poorly designed process/computer system. Organizations build system defaults around the most likely event/s. Anything else qualifies as an exception. It cost as many or more resources to handle an exception as it does to handle the default. Implementers quite often simply do not include handling exceptions in the final design.
The cases in the post are exceptions that probably happened only once in several hundred cases. The PennDot systems (human and electronic) simply have no mechanism for dealing with such rare occurrences.
Bureaucracies are effectively computer programs and they quite often display the same kind of perverse behavior.
I grew up in Pennsylvania, and if I recall correctly the real fear we had of getting caught drinking underage was that we wouldn't be able to get our license until we turned 18. It didn't matter if you were 14 when when caught drinking, your suspension didn't start until you turned 16.
Sounds like that would mean you served your suspension by not getting your license until you turned 23. Try explaining it that way and see if it helps.
As an old bureaucrat who hates bureaucratic hassle, I recommend the tactics michel farris proposes. They work better than any other.
The substantive eventual solution is that you were subjected to the penalty of being unable to drive for the period because you could not have successfully applied for a licence for that period. Your right to apply for a licence was suspended. Try and induce one of the Pennsylvania bureaucrats to see that as her or his answer to the problem.
An anecdote about underage drinking. My son at under 12 months wanted to try what I was drinking. I gave him a sip of the very dry sherry to put him off the idea. He loved it. He developed a superb palate for good wines by the age of eight, never wanting more than a half thimble-full, and saying that other alcohol smelt awful; he was not touching it. Then he gave up wine drinking too by the age of ten.
As with most aspects of bringing up kids, different kids do best under guidance tailored to them. Laws against selling alcohol, tobacco and other drugs to kids make sense; but think three times before you try and stop parents bringing up children in ways in which you would not bring up yours. You know that their kids are not as wonderful as yours. Maybe they are different in other ways too.
It works much MUCH MUCH better than "All alcohol is taboo and unavailable to you, while we are allowed to have it if we want. Oh, now you are allowed to have as much as you like. Enjoy!" That's the American method, and it SUCKS.
Remember that this is the same PennDOT that made Dick Thornburgh governor in 1978, thanks to an AP photo of a partially snow covered road that had been repainted by PennDOT without bothering to remove the snow so the paint would actually stick to the road.
I once heard that PennDOT is required by law to accept the lowest bid on any construction work, which is why the roads are in such terrible shape and seem to be constantly in the middle of repairs. Can any Pennsylvanians verify that?
>>>Point being, everyone hates penndot. They are (much like everything in PA) an entrenched hive of nepotism and unions.
Yup, and that's why this joke still exists...
Q: What's orange and sleeps six?
A: A PennDOT truck.
Well, I didn't say there was no merit to the approach. I just don't have any practical experience in the area -- since I don't drink and neither do my children. However, even if there were tons of empirical studies proving that one approach were better than another, I'd still oppose government's intrusion. Being a parent is tough enough under the best of circumstances. A tough job is made more difficult when government gets between you and your child.
As someone up thread pointed out, kids are different. What works for one child might not work as well for another. Parents are in the best position to guess about such things. My sense is that the harm caused by governments overreach in this area far exceeds any good done.
This sort of bureaucratic obfuscation is hardly limited to Pennsylvania. I grew up in Delaware. Like Megan, I didn't get my driver's license until I bought my first car at age 24. My non-existent license was suspended at one point for failure to pay some fine or other. Explaining to DelDot that I had no license did no good whatever. Paying them a fee to reinstate it did the trick.
Comments re: the illogical nature of the system miss the point. It's about the money. It's ALWAYS about the money.
I used to work for one of the computer consulting companies that contracted very heavily with the Commonwealth of PA (we were in most of the large PA agencies, including PennDOT). It was common knowledge around the company that PennDOT was the worst-run agency in the state.
That being said, I've also done work for several other states and PA was hands-down the best run and least corrupt of the lot (this is on a relative scale, of course)
PennDot is really trying to be more efficient. They have just developed a tool that can do the work of 4 PennDot employees. It's a shovel with a little kick-stand so that it can stand-up by itself.
Also, the liquor laws in PA are the worst in the country, with the exception of Utah.
States are now able to check the driving records of drivers throughout the country. If a driver has a suspension or whatever, the home state (the one in which the driver has or wants the license) will often require the driver to correct the problem in the state in which there is/was a suspension. Likely, New York wasn't on the system during the last time you renewed your license.
The point is to stop repeat drunken drivers (among others) from simply moving to another state to resume driving if their license was suspended in their home state. No doubt, it's catching more people than habitual drunken drivers.
www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/perform/driver
Why Pennsylvania doesn't want to give underage drinking suspensions a set time period that would have expired a long time ago, I don't know. Maybe there's an outstanding license reinstatement fee that you had to pay but didn't.
PennDOT is worse than incompetent, although they are that, too. Last year, I was talking to some friends about running for the State House with the slogan "Nuke PennDOT" because of the enormous level of frustration they produce here. Everyone thought it was awesome, libs and cons alike. One of my buddies, a contractor, pulled me aside later and said "You're not really going to do that are you?" He's worked with PennDOT on a number of high value projects and advised me that if I did that, I'd probably end up at the bottom of a lake somewhere. "Seriously?" I said. "Yeah. Seriously," he said. He wasn't joking, nor was he an idiot.
So, take from that what you will.
Lifelong resident of PA here. "Pennsylvania Department of Transportation: incompetent, or malignant?" With PennDOT, you don't have to choose! You can have both!
"The cases in the post are exceptions that probably happened only once in several hundred cases."
There are several MILLION drivers in PA. If 0.02% of drivers (one in several hundreds) have "exceptions" to how the rules are set up, then for every MILLION drivers in PA, 200 people are inconvenienced.
SIX SIGMA success this level of failure is NOT. The cost of fixing the software cannot be nearly as much as it costs PADOT to fix the regular messes they make for themselves. Unless this is a job security plan, they are wasting money, time and effort.
"I have often said that PennDOT is a cruel joke played upon the people of Pennsylvania by its government."
Amend that to 'the government of Pennsylvania is a cruel joke played upon the people of Pennsylvania' and you've got it about right. Since moving here a few years ago I've been consistently amazed that the entire state doesn't just burst into flames or get sold to Mexico for some magic beans; the bureaucracy of this state is stunning in it's ineptitude and apathy about that ineptitude. Laws and rules are apparently written at random and enforced with the skill and efficiency of a squad of blind, retarded chimpanzees. The licensing issues with PennDOT are neither unique or isolated; I had an issue with a ticket paid late to Maryland (PennDOT will gladly suspend your license for another state, but although they are notified when your requirements have been fulfilled, they don't cross reference notifications once they've suspended). Suspensions don't start until your license is surrendered, or until you surrender your plate, or something different, depending on who at PennDOT you talk to. There are PennDOT functions, that can only be performed at the main office in Harrisburg (two hours away from the population centers of the state), or via courier(at your cost). I know of at least two other people with similar issues, and they were born and raised here. Bottom line is, when you're the only game in town, quality and customer service really don't matter do they?
"I suspect that PennDOT is well aware that this is a problem with their system. On the other hand, why should they fix it? It almost certainly happens mostly to out-of-state residents at this point."
It's the same cost-benefit analysis that Ford did with the Pinto recall. It costs more to fix the global problem than it does to resolve each individual complaint.
I never gave this much mind, but my only interaction with PA government was a few years back, when I attempted to buy a bottle of wine on the way to my girlfriend's parents. I was 25 at the time, went into the store, brought it to the counter, and the cashier proceeded to write down ALL of the info on my license - name, DOB, address, license #, eye color, height, weight - and scan my girlfriend's PA license - which pulled up all of her info and saved it. We both had to sign a 2 paragraph statement attesting to the fact that we wouldn't provide it to minors and wouldn't sell it.
Whatever produced that situation long ago passed useful. There is no reason to collect that much info to buy small amounts of liquor.
I grew up in central NY. To travel any distance by car one had to either take the thruway E-W or I-81 N-S. Never have I traveled through PA on 81 when substantial parts of the road weren't under construction. I've been driving for 28 years.
I think it's apropos to mention:
The Onion reports on an Al Gore trip to Pennsylvania
(Text may be not safe for work, as it includes naughty words.)
Thanks to MADD driving is no longer a right but a privilege. They were able to force this law onto all the states using the usual manner of with holding fed. funds. This enables DMV or DOT in your case to suspend your lic. via an Admin Per Se. An Administrative suspension. Now when you drive in any state, you are driving under an implied consent and are agreeing to a contract. What this means is if your lic. was suspended by the DOT it doesn't matter what the courts do or say. DOT makes the decision, and you have little to no recourse. This is most apparent in DUI cases when the defendant is not found guilty, but his/her lic. is still suspended. Also because of this, there are no statue of limitations on traffic violations. Just look at Arizona DMV, they are suspending peoples Lic. for tickets that are 20 years old. How can you prove you paid a ticket 20 year ago? Doesn't matter, they make the rules now and it is out of the hands of the courts, much to the chagrin or many judges.
Thanks MADD!
BOO HOO!!!
There are approximatly 16000 deaths attributed to drunken drivers in the U.S. yearly nearly one alcohol related death every 30 minutes, which makes up almost 40% of all accidents, as well as over 250,000 alcohol related auto injuries, or one every 2 minutes. Thats the bad news, the good news is that because of efforts by the federal government, and all states "DOT's" these numbers reflect a 21% reduction since 1982, (from 60% of ALL accidents to 39% 2005). It is my hope that the "bureaucrats" continue to keep up the pressure and reduce these figures even more substantially.
I don't give a crap if you drink or not, but if your under age don't drink if you drink DON"T drive, if you get caught doing it don't bitch.
I don't give a crap if you drink or not, but if your under age don't drink if you drink DON"T drive, if you get caught doing it don't bitch.
Wow, somebody didn't read the OP carefully enough.
Penndot slows down various Interstates across the state on purpose. The goal is to force drivers, especially truck drivers, to take the PA Turnpike or one of it's spurs. They don't want you taking the free roads so the construction projects on those roads move very slowly and always make sure that traffic is funneled down to one lane for months at a time. Construction projects on the PA Turnpike almost always manage to keep all lanes open (often very narrow, but still there) and they usually get done a lot faster, even when they are a hundred times more vast than the projects on the free roads. Interstate 80 is a major target of this strategy since exits are far apart and alternate roads are not really available in some areas.
It's a pity since (outside of Philly), the state is nicely crisscrossed by freeways.
Sadly, my feeling is that justice *is* being served, even if society if not. (Note, this is contingent on MM knowing that her license was to be suspended)
Ethically, the whole matter rests on whether getting your license suspended is equivalent to not having a license at all. While it seems pretty reasonable to me, I don't think the state would think of it the same way.
The only analogy I can think of is that the state would be unlikely to consider your jail sentence served if you spent the equivalent time stuck in, say, a hospital instead.
Thus it would seem to me that for better or worse, part of the punishment for underage drinking is a license suspension, and that punishment will be served, whether it is immediately or many, many years later.
To me, it's a bit like those people who escaped jail for many years, built a new, better life, and then suddenly get dragged back to jail for crimes committed 30 years earlier. Whatever the final decision, one of justice or social good is going to get sacrificed.
With respect to government IT, I did database work for a county government for awhile. I don't know if my experience is typical, but I suspect that I might be.
The pay grade for government IT work was between half and three-quarters of the pay grade for comparable work in the private sector. This meant that most of our workers weren't exactly well motivated to perform above and beyond the call of duty. (It also doesn't help that the best workers don't tend to stay in the public sector very long.)
We were chronically understaffed and overburdened with projects. Consequently, you had a lot of largely unmotivated programmers working on a huge laundry list of issues. Add to that all the typical inefficiencies that you find in any government entity (especially when it comes to different agencies failing to communicate with one another), and you can appreciate the scope of the problem.
Situations like yours are troublesome to you, but they're going to be low on the list of priorities for any government IT group to fix. Most likely, they're spending 99% of their time fighting fires and trying to deal with the latest political curve-balls and legislative mandates.
Of course, this doesn't justify your pain and suffering, but I think that it can help to explain at least part of the reason that these kinds of systemic SNAFUs arise.
When I first moved to PA in 1993, I was quickly convinced that PA did not really want anyone new to move to the state, and in furtherance of this objective had made the licensing/registration process as difficult as possible. As near as I recall, it went like this:
1. Visit a driver's license center to pick up an application to get a driver's license. Application (with payment - all payment had to be mailed to Harrisburg) mailed to H'burg. H'burg mails back a form that you then...
2. Take to a driver's license testing center run by the PA state police. Take the driving test. Results are sent to H'burg (but not disclosed to you).
3. H'burg determines that you passed the test, and mails you a driver's license photo card, that you take to a driver's license photo center (not the same place where you took the test). Picture gets taken. Photo and license card are sent to H'burg. (Apparently PennDOT's only laminating machine was in Harrisburg, probably in the care of its only employee with a functioning brain.)
4. Actual driver's license (with photo) is mailed from H'burg to you.
Congrats! Now you can try to register your car! (via a similar process in which, at every step, all the paperwork got sent to H'burg for processing.)
This excruciating process had the side effect of creating such low expectations of PennDOT that it seemed like a multi-light-year advance when their systems and procedures were updated so that - get this - you could walk into a driver's license center, have your photo taken, pay the nice PennDOT people, and walk out with your new, valid driver's license in your hand. Is that cool, or what?
"I am a sick man.... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I have been going on like that for a long time; twenty years. Now I am forty. I used to be in the government service, but am no longer. I was a spiteful official. I was rude and took pleasure in being so. When petitioners used to come for information to the table at which I sat, I used to grind my teeth at them, and felt intense enjoyment when I succeeded in making anybody unhappy.
But do you know, gentlemen, what was the chief point about my spite? Why, the whole point, the real sting of it lay in the fact that continually, even in the moment of the acutest spleen, I was inwardly conscious with shame that I was not only not a spiteful but not even an embittered man, that I was simply scaring sparrows at random and amusing myself by it. "
Dostoevsky
Notes from Underground
This reminds me of a joke that was going around in Harrisburg 20 years ago...
"What's bright yellow and sleeps six?
A PennDOT truck."
Seems like they haven't gotten any more efficient since then.
Michael Farris: "The number of bureaucrats who enjoy making people's lives miserable for no reason is vanishingly small."
Spoken like a man who does not live in Illinois.
Michael Farris: "The number of bureaucrats who enjoy making people's lives miserable for no reason is vanishingly small."
Spoken like a man who does not live in Illinois.
While PennDOT cannot provide specifics of Ms. McArdle’s case due to privacy laws, we would like to set the record straight in regard to what PennDOT and individuals are required by law to do as it relates to a driver’s license suspension.
The court is the body in which an individual’s innocence or guilt is determined. When the court notifies PennDOT an individual has been convicted of an offense, PennDOT, as the administrative agency, is bound by the Pennsylvania Vehicle Code (Title 75) to administer the appropriate penalties in accordance with the law. In Pennsylvania, an individual’s driving privilege will be suspended if he/she is under 21 years of age and is convicted of lying about his/her age to obtain alcohol, carrying a false ID card or purchasing, consuming, possessing or transporting alcohol; a motor vehicle does not have to be involved in order for an individual to lose his/her driving privilege. It is important to note that Pennsylvania law, per Section 1541 of the Pennsylvania Vehicle Code, mandates an individual acknowledge a suspension before credit toward serving the suspension can begin. There is no statute of limitations.
The suspension notice PennDOT sends to an individual clearly states the individual must acknowledge the suspension by surrendering his/her Pennsylvania driver’s license or, if he/she does not have a Pennsylvania driver’s license, by submitting a suspension acknowledgement form to PennDOT. The notice also informs an individual that PennDOT will issue a confirmation notice to the individual upon receipt of the suspension acknowledgement form and if he/she does not receive the confirmation within two weeks to contact PennDOT.
Regardless of how individuals view Pennsylvania’s underage drinking law, the bottom line is that if a law is broken, per the Vehicle Code, PennDOT is required to administer the appropriate penalties when a conviction notice is received from the court.