This is the post during which you find out about my criminal record. I've tried to hide it for too long. Now it looks like it is all coming back to haunt me. And I'd rather you heard about it from my keyboard.
At the age of nineteen, way back in 1992, I purchased a beer in a Philadelphia bar.
No, I hear you cry, it cannot be true! I know, readers. You are hurt. You are shocked. You never thought I could be capable of such depravity. Well, frankly, I didn't either. Little did I suspect when I bundled off to the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 1990 that I had stumbled into a den of iniquity where underaged drinking sometimes took place.
I cannot excuse it. I allowed myself to be led astray. Yes, one sultry July evening, I allowed myself to be persuaded--by a malefactor or malefactors who shall remain nameless--to enter one Murphy's Tavern on 45th and Spruce and purchase, to quench my thirst, a Rolling Rock.
Not that! Nay, never that! Believe me, your wailing and gnashing of teeth wounds me as deeply as it wounds you. In my defense, I can only say that I had no idea PBR was going to win the hipster coolness wars.
While consuming my one (1) beer, I was apprehended by agents of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. They called my parents, fined me, and made me attend a class on the horrors of underaged drinking (did you realize that drinking can lead to uncontrollable vomiting?) It was during that class, with the errors of my ways now readily apparent, that I made a pledge to myself to quit underaged drinking with all due speed. And on January 29th, 1994, I honored that pledge.
I thought I had put all this behind me. Indeed, I was so informed, when I completed my State of Pennsylvania Mandatory Alcohol Education Class; provided I didn't reoffend, they said, the record would be expunged. We might consider the matter closed, and never speak of it again. With time, and perhaps a name change and a relocation to a town across the country, I might hope to live down my shame and become a contributing member of society once again.
Alas, they never told the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation that it was over. And thus, it is not over. I went to apply for a District of Columbia driver's license this morning, only to be informed that I cannot, because the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania wants to suspend my driver's license.
The problem, you see, is that at the time of my conviction, I did not have a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Driver's License. Indeed, I had no driver's license at all, being one of those benighted city people who get their first driver's license at the age of 23. The laws of the State of Pennsylvania, however, say that the Department of Transportation is entitled to suspend the driver's license of anyone arrested for underaged drinking. And the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is, apparently, determined to exercise this privilege. Thus, the spectacle of a 35 year old woman being informed that she is about to have her driver's license suspended for underaged drinking.
To add insult to injury, I am expected to fill out a form and, at my own expense, mail it to the DOT in order to commence this suspension.
This would be funny and mildly annoying if it were not for the fact that until they clear the suspension, I cannot get a DC driver's license, because states are required to scan for violations from other states before they issue a new license. (No word on how I got one out of the State of New York). And until I get a DC driver's license, I cannot register the car I just bought. The DMV here, after much wrangling, gave me temporary tags, but it looks like I'm going to have to garage the thing for three months unless the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania relents. Which, at this time, they show no evidence of doing.
Now for the painless segue from idiotic bureaucratic snafu to moral: this just goes to show why ironclad bureaucratic rules are such a bad idea. The federal law is meant to protect dangerous drivers whose licenses have been suspended from getting a license in another state--an excellent program. It is not, or so I mote, intended to allow the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to suspend my license for an underaged drinking conviction that took place 16 years ago. Indeed, I don't think that even the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania law was intended to do something so moronic--it isn't as if I deliberately (or even accidentally) failed to comply; I simply didn't have a driver's license for them to confiscate. Since I didn't get one until I was well over the legal drinking age, I'm pretty sure that a moment's consideration would lead any reasonable bureaucrat to dismiss this idiocy.
But of course, we don't have reasonable bureaucrats. We have rules. Rules that Must Be Followed No Matter What. Neither Pennsylvania nor DC can, apparently, do anything at all to prevent the Wheels of Justice from punishing me for a long-past transgression that did not even involve a motor vehicle.
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
We suggest you stop complaining. In an office this big, there are plenty of places for paperwork to get lost.
PennDOT, eh? Yeah, you're pretty much screwed. This is a group that's been working for over a decade to add a badly-needed lane to Route 8 in Pittsburgh, but hasn't been able to get everyone out of the houses that line the road. A low-priority request like that might be processed in time for your funeral.
Maybe.
Mmmm, nice driver's license, Ms. McArdle! Be a shame if something...happened to it.
Well, you have your choice: idiotic scrupulousness in the application of rules, or corruption. It's not a perfect world; we either get one or the other.
That said, I sympathize. The City of Providence, RI, has been sending me threatening letters about a $30 parking ticket I supposedly didn't pay two years ago. Well, I have my check receipt; we'll see how easy it is to convince them of the error of their charge long distance.
At least they haven't questioned your citizenship yet. There's an article in today's Wall Street Journal about that happening to some people:
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB121842058533028907.html
a moment's consideration would lead any reasonable bureaucrat
Good luck getting either.
Perhaps a SWAT team will crash your apartment door down, shoot your dog, and commence your extradition to PA....
Well as long as we can let the DOT bureaucrats run our health care we'll be ok! Less government not more is general the answer... I can't think of a single instance of dealing with governmental bureaucracy where I walked away feeling served instead of taken.
Pennsylvania's underage drinking laws are pretty idiotic - you can get arrested for being underage and intoxicated.
Eighth Amendment. Lawyer up and sue 'em.
Ah, PennDOT. Something similar happened to me after I was clocked going 102 mph on I-80 in 1992. (It was an uncrowded rural road, I was 18, and I wanted to see how fast my dad's car would go. Sadly, I heard the siren while still accelerating and never found out).
I paid the ticket in July 1992 and got a letter from PennDOT requiring me to attend a hearing in October 1992 to decide whether to knock down the points on my license to an acceptable number with or without suspending said license. I wrote back and said I couldn't make the hearing as I would be in college out of state. They wrote back and said no problem; they would grant me a waiver. I considered the matter closed and successfully renewed my license in 1993.
In 1996, I attepted to renew my license again and never got any reply from PennDOT. When I called they told me that my military waiver had expired in 1994, that my license had been suspended since that time, and to lift the suspension I would have to attend the hearing I had missed back in 1992. I tried to explain that I had never been in the military and had never gotten notice of the suspension, but that was unavailing. In a futile bid to cut my losses, I got an Indiana license (back in the says before these scans you speak of) and went on with life.
In 1998, I moved back to Pennsylvania and tried to get a new PA license. They looked me up and said I would have to attend the hearing I had missed six years earlier.
The good news for me was that I got a sympathetic hearing officer who allowed me to get my license without points or suspension if I could pass a rigorous version of the driver's test, which I did. The bad news for you is that PA takes this underage drinking suspension business very seriously. My brother was caught drinking in a park at age 15 and had his first license (age 16)suspended immediately after he got it under this rule.
Good luck ...
Love it.
This very post contains evidence that you are not only unreformed but uncontrite. When we finally get to the moral of your little tale, does it involve in any way the perils of demon alcohol or the importance of abstinence from intoxicants of all sorts? Why no, your "moral" (irony alert!) is just a perfectly predictable rant against the very agency of the Commonwealth that rose up to protect you from your own weak nature when all around you was naught but sin and temptation. And you think you're qualified to operate a motor vehicle on a public thoroughfare? You should count yourself lucky you're allowed out at all, young lady.
This very post contains evidence that you are not only unreformed but uncontrite. When we finally get to the moral of your little tale, does it involve in any way the perils of demon alcohol or the importance of abstinence from intoxicants of all sorts? Why no, your "moral" (irony alert!) is just a perfectly predictable rant against the very agency of the Commonwealth that rose up to protect you from your own weak nature when all around you was naught but sin and temptation. And you think you're qualified to operate a motor vehicle on a public thoroughfare? You should count yourself lucky you're allowed out at all, young lady.
Interesting, so another byproduct of a heavy bureaucracy is that it pays to be "normal". If I understood your story, you wouldn't be having these problems now if you gotten a Pennsylvania license like most people.
So, since the bureaucrats can't think of all of possible scenarios, it pays to stay right in the heart of mediocrity so that you can avoid the tax on doing things that the bureaucrats didn't think of.
Having lived in both Singapore and China I'd prefer "Rules that Must Be Followed No Matter What" over "Rules that May or May Not Be Enforced, Depending on How Well Connected You Are, How Nice the Policeman Is, Whether You Bribe the Judge, and Whether You Have Business Connections that Interfere with a City Official's Land Development Scheme."
That's the difference between something resembling rule of law (Singapore) and rule by influence (China). The first may be bureaucratic and draconian but at least it's predictable.
Megan, your real mistake was the beer bash you threw the night after the required class.
I don't understand why PA decided now to suspend the license. Is it that they placed a note in your file saying "if we ever hear that Ms. McArdle gets a drivers license, proceed to suspend it for 3 months", and they didn't find out until yesterday?
If we're going to have interstate information sharing like this, could we please also have some way to teleconference into an out-of-state judicial hearing? It's a shame that you have to drive across the country to contest an out-of-state ticket, or that foreigners can't serve as lawyers and telecommute.
Just another case of . . . oh, why bother with another rant about the idiocy of American governments and their desire to punish somebody for something.
My plan is to emigrate and create a new country of my own.
Simpler than trying to reform this one.
An MIP ahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!! Thats precious. But in the end they still gotcha didn't they ahahahhahahahaha!!!! Oh thats great.
Murphy's!!! You could probably get similar tales from about 30% of the people who have ever been underage in Philly.
Oh.boy.
Let me tell you about the geniuses at PennDot. So someone I know got his license suspended in PA for 10 days. Unfortunately it takes them 3 weeks to process the paperwork. And then the license was cleared, but the paperwork to say it was cleared took another week to arrive via snailmail. You know, because there's no way to request any kind of electronic notification. Wouldn't it be cool if there was an electronic mail? An "E-Mail" if you will. That would be sweet.
In other words....good luck. Heavy on the bureaucracy, light on the commonsense.
Your mistake was going to Murph's. Should had your beer delivered to your front door by Springfield Distributors.
Ah, I love government bureaucracy. Please, tell me, how soon can we get them in charge of our health care?
GLibertarians should have a greater respect for rules than this post demonstrates.
This seems to be to fit the definition of Glibertarian that is summarized as "I'm for liberty when any rule actually inconveniences me. Personal responsibility in all cases for others."
Go to the extraordinary lengths of clearing this up with a letter or two and a phone call or two. Stop whining.
See, the problem isn't necessarily "ironclad bureaucratic rules." It's a complete lack of reasonable, flexible bureaucrats, especially at the functionary, clerical level which is the current locus of your problem. The people making these decisions aren't in any way qualified to evaluate the legal or rational sensibility of your claim. They're high-school educated box-checkers. You're asking them to deal with a serious argument. Most of them probably aren't competent to do that.
This is exactly why TSA is such a disaster. Their rules aren't actually that draconian. But the under-educated, over-entitled mouth-breathers they get to enforce them go nuts as soon as you give 'em a little badge.
Sad to say, this is what you get for living in the District. Maryland and Virginia have their faults, but failing to recognize other states' judicial and law enforcement processes isn't one of them.
Ok McCardle, you knew that the wages of sin are death. "Vengeance is mine," sayeth the Lord. You just failed to recognize that the State of Pennsylvania is the Lord's Avatar on Earth. Now, the Penn DOT will consign you to hell. I'll see you there.
sam said:
Well as long as we can let the DOT bureaucrats run our health care we'll be ok!
Unfortunately, the sort of bureaucratic foolishness Megan describes is not limited to government bureaucracies. Any sufficiently large organization has similar problems. Have you ever tried dealing with a health insurance company, credit card company, or hospital billing department when something goes wrong? It's an imperfect world. Screws fall out.
That said, I'm now afraid of what might happen when I renew my FL driver's license in a couple of years. In 2005, while on vacation in upstate New York I got a speeding ticket. I paid the ticket as required, but then my mother (!) started receiving odd mailings addressed to me from the State of New York. How they got my mother's address I have no idea. I haven't lived at home since the late 1980s. Anyway, the state wanted an additional 100 bucks or so or I would lose my driving privileges in the state of New York. Figuring they have no leverage over me and that this is a stupid double dip on a speeding offense, I have thus far refused to pay.
So I guess now I'm worried that Florida might refuse to renew my license because of this. Hopefully not.
Yes Ryan, so the solution to our high school diploma box checkers is to... fire them and make the pay attractive enough for critical thinking college grads to get employed there?
As sad as it is, I also find it funny to hear someone complain about the long term effects of their having broken the law. As if there should be no consequences that extend out beyond the event.
Now, if we can only get back to complaining about how the rest of us law abiding citizens are screwed over by a bureaucracy that takes our money to pay themselves for doing a crappy job and holds us hostage while doing so...
35?
The mystery that compelled me to read this blog is revealed at last.
FWIW, my guess was 28; I'm not sure if that comes off as a compliment or an insult.
Wassamatter? Smokey Joes not good enough for ya?
You shoulda gone to Penn State -- underage drinking is practically mandatory there.
"this just goes to show why ironclad bureaucratic rules are such a bad idea."
You're an idiot.
Mistakes get mad by everything, everywhere. No one claims that this type of thing will never happen. You're inconvenience doesn't show anything. It shows a mistake happened. Boo fucking hoo.
Grow up.
Mistakes get mad by everything, everywhere.
You wouldn't kid about that now, would you?
Was by the old place about a year ago, and a bar is still there, but it is no longer owned by Murphy.
But, it was on 44th and Spruce, like c'mon.
I also have a bit of a problem thinking Murphy (noone knew his first name) got behind on his payments. Not like him at all, though I precede Ms. McArdle in patronizing the place by a few years so maybe he was slipping.
I was once in Wrigley Field, several days after my 21st birthday. My driver's license had my birthday on it, but because it did not have to be renewed until the end of the year, it also had the words "Under 21" printed along the side.
When I went to buy a beer from the vendor, I handed him my license, and he just handed it back. "Under 21" he said. "Yes, I said, but you see here is my birthday." "Yes" he said. "And you would agree that today is more than 21 years after my birthday?" "Yes" he said. "And the legal drinking age is 21" "Yes" he said again. "So if the legal drinking age is 21, and I am over 21, then it is legal to sell me a beer." "Can't" he said. "License says 'Under 21'".
Faced with illogic, I decided to fight fire with fire. So I walked back to my seat and gave some money to my buddy who was 19 at the time, but looked 35. Five minutes later he came back with a beer.
I moved from Florida to DC recently. The first consequence of this was a notice from Florida about how my insurance was no longer Florida insurance and they might suspend my license. I am pretty sure at this point I sent them in proof I had registered my car elsewhere... but then I got a notice from the county (pre-printed with my DC address) telling me about renewing my plates, and also warning me about the insurance issue.
You would think if they're printing a non-Florida address directly on the forms/letters they might clue in that someone has moved.
Now I'm worried Florida has suspended my non-existent license so ... I'm going to contact them to be sure.
Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?
You need a lawyer, a Pennsylvania lawyer with relevant expertise. I would suggest you start with those who practice traffic and/or DWI law. If there is a way around this, and there may be, they are the ones who would know. Yes, you might actually have to pay, but you are in a position to offer favorable publicity as a possible substitute for cash.
I love the reference about the PBR swilling hipsters. I have a friend who owns a bar and when he first started stocking PBR, he actually charged more for that than the rest of his domestics. I am older than the average hipster, so I remember PBR as a piss beer that some of my uncles drank because it was dirt cheap.
So the idea of charging a premium on a sub-premium beer offended me a bit, though I enjoyed watching idiots wearing janitor jackets or bowling shirts (bought at a vintage clothing store at a premium price as well) get overcharged for their lifestyle.
"You shoulda gone to Penn State -- underage drinking is practically mandatory there."
Good luck getting served in a bar there if you are underage.
A liquor license in State College is a license to print money, and the bar owners make the bouncers closely scrutinize IDs to the point where even people with valids can get turned down. My (mediocre) fake worked fine in Pittsburgh and Philly, but too many of my friends got theirs confiscated for me to try it there. Besides, the house parties were a lot more fun, and, unlike schools like WVU, where it's customary to charge at a house party, they were always totally free.
OK, what are the penalties for breaching an expungment, or failing to create such when ordered by a court? Oh, and these are records of a minor female! What about privacy?
Years ago I found myself in the middle of a p---ing match between the Minnesota DMV and the VA about medical records and how they were to be transfered from the VA to the DMV. I discovered this when I was a witness to an auto accident and stopped to render first aid. The responding cops ran my license and came back and told my my license had been revoked, and did I know why?
"No, sir", I replied, "first I've heard of it!"
It's very strange, he went on, there should be some reason or court order for the revocation, but there was nothing. All of those fields, the dates, dockets, ... all of them are blank. That can't happen. Do yourself a favor and go down to the DMV office in person Monday morning -- don't drive! -- and get this straightened out. You're obviously one of the good guys, it's probably some computer glitch. Oh, and before you go, stop and talk to the guys in the ambulance, they want to restock your first aid kit. Thanks for helping.
So ...
Went down, waited for hours to see an examiner. Person before me was a drunk, wanting his licence back after his umteenth -- I forget exactly which -- conviction. That was granted. I explained what had happened and why I was there, and asked why I had been revoked, and why I hadn't been notified of that. I was told it was because I hadn't brought in, in person, the paperwork from the VA, and that the DMV they'd mailed a notice to me of my revocation. I pointed out that I could not, by both Minnesota and Federal law, bring such documents to them, they had to be delivered by the US mail; and I had not received their notice. I was then accused of having an illegal address on my license, as I did not live at the address their computer had used. I pointed out that my physical license did not have that address on it, and that the address they'd sent things to was near the middle of a very large local lake, and why had they changed my address?
There was a good deal more on both sides, and I eventually stormed off, noting as I did so that the previous person had voluntarily gotten drunk and driven, had driven to his appointment today without a license; through a service-connected disability I was an drug-controlled epileptic, had been properly issued a license, was under proper medical care, and I didn't really care what the DMV did about my license and their computer; both were obviously, at best, jokes. I did not slam the door as I left, but if there had been one, I would have.
I had a new license the next day, registered mail. With the wrong address on it (not the address in the lake, an address I'd previously lived at.) It took years to get that straightened out.
Speaking of TSA, I was traveling back from Virginia to Texas recently, and I swear to god, a woman inspector was not going to let me through the luggage/boarding inspection if I did not let them X-Ray my passport!
I was pulling stuff out of my pockets, and started to put my passport back into my pocket, and she almost leaped over the conveyor belt, insisting that I "put that passport in the box!"
Not wanting to get into a "power" struggle at 6:30 in the morning, I threw it into the box with my keys. It was my reluctance to jump when she said "jump" that pissed her off.
Don't bother. Register the car in New York or wherever your state is. You won't be able to get a DC parking permit, but if you garage it, it won't matter.
Now, imagine that you lived in a state where your right to vote was dependent on your getting a driver's license.
"It's so easy!"
No wonder you are intelligent and witty, we share birthdays. Who said astrology was a crock?
Too bad they didn't give you 20 years.
The federal law is meant to protect dangerous drivers
I do not think that word mean what you think it means.
"Now, imagine that you lived in a state where your right to vote was dependent on your getting a driver's license.
"It's so easy!""
This isn't quite the case. No state to my knowledge requires an actual driver's license; they require an official government ID. I had my Georgia (one of such strict states) license revoked in January, and all I had to do was stop by the DMV, wait 30 min and pay $20, and I got a card just like my license but with "ID only" written on the side. Thus, I could vote in the primary.
Now, having to get transportion to the DMV and pay some money is a non-trivial hassle, especially for older/disabled people, so that doesn't make the law all that great. But it isn't like people without driving priviledges just can't vote.
You need a lawyer, a Pennsylvania lawyer with relevant expertise. I would suggest you start with those who practice traffic and/or DWI law. If there is a way around this, and there may be, they are the ones who would know. Yes, you might actually have to pay, but you are in a position to offer favorable publicity as a possible substitute for cash.
I have to agree with Wisconsin lawyer that you should probably seek the advice of counsel to clear this up. My experience (not first hand thankfully) is that attorneys who specialize in DUI cases usually know the ins and outs of license suspension and revocation or at least might be able to point you in the right direction to someone who can help you.
Keep in mind that depending on how complex your problem is, it could cost you some bucks to clear it up. I’m not sure thought whether an attorney would accept favorable publicity as a substitute for cash (I wouldn’t). However most reputable attorneys will at least give you a free initial consultation and a lot of them can do it over the telephone so you don’t have much to lose by trying except your time.
Good luck Megan.
Like an earlier poster, I object to the insinuation that this problem arises because the bureaucracy in question is governmental, which is the obvious "libertarian" subtext you are pushing. These problems arise in any large bureaucracy, including those run by and attendant to large private for-profit corporations. In fact, the data show (in the health care field) that private bureaucracies are more prone to these types of error than governmental ones, because private corporate bureaucracies tend to be understaffed (gotta save on those labor costs, even at the cost of service). If PennDOT had been privatized, and its functions passed on to a private, for-profit corporation, it's just as likely you would have had a similar problem. The problem you highlight is a general problem of large bureaucracies, not a problem of government.
Like an earlier poster, I object to the insinuation that this problem arises because the bureaucracy in question is governmental, which is the obvious "libertarian" subtext you are pushing. These problems arise in any large bureaucracy, including those run by and attendant to large private for-profit corporations. In fact, the data show (in the health care field) that private bureaucracies are more prone to these types of error than governmental ones, because private corporate bureaucracies tend to be understaffed (gotta save on those labor costs, even at the cost of service). If PennDOT had been privatized, and its functions passed on to a private, for-profit corporation, it's just as likely you would have had a similar problem. The problem you highlight is a general problem of large bureaucracies, not a problem of government.
And until I get a DC driver's license, I cannot register the car I just bought.
Why? This sounds unreasonable. What if you were a wealthy person who wanted to purchase a car and have your chauffeur drive you around, or an elderly person who wished to be driven around by your 47-year old son?
James in NJ: I had the same issue with my Ohio license, issued 31 days before my 21st birthday. 6 years of having that argument. This is the same license it took me a year to get when I was 16 because the Ohio DMV claimed my NY birth certificate was forged. That is the same birth certificate it took a year and a half to get filed in NY because my mother's maiden name is the same as my father's last name.
Oddly, my brother had none of these issues despite the same set of circumstances four years later.
The odds are pretty overwhelming that all the software systems at the heart of this matter were developed and are maintained by private contractors. My guess is that somewhere in that jillion lines of code is a dangling else that is causing you considerable pain. Some analyst who worked IBM/Unisys/Deloitte/Accenture (by whatever name) had a bad day a long time ago and this is actually the source of your problem.
On the other hand, maybe this is the actual intent of the law and this outcome is a feature not a bug. But I bet not. And a hole in the software might be tougher to resolve. Who knows the extent of that analyst's bad day?
Cheers, Megan. I once learned during a background check for a job that the state of Maryland had put my driver's license on double secret suspension nine months earlier. This went over well with the employer, of course.
I later learned that this happened because when I changed my address on the DMV website, they erroneously mailed the official change of address form TO THE OLD ADDRESS. It was returned to sender. Then they mailed several notices about an emissions test to the old address. Then they mailed a notification about the suspension of my license for failing to pass an emissions test. All of which were returned to sender. Then I went into a branch and successfully renewed my (suspended) driver's license. I wrote my new address on the renewal forms. Nobody updated my address in the system or mentioned the possibly helpful detail that my license was suspended. Nobody ever picked up a phone and called me.
I've had equally maddening runarounds with equally incompetent corporate bureaucrats. But no one can top the license branch for sheer Kafkaesque absurdity.
Addendum...
From years of dealing with idiots and their RULES THAT MUST BE FOLLOWED, I offer the following advice:
Call back. Again and again. Ask to speak to supervisors. You will eventually, in all likelihood, get someone on the phone who is willing to go out on a limb and overturn an obviously absurd outcome, such as this one. Believe me, there is at least one person in every bureaucratic office who is empowered to do this. It just requires persistence to find them.
Ah. The PA DOT (although, in all fairness, this sort of thing is endemic in large bureaucracies as others have said).
But I don't have fond memories. Way back when I was trying to get a learner's permit (or maybe it was a driver's license) and I was in sort of a rush because I was going off to college relatively soon (yes, I started college young). Well, it turned out that in PA, it either took a couple of months to get the permit -- OR you could may some sort of special processing fee to some local official or other and you'd get it quickly. I don't remember all the details but it seemed to be basically a bribe.
This rankled me too much to pay. In the end, I got things wrapped up before going off to school with a few days to spare. (I didn't have a car in school but, as I recall, wanted to get things wrapped up so I could drive when I was home.)
"provided I didn't reoffend"
Well, if the PA DMV asks about "And on January 29th, 1994, I honored that pledge," you can truthfully say that it was just a lame joke.
Until you get this straightened out and Pennsylvania withdraws its troops to its side of the Allegheny Mountains, the rest of us get to use the forum of Megan's well-read blog to diss Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania, the stupidist state in the Union. With this stupid Turnpike where for all the money they stick you for, they can't keep more than one lane open for most of its length, and for the lanes they have open, they are cratered with potholes and are going to take out the alignment and struts of any car with smaller wheels than an SUV.
The lamest liquor laws this side of Kansas too.
Re: On the other hand, maybe this is the actual intent of the law and this outcome is a feature not a bug.
I doubt it's the software's fault. The programmer probably did what he was told. It's the designer's specs, and therefore possibly the law itself that is a problem.
Why isn't there a statute of limitations on this sort of thing anyway? No other minor offense haunts you like this years after the fact. Surely a five, seven, ten year limitation should be in effect for all but truly felonious crimes (e.g., vehicular homicide).
Re: Then they mailed a notification about the suspension of my license for failing to pass an emissions test.
That's weird. Why suspend your drivers license? It would make more sense to suspend your car's registration-- and better sense still to require the emission test up front when you get your plates which is how Michigan and Ohio did it.
Also, IMO, whenever a license is suspended there should ALWAYS have to be a court hearing on the matter within a brief period of time. If the state fails to prove a case for the suspension it should be expunged. I'm surprised no one has taken this to court. It definitely violates Due Process.
JonF writes: "I doubt it's the software's fault. The programmer probably did what he was told. It's the designer's specs, and therefore possibly the law itself that is a problem."
I really like the way you think, Jon. In the market for some enterprise software?
Part of the problem is that some time ago, there was this huge moral panic about "OMG! Some kids DRINK! And then they DRIVE! Occasionally someone gets KILLED! We GOTTA DO SOMETHING NOW!" So-o-o, the legislature passes a bunch of Draconian (meaning, about as stupid as Draco Malfoy is presented as being) laws intended to make people believe that they're DOING SOMETHING NOW. And once passed, those laws stay on the books...and stay, and stay, and stay. Any politician who tries getting them removed will find his opponent, at the next election, screaming that he's letting drunk drivers back on the roads. Kind of like how the "Kiddie-porn" panic ended up with parents being arrested for taking pictures of their infant in his bath.
Have you considered calling the governor and asking for clemency?!
"Well, you have your choice: idiotic scrupulousness in the application of rules, or corruption. It's not a perfect world; we either get one or the other."
Maybe not. For many, the capital of bureacratic scrupulousness is Singapore. But when I pitched up there many moons ago, with my large motorcylce, and asked for a local license, I was told that i needed to "follow the rules" and take the Singapore driving test, which for motorcyles involves four years of gradual progress before being allowed to ride the 750 I already owned. But after some enquiries, I was granted a quick chat with the head of the Road Transport Association, which not only yielded me a license, but within 18 months they had completely re-written their rules for giving licenses to foreign drivers.
Non-government bureaucracies that persistently screw up wind up bankrupt. See Pan-Am.
Government bureaucracies that persistently screw up get increased funding. See public education.
You don't have to have a DC driver's license to register a card, you can use a non-driver's ID.
(Stupid story, my wife who is not a driver was co-owner, they wouldn't take her passport for the ownership, but they would take her passport as ID to get the non-driver's ID which we could use to get the ownership, that and ~$20). Go that route to get the car plated.
All that...over a f***ing ROLLING ROCK???
Girl, it's time you turned in your Irish credentials!
Amazing,
I think you may qualify as the *oldest* person ever punished for underage drinking.
Alert the Guinness Book of world records and see what they have to say about it.
Then send PennDOT a letter, more funny than nasty, citing the Guinness record attempt (and don't forget to thank them, if you do get in The Book), and promising that for the ENTIRE rest of your natural life will NEVER, EVER drink underage AGAIN! Promise, cross your heart, etc.
I once had an minor address snafu with PennDOT that had several fruitless go-rounds...until I sent them a funny letter with the correction. Presto! If you can get the bureaucratic drone that first reads the letter to laugh out loud, you're most of the way to winning.
If that doesn't work, yeah, get a lawyer and make life hell for them.
What is fascinating is the assumption that everyone in the U.S. is beholden to a car.
When in high school in the hell that is northern Virginia, driver's ed was 'voluntary' - and I ignored it. After not attending this voluntary class, I was called into an assistant principal's office, with my parents, and told to attend this voluntary course, or there would be some sort of ill defined but dire consequences. Pointing out that calling this class voluntary was simply wrong was met with a fairly stony lack of response, except to note that the next class started in a couple of weeks, and that my attendance would be closely monitored.
So I attended, but there was no way to force me to get a license. So I didn't, until turning 18.
Even better, my first vehicle was a motorcycle, and I never personally owned a car (still don't) - interestingly, my insurance rates never increased, even after multiple license suspensions, most likely due to the database system being geared to cars, and not other vehicles - that is, since there was no flag attached to my data in connection with a car, the motorcycle insurance remained unchanged.
Wisconsin lawyer is right. There are people who can successfully navigate these waters for you. They are called "lawyers with juice." Somewhere in the Pennsylvania DOT there is a bureaucrat who can solve this all for you in about 30 seconds. The "lawyers with juice" no who this person is. You don't. Not only do they know this person, they have friendly relations with this person. Now if you wanted to, you could spend time finding out who this person is and becoming his or her friend. I am sure, with your personality, that would be easy. But maybe you already have enough friends. And maybe you have something better to do with your time. (Or maybe not--on both counts.)
Get a lawyer. Pay some dough. You broke the law.
re: I really like the way you think, Jon. In the market for some enterprise software?
I used to be a programmer (in fact still do some on the side). This does not sound like a software bug. If it's due to software at all, it's a design flaw. I cannot tell you the number of times I have programmed something only to be told "That's not what we want. Yes, it's what we asked for, but not what we want."
Re: Yes, I have, and it's never as bad. The only company I've dealt with that's as bad as the government is Comcast
Yep, Comcast, and other cable companies are on my list too. However, they're not alone there. Convenience stores, Walmart, and fast food resturants also have hideous customer service. And my champion horror story belongs to Expedia.com. In fact, I can't think of a single government office that has even made my hall of shame list.
Re: But I can't switch from IdiotDMV to CompetitorDMVThatInvestsInCustomerService,
Try a different office. Attitide and efficiency vary considerably between different locations.
Reading all this as a foreigner (well, Kafka lived here, but things got better):
Why do you, as a people, put up with this?
Bureaucrats will not get in trouble for following the rules to the letter. You can question why they can't practice a little flexibility....the answer is they have a mortgage and kids and need to pay the bills like everyone else. Your need to drive is secondary to their desire to keep their job. The way to secure employment is to follow the rules first, foremost and forever.
Interestingly, in my most frustrating experience with a DMV, the "bureaucrats" were: friendly, helpful, and ultimately got my new(to me) vehicle titled in spite of an enormous paper headache.
And that was in Massachusetts, of all places!
That's about the only thing I'll give our succession of Republican governors credit for, improving service at the DMV. Mind you, they did it by opening additional facilities in more geographically distributed locations and adding additional personnel(i.e. raised costs dramatically), but nonetheless, it's far better than it was.
Funny thing about Mitt - he's been very good at cutting jobs in the private sector companies that Bain Capital purchases to streamline and resell for a profit, but he seems to have recognized that it's not a viable strategy for public service organizations.
Comcast can bite me. Any company that can afford a hostile takeover bid of DISNEY is NOT charging a fair price to its customers.
Right, "It simply can't be helped."
Appropriate misspelling, though.
I'm sure you display this level of equanimity when your flight is cancelled.
Megan's problem isn't just simply about bureaucratic hurdles and stupid rules. Its also the predictable consequence of poor information sharing. The Penn DOT sure heard of your conviction, but not of your expungement. Who knows who else has gotten this incorrect record, but we know DC does too.
"I also have a bit of a problem thinking Murphy (noone knew his first name) got behind on his payments. "
Eventually it got raided and there were 70-some underage drinkers there. I think thats when they decided to sell.
You can have your absence of rules, but then you have to stop whining when someone in a position to use their judgment uses it in a way you don't like. No more "there oughtta be a law against it!"
I don't know how I'll ever be able to forgive you.
If it had been a Yuengling, perhaps. But a Rolling Rock...
Long ago, expungement was done by destroying records. I saw it happen: judge went down to the booking office, took the book, tore out the page, wrote "previous page destroyed by order of Judge xxx to expunge arrest" on the subsequent, blank page, and told the clerk to copy the other arrests on the destroyed page onto that new page. I was given the torn-out page, looked at it, shrugged, the judge asked if I wanted it for a souvenir, I said "No, sir", and he burned it then and there.
These days expungement is not possible; the records are duplicated into destruction-proof archives as they're created. At best you can get flags set in the database marking the records as "expunged" or "sealed", but the data is still there, and there's a huge list of people who can access the files ignoring the flags.
Being of an age where it was legal for me to buy a beer when I was 19 you have my sympathy. There is little evidence that drinking laws are any more successful at preventing "underage" drinking than Prohibition was at outlawing alcohol consumption en toto.
Trivia note: the legal age to drink was originally lowered from 21 to 18 by politicians pandering to the "youth vote" after the voting age was lowered to 18. Then they found out that "youths" rarely bothered to vote so they raised it back up to pander to the middle-aged voters - whom it seems DO turn out to vote in large numbers.
I suppose if 18-year olds ever started flocking to the polls they'll reconsider.
Interesting, so another byproduct of a heavy bureaucracy is that it pays to be "normal"
But wait...I thought the government celebrated "diversity." Is it time to have special laws to protect the abnormal? ;-)
Non-government bureaucracies that persistently screw up wind up bankrupt. See Pan-Am.
Government bureaucracies that persistently screw up get increased funding. See public education.
Precisely. And the other problem is that it seems to be nearly impossible to fire a government bureaucrat, as long as they follow the "rules" as stated above, even to the detriment of people they're supposed to be serving.
I think there should be term limits not only for Congress, but for bureaucrats as well. Nobody should spend more than 10, 12 years suckling at the government teat. (And nobody should have his/her first job there either; go out and get some real-world experience as a member of the productive class first, and then bring that experience to the government, which should benefit from it.)
And if such a worker, after the 10-12 years are up, doesn't have the talent to rejoin the productive class? It's back to school for you, Bud. Or to McDonald's, or somewhere that (like in bureaucracies) pays people not to think, just to follow orders.
It should be a badge of shame to be a "career bureaucrat," because everyone would realize that such a person doesn't have the talent to have a job that actually produces something.
This is America.
It is high time you exercised your 2nd Amendment rights.
At least you're not this guy: http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:WDTtK375rTwJ:www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/15269991.html
the legal age to drink was originally lowered from 21 to 18 by politicians pandering to the "youth vote" after the voting age was lowered to 18.
Not in New York. The drinking age was 18 from the repeal of prohibition in 1933 until it was raised to 19 in 1982. Governor Cuomo was not satisfied with that and persuaded the legislature to raise it to 21 in 1983.
"Rules That Must Be Followed" are not unique to beauracracies or public institutions. Believe it or not, they occur in the private sector, too! And yes, they ihibit efficiency!
I work on a corporate intranet at a Fortune 50 corporation. The woman who sits next to me is a born martinet. She loves her some rules. For example, an employee recently submitted a Word document for posting on the web site, a simple affair that should take 3 minutes. But the Rules Whiz who sits next to me Will Not Post It until the document is modified to conform to a dozen of my co-worker's demands. She issues these painful and pointless requirements to every person who submits a document for posting on the intranet. That request has now been sitting there for six weeks. This happens all the time. My co-workers, honestly, gets thrills acting as an obstacle to the rest of the company, and what really amazes her is that people will not comply with her rules without being ask.
So yeah. It may not be cool to criticize private power, but corporations can act as irrationally as any public office.
For what it's worth, I've lived in four states: two with publicly controlled DMV's, and two with DMV's outsourced to the private sector. And I can tell you without hesitation that the DMV's controlled by the public sector were FAR more efficient than the privately controlled ones. This should not be surprising. The privately controlled ones are always trying to underbid the competition and cut back services to reduce costs. It's a freaking nightmare. The public systems, on the other hand, are funded to work, and they work. Last time I had to register my car I literally walked into the DMV, grabbed a number, and before I could even sit down my number wall called. The woman processed my registration faster than I could find my credit card to pay the fee. I was back in my car in less than five minutes.
Under an adjacent state's privately controlled nightmarish system, on the other hand, it can literally take WEEKS to get a registration renewed, as you must first call a number and make a reservation. The only problem is that the phone is always busy and it literally (I am not kidding) can take weeks of calling just to get someone to answer the phone.
Bleh. Rigid anti-government ideology may make for clever books by PJ O'Rourke, but it has nothing to do with reality.
Megan, you are absolutely right (that statement is, of course, limited to what you wrote in this post only, and does not apply to the rest of your output). But why do you insist on being so damn prolix about it?
Sorry, But
That's just Karma for you views on Ron Paul and the Idea of Sound Money - I suppose you were probably drunk when studying economics