Rant: Day of Frustration

The division of motor vehicles, in my case, has to be synonymous with time wasted. I honestly don’t think it’s possible to visit the agency without getting caught in some foul up from my past. Remember that speeding ticket you got in New York when you just got your license? Well, it turns out that the court administrator in that little community in the-middle-of-nowhere never recorded your payment – and now you have to find that ten-plus year-old record of your payment to clear up this matter.

I argue that there should be a statute of limitations on vehicular fines. If after five years the penalty has not been paid or acknowledged, then it should be annulled. The fact is that it’s entirely conceivable that the fine has been paid and not recorded as such – a result of some administrative error. In this situation the burden falls upon the fined to prove they have, in fact, paid the fine; the downside is that records beyond five years are rarely maintained. The fined, in this particular case, would now be required to pay the penalty twice in order to settle the motor vehicle records.

Critics may argue that this kind of system keeps criminals off the streets and highways by identifying them through their driver’s licenses. The most blaring inconsistency with that reasoning is that criminals have no problem with breaking the law – which is why they’re criminals. If they want to circumvent the system, they have only to use an alias to apply for a license in another state.

Another argument is that it pays to keep all this information straight so one doesn’t get into trouble. That would seem fair if in fact there were some sort of justice associated with it. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The only justification for a system of this sort is economics. The townships that impose the fines seek to obtain needed fees, in lieu of taxes, through a system that is highly suspect. It seems entirely strange that there should be a statute of limitation on every crime, except murder and paying fines on your driver’s license. The lesson to be learned here is that there is no justice.