DMV Drama

It all started in November 2005. Gas prices were on the rise and I wanted a new toy, so I set out to get a motorcycle. I scoured the information superhighway for the cheapest motorcycle that got the best gas mileage. The Suzuki GZ250 was reported to get up to 82 miles per gallon and cost around $3200 brand new. Before I make any purchase over $10 I look for the item on eBay to get a sense of market value. To my luck there was a 2004 GZ250 in a city near Monticello, NY and it only had 850 miles on it. I called the owner and he agreed to sell me the bike for $2100. Then I persuaded two of my friends (one with a truck) to travel the 200 miles with me and pick up the bike (it wasn’t too hard since there is a Moe’s in Albany). Once we arrived he started the bike, gave me the title and I gave him the cash. Done deal.

The first week I owned the bike I put 3 miles on it driving in circles in my apartment complex’s parking lot. It was January in upstate New York and going over 5 miles per hour was bone chilling plus I didn’t have a motorcycle license and the bike didn’t have a license plate. After that first week a different friend agreed to let me put the bike in his shed until the snow melted. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a truck to use this time so I decided to chance it and drove the 2 miles to his house. Megan, my cohort, followed in my car to give me a ride home. As soon as we pulled out of the parking lot I spotted a cop. I wasn’t afraid of getting caught, cops are real people and I had a good reason. I also had the title in my pocket and a military ID (for those that don’t know this is akin to a get out of jail free card since many cops are ex-military). The cop on this occasion didn’t notice my lack of license plate and we continued to my friend’s house without incident.

Unfortunately, that was the last time I saw the title to my motorcycle. At first I looked in all the suspect places, my coat, my friend’s house, my motorcycle etc… But I was convinced it would turn up eventually so my type B personality and I didn’t worry about it.

Before I knew it it was April, the snow was nearly melted and we had a few 60 degree days. I signed up for a motorcycle class that was to happen in June and checked into getting a motorcycle permit. By now I had given up on finding the title and set out to get a duplicate. For this I would need the owners help. I contacted him and got some really bad news. The title wasn’t in his name. He never transferred ownership from the previous owner and worst of all he didn’t know the previous owner’s name. When I went to the DMV to get my permit I inquired about my situation. She told me the previous owner was the only one who could get a duplicate title. (Sidenote: 15 of the 20 questions on the permit test where about either road signs or DUI) I returned to the DMV a few weeks later with the VIN number of the motorcycle and explained the situation to a different girl. This time I changed my tone and wore my Uniform. After repeating the information I received before I pleaded to her for some more help and she asked the manager. When she left to talk to her manager I quick looked at the computer screen and the saw the name Gould. A few seconds later I heard the manager refer to me and I assume the guy from Monticello as “a bunch of children”. She then whispered to girl that was helping me “give him the address”. After writing down the real owners contact info she handed it to me and said “You didn’t get this from us.”

Armed with my newly acquired contact info I set out to contact a Mr. Douglas Gould. Of course, the number I was given was “No longer in service”. I cyber stalked my target and found a different phone number but this one just rang and rang with no answer.

Now keep in mind that this didn’t all happen in one day. No, that’s not my style. This was over the period of at least a month, probably more. I took the motorcycle safety class, the diploma of which is a motorcycle license, and with renewed sense of urgency set out to get the title. Well, actually I went to San Diego for the 4th of July and attempted to hike the Great Range in one day. And despite my lack of license plate, title, registration, inspection tags, and insurance drove my motorcycle over 400 miles in July. I did have a motorcycle license, but alas, a man with a motorcycle and a motorcycle license does not a legal rider make.

The next time I visited the DMV was in July probably even late July. I had been trying the phone number that nobody answered at least twice a week. When I told the DMV this they told me to send a certified letter to owner and give them a few weeks to respond, “If they don’t we’ll be able to give you a title”, I was told. I complied immediately and waited. And waited. After a few weeks (let’s see we’re probably in by August now) went by I returned to the DMV and once again explained my whole situation. She told me there was nothing that could be done without the owners help. I then asked her why she instructed me to send a registered letter and she just brushed me off and repeated that without the owner’s consent I couldn’t get a new title.

By the end of summer 2006 I had ridden my motorcycle to Syracuse and back (about 50 miles each way) a half a dozen times and rode around town quite frequently. I had given up on the DMV and when I returned the motorcycle to its winter shed it had over 1700 miles on it.

My new wife decided to take it upon herself to resolve the situation sometime in April 2007. I’m not sure how she came upon the idea but she contacted the titles department in Albany. Someone, who we’ll call Bad DMV Lady, told Megan that I’d have to make a statement in court and that the guy from Monticello would also have to make a statement. He would have to testify that he sold me the motorcycle, thus incriminating himself to not having registered the vehicle. After a few weeks of waiting on hold and visiting the DMV she finally had a possible solution but she didn’t feel right about it, after all I was the one who lost the title, so this guy shouldn’t have to pay for my mistakes. We talked about it and decided that even though my ability to misplace things was not his problem he was partially responsible for the larger mess. When she again contacted the title office of the DMV in Albany Megan was told that Bad DMV lady was on vacation and that she’d have to either wait until the vacation was over or talk to the guy that was left in charge. How long was the vacation? Four weeks…

This turned out to be a tremendous blessing. Bad DMV Lady’s replacement was Good DMV Man. He told Megan to send a certified letter to the owner and then wait a few weeks and if they don’t get in touch with us then send him the receipt of the registered letter and he would issue us a new title. Megan mentioned that we had already done this so he told us to send him copy of the letter and the receipt, which she did.

Spiderman 3 came out sometime and in the beginning of May 2007. Megan and I rode the motorcycle 10 miles to nearest theatre to see it some time at the end of May. As we were turning down the last street the sheriff of Whitestown noticed that I didn’t have a valid inspection sticker. He subsequently pulled us over.

Cop: “License and registration please.”
Andrew hands cop license.
Cop: “May I see your registration sir?”
Andrew: “I don’t have one.”
Cop: “Where’s your license plate?”
Andrew: “They wouldn’t let me have one without a registration.”
Cop: “Do you have insurance?”
Andrew: “My insurance company won’t insure me for a vehicle that’s not registered in my name.”
Cop: “I see.”
Andrew: Insert above story

Fortunately? for me the cop only had two blank traffic tickets left and decided not to go back to the station to get more. He cited me for operating a motor vehicle without registration and operating a vehicle without insurance. (Sidenote: I forgot to show him my military ID) We then had to call a tow truck to take us home. That was $115. I didn’t get to see Spiderman 3 until it was released on DVD.

I sent in the tickets with a plea of guilty. Unfortunately we left for Oregon before I received a fine. During our trip out west Megan received a phone call (maybe in Ohio or West Virginia) that they were issuing a title in my name. Wahoo! I was now the legal owner of a motorcycle (Thanks again Megan! Megan, my bureaucratic BS wading hero, would later make the statement, “I’ve married into a lift of crime!”).

A few times in the last week of July 2007 I attempted to contact the Whitestown court to find out how much my fine was and how to pay it. The court was only open from 3pm-5pm Mondays EST. I found this out earlier but when I called the four numbers that were given on the internet and also to me by information the only thing that answered at noon PST, 1pm PST, 1:01pm PST, 1:02 PST,… was a fax machine. When we boarded the flight for Micronesia I was the legal owner of a motorcycle but now I had an unpaid fine.

All of our mail was automatically forwarded to my parent’s house in Oregon. So they received all of our correspondence with the court. After sending multiple letters the judge informed us that I would need to pay $330 to make this all go away. Fearing that my check would be lost in the mail my parents volunteered to send them a check and then let me reimburse them later.

Thinking that this was finally behind me I received an email from my mother in March 2008. She had received a letter addressed to me from the Oregon DMV. On this letter it said “your driving privilege is withdrawn in the state of New York.” I am still not sure why the Oregon DMV informed me of this and not the NY DMV, but I’m not surprised, Oregon is at least a thousand times better than NY.

On 4 April 2008 I called Oregon DMV and was immediately put in line for the “next available representative”. After less than two minutes a very friendly guy picked up and informed me that I had in fact had my license suspended in New York. He then told me that I would be able to legally drive in Oregon but not New York. Immediately following this call I called the New York DMV to get the scoop. After wading through no less than 5 menus, two of which I had to select the last option, I finally heard what I wanted to hear and pressed 7. I was given the hours of operation for operator help and hung up on. The New York DMV call took the same amount of time as the Oregon DMV call and all I did was listen to menus! To compound this the hours of operation are 11pm to 7am Micronesia time. During these hours I’m not at school and therefore cannot use Skype. Our telephone can’t call the US so I had to go to FSM telecom and buy a prepaid phone card for $5. It cost $.47 per minute to call the states after 6pm and $.75 to call before. The cool thing I found out about the prepaid phone card is that it also works as an internet card and costs .08/MB. At around 12:30 AM on 12 April I started trying to call the DMV. The first eight times I called I got a busy signal. On the ninth call I finally got through and started wading through the menus after two and a half minutes I was put on hold and after 10 minutes I was finally talking to someone in New York.

Operator: “Thank you for calling DMV how can I help”
Andrew: “hello I recently received a letter from the DMV indicating that my license is suspended”
Operator: CLICK
Andrew: “Hello?”

I wasn’t too angry, I figured something on my computer was messed up and the mic didn’t work so the operator gave up. So I did a Skype test call and it seemed to work. After six more calls and six more busy signals I decided to call my Mom to see if everything is working fine. It was so I pressed on with the busy signals. At around 1:15 AM I finally get a ring. On the previous call I wrote down menu sequence so I could breeze through it but I must have tried to breeze to fast because I got into a menu that I didn’t want so I had to start over. More busy signals. At this point I’m really confused. Why are there busy signals if they end up putting me on hold for 10 minutes? I thought whole point of being put on hold was so you wouldn’t have to worry about busy signals. Obviously, I’m wrong or no one told the NY DMV this.

At around 1:45 I get another ring and before 2am I’m talking to a real person and he can hear me.

Operator: “Thank you for calling DMV how can I help”
Andrew: “Hello I recently received a letter from the DMV indicating that my license is suspended”
Operator: asks for more personal info I won’t be posting
Andrew: Answers
Operator: “Yes, you paid a ticket for $150 back in January so the DMV is fining you $750. Since you didn’t pay the $750 we’ve suspended your license.”
Andrew: “Wah?”
Operater: “…”
Andrew: “Why did the DMV charge me a $750 fine?”
Operator: “Because you plead guilty to operating a motor vehicle without insurance. Operating with out insurance is the next highest fine, only below DUI.”
Andrew: “So because I plead guilty and paid I’m being charged further?”
Operator: “Yes.”
Andrew: “Is there any other options?”
Operator: “You could reopen the case and plead not guilty then your claim would go to traffic court.”
Andrew: “Where do I send the check?”
Operator: “Actually you can use your credit card over the phone if you’d like.”
Andrew: CLICK

At this point I pretty much lost it. I was in passive-information-gathering-mode until he, a little bit smugly, said, “Actually you can use your credit card right now if you’d like.” Sorry Pal, I wouldn’t “like” to use my credit card. I never did get to ask when the DMV was planning on telling me that I had a $750 fine.

Isn’t this some kind of double jeopardy? Paying for the same offense to two different organizations. What gives?

So my toy and great gas mileage machine ended up costing me a little more that $2100…

Total price paid for motorcycle = $2100 + $90(Helmet)+$50(New York DL) + $40(Motorcycle Permit) + $275(motorcycle class) + $25(motorcycle license) + $115(towing) + $330(Tickets) + $750(Obscene DMV Fee) = $3,775