Driving w/o a license

[Free libertarian]

^^^ Kin folk said move away from there...Californy is the place you otta be!  So they loaded up the truck up and moved to Grafton?

(okay I'm mixing messages here)

[Russell Kanning]

It gets confusing

[WithoutAPaddle]

I got nailed for driving in Virginia on a "suspended license".  I had previously received a whoop-de-do ticket for failing to obey a sign in Virginia a few years ago, and I had neglected to pay it, so they created a Virginia license for me and then suspended it.  I was already familiar with that trick, as I may have even posted on it here previously, since a decade ago, Vermont had created a Vermont driver's license for me and suspended it when they discovered I had a 22 year old, outstanding speeding fine.  The inconvenience it created for me was that when my New Hampshire license came up for its 5 year renewal, they would not renew it until I got my Vermont suspension lifted.  Incredibly, Vermont didn't charge me any interest on the 22 year old fine, and the administrative penalty was only about $35.

But Virginia has decided to make some serious money on this, so I had to pay something like $700 in penalties and fines and fees to lift that suspension.  I also got an interesting lesson from the prosecutor.  He asked me what the facts were and I told him, and then he said , "Oh, then you WEREN'T driving on a suspended license.  You were driving without a license".  I thought I had made the facts clear, but it seemed like I hadn't, so I spelled it out again.  He listened patiently.  Then he made a few irrelevant comments, and then he said, "So you see, you weren't driving on a suspended license".  He seemed awfully thick, so I took it real slow, like, "What.....does.... a.....yellow.....light.....mean?"  This time, he took a different tack.  He said it was a good thing that I didn't have a license, because driving on a suspended license was a serious crime but driving without a license was not, and he said he had a lot more discretion in prosecuting for driving wthout a license than he did with driving on a suspended one.  Oh!  He wasn't thick.  I was thick.  As long as we pretended I was simply driving without a license, he could get the charge amended and let me off easy.

In retrospect, I do see that driving on a suspended license is more serious because a judge had explicitly ordered me not to drive and I was violating his order, whereas if I simply didn't have a license, it might just be that I had neglected to process the renewal in a timely manner.

[KBCraig]

Virginia and Texas share that "administrative surcharge" scheme. I know someone who had never had a Texas license, whose license from another state had expired (not suspended, just lapsed and never renewed).

When stopped for an issue of having the right sticker on the windshield and discovered to be unlicensed ($150 fine), Texas created a license and then suspended it, and added an $1,100 surcharge to be paid in equal installments over three years.

They won't even allow a lump payment: nope, they want you on the hook for equal payments, on time, or they'll suspend that created license again.

[Tom Sawyer]

A Driver's License is a contract... so now one party can create and enforce a contract on another, the hapless victim. 

[Russell Kanning]

Yep crazy one sided non contract.

It seemed nh jus suspended my driving privilege, instead of inventing a license for me.

[Jim Johnson]

If licenses didn't exist, States would have had to invent them.

[blackie]

I got a speeding ticket in Alabama and did not pay it. The state of Maine suspended my license within 6 months. They treat it as if the violation happened in the home state.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_License_Compact

Georgia, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Tennessee are not members.[2] American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators:[3] Nevada repealed the authorizing legislation in 2007,[4] although it still generally conforms to the agreement through regulations.[2]

[Tom Sawyer]

It is not supposed to include non-moving violations like parking tickets...

Had a friend that got pulled over in Florida, they thought he had unpaid parking tickets in D.C. He spent the weekend in jail, they left his sweet vintage BMW on the side of the road, it got all shot up. Turned out he didn't have unpaid tickets. Oh well, have a nice day!

[Jim Johnson]

DMVs are self-motivated to work together in collecting fines and I'm sure most governments are fine with the extra money as well as the 'kill'm all and let God sort'm out' attitude.

[WithoutAPaddle]

I remember when New York state was ready to go to war with New Hampshire over its lack of cooperation in enforcing New York issued fines.  That was when Mel Thompson wanted our National Guard to get nuclear weapons.

It turned out that there were a whole slew of erroneous tickets issued in New York because back then, dots and hyphens were not considered as significant characters in New York and several other states but were simply placed in the middle of plate numbers to enhance reading and memorization, whereas in New Hampshire, they were significant characters, so New York police often omitted them when recording license plates, thus resulting in misidentification of vehicles.

That was, at least, innocent confusion.  I also remember that just before Massachusetts governor Ed King left office, he had the Massachusetts MVA issue license plates to his friends that included characters that were not found on the standard teletype keyboards of that era, so they couldn't conveniently be reported.  It didn't take long for Dukakis 1.2 to recall and replace them.

[Russell Kanning]

endless craziness
I like to see all the stories

[Mark D. Jacobsen]

I just reread this thread after some years. I am not sure I agree with what I wrote before but I do agree with the why.

To people that are 'licensed', are those licenses similar to ss cards that express the cards are property of some other entity?

Thanks for welcoming me to the forums Tom Sawyer.

[Free libertarian]

  I am considering the colander on the head for the next drivers license photo.  I know it's not original, but I'm sure I could customize it somehow, being that I'm not a spaghetti believer and have a greater affinity for elbow macaroni.   

[Tom Sawyer]

It's a little known fact that the moment your "license" expires you lose the ability to drive.

I haven't had their paper for a long time now... no harm to the public has occurred during that time frame.