My Driver's License Saga

amother

OP ↓

Tue, Jan 16 2024, 9:35 pm

The following story is not for the faint of heart.

If you are the type that gets heart palpitations when you hear of someone driving with, say, a suspended license or expired car registration, or if you consider someone like that so negligent as to deserve to be arrested, or perhaps have CPS go after her, then please don't read this story. Move onto the next thread.

Ok. You have been duly warned. For the rest of you, take this story as a cautionary tale.

Truth be told, I hesitated for a while before deciding to tell this story, mainly because of the backlash I was afraid of receiving. But I finally decided to go ahead with it, because I think its a pretty cool story, especially the ending, but please refrain from telling me off at the end. Pretty please. Thank you so much.

Also, it's kind of long, but I think you'll agree with me at the end that it was worth reading. I hope so, anyway.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Tue, Jan 16 2024, 9:38 pm

Part 2.
Ok, so here goes.

You have gathered by now, I'm sure, that I had a suspended driver's license. Now, I don't recall the specifics, such as when or how I found out that my license was suspended. If I had to guess, it was sometime in the summer, and I found out with a letter.

I had no idea why my license should be suspended. So I called my traffic lawyer and asked him to look into it. In the past, I have received such letters in error and the lawyer said to disregard. This time however, he said that it was indeed suspended, due to not having insurance. He also said that the only way to fix this was to go down to the DMV and have them reinstate it.

Now, here was the problem. Going down to the DMV meant carving out a good few hours of my day. I had to find the time for that. So here is where my procrastination gene kicked in and excercized its full potential.

Those of you who don't have this gene cannot possibly understand what happens to otherwise sane, mostly responsible, people.

So I didn't go one week, and then the next. And then the next. And the weeks and months rolled on, with this problem unresolved.

Truth is, since I work from home, I don't drive that much. And there never seemed to be a good time to go.

I know. It's just excuses. But I'm telling the story, so that's how it went.

Finally, last week, I made myself a goal to get it done. My plan was to go on Tuesday.

The first step was to call my insurance company, Geico, to find out what happened, and why I had a lapse in my coverage.

I also needed to pay the monthly bill, so I did that in the same phone call. (It will soon be clear why I mention that detail).

So after paying the bill, I asked the agent to look into the problem of my suspended license. He came back after a few minutes saying that there was no lapse in payment, ever. That I was a "gold" member.

So why was my license suspended? I asked.

He said that it was a glitch in the system. That somehow their office communicates with another office and there's a miscommunication between offices, and these things happen. And he knows of other customers that this happened to.

Hmph. Well, then, I asked him if he could please provide me with a letter saying that I had coverage throughout, so I can bring it to the DMV as proof that my license was needlessly suspended. He said, sure no problem, and within 2 minutes, I received the letter in my inbox.

I planned to go the next day to the DMV. But the next day I couldn't find my glasses all day, so I couldn't go.

The next opportunity was Thursday. I went to the website to make an appointment, and saw that there were no appointments for 2 weeks. I was planning to travel early the next week so I couldn't wait so long. (Those of you with the procrastinator gene may relate to this conundrum. We push things off indefinitely. But when we finally decide to do the THING, we cannot wait any extra time, it must happen immediately!)

So I decided to just go as a walk-in and wait, even without an appointment. My husband warned me that I'll be sitting there for hours, but I was not deterred. I was going to get this done. By hook or by crook.

I got into the car at 9:30. And before I started to drive, I took a moment to offer a sincere tefilla to Hashem to make this errand go smoothly. (I have found in the past that when I give a short prayer before embarking on a mission that is usually a frustrating hassle, it goes smoother than I expect.)

amother

↑ OP ↓

Tue, Jan 16 2024, 9:40 pm

Part 3

I arrived at the DMV at 10am. As I entered the building, the security guard asked me if I had an appointment. I said no. I asked if I'll be able to get in. He shrugged and said "try", but his tone said "good luck, lady."

Sure enough, I saw two lines. One that said "Appointments only" and the other one, for walk-ins, was closed off. I went to stand there anyway, hoping I'll be let in.

Then a guy said to me "if I were you, I would just go under the belt." I didn't want to do that for fear of making a chillul Hashem. Then another man with long hair came to stand behind me. He assessed the situation, then simply opened the belt, waved me in and then closed the belt behind us.

The person in front of us in line said, "I wouldn't do that if I were you. I did the same and the lady came and yelled at me. "

That worried me, so I opened the belt and went back out. The long-haired man simply shrugged and said, "I ain't going nowhere".

A minute later an agent came over and asked the long-haired man why he was there. He told her. I heard her say, "sir, you need an appointment. You need to leave the line now and come back when you have an appointment." He tried arguing with her, but she stood firm. He left.

Then she asked me why I was there. I showed her my paper. She scribbled something on it and told me to go on the apontment only line.

I was NOT expecting that. Here I came without an appointment, and I was being waved onto the appointment line. Not bad. My tefilla was working!

But I may have been a bit too smug about that...

amother

↑ OP ↓

Tue, Jan 16 2024, 9:42 pm

Part 4

It took less than 10 minutes for me to get to the front of the line. The agent waved me over. I explained what happened and showed her my paper.
She looked at her computer and said that the error still had not been corrected from the other office. But she said, no problem she'll fix it.. Then she said, "Did they tell you that you have to pay $150 to reinstate your license?"

I said no. But why should I have to pay if this was not my fault at all?

She looked at the paper again and said that the paper said that I didn't have insurance on January 9th 2023. But it should have said January 8th 2023, because it happened at midnight (Don't ask me why. I don't understand this part of the story.)

I asked her if I can have the insurance company correct the error and fax in the new letter. She said yes, and gave me the fax number.

I went off to the side to make the call, assuming it would take 5 minutes, tops. Last time that's all it took.

This is where things took a strange turn.

When I called Geico, I had to put in my personal information, and the automated system informed me that my policy had been cancelled. Cancelled!

I knew that didn't make sense. I had just paid my bill a few days ago!

I pressed a bunch of zeros until I was finally connected to an agent.

She confirmed that my policy had indeed been cancelled for lack of payment.

I said, "that can't be! I just paid on Monday!" I even knew the exact amount.

She said, "That payment was reversed. So the policy got cancelled. "

I stood there in shock, not comprehending. Until I remembered what happened.

On Monday, as I said, I paid the bill. Usually it gets paid automatically. But this time I wanted to pay from another account. So when I spoke to the agent, I said I wanted to pay manually, from a different account. I was about to read off my cc number, when he said, "Oh, we have another account on file. Numbers ending in 5612?"

I didn't recognize the account number exactly, but I just assumed that it's the other account. Since we have two accounts, it makes sense that that was the other one. So I said yes.

And now, I found out that it was reversed. I suddenly realized that the account ending in 5612 must have been an account that we closed a few years ago, but Geico still had it on record. And because it was reversed, they cancelled my policy!

I said, "But that was a mistake! I'll give you the right account now and pay what I owe. "

She said, "It's too late. It's already been cancelled."

I couldn't believe it. I made a silly mistake and managed to get my insurance cancelled.
At the same time, I noticed that my phone was on 7%.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Tue, Jan 16 2024, 9:44 pm

Part 5

I asked the agent what I need to do to get it reinstated.
She said, first I need to pay what I owed from last month. Then I need to buy new insurance. I asked her how much? She said we will only know once you pay the first payment.

Ok. I made the payment.

Then she told me that to reinstate the insurance, I would need to pay $480.
Why so much?? She said because rates went up. We can't give you the same rate you had previously.

Now I started sweating because I knew I needed to think this through, maybe shop around for a better insurance rate.

But I needed to reinstate my insurance in order to get the corrected letter which I called for in the first place. And if I didn't get the corrected letter, I would have to come back to the DMV. And my phone was now on 5%!

So I went ahead and, with a sinking heart, paid for the new policy.
All that took time.

Now my phone is on 4%.
When it was finally done, they transferred me to customer service to take care of the letter.

The lady who came on sounded very helpful, or at least she sounded like she wanted to help, but for some unfathomable reason, it took her forever to correct the letter. She kept putting me on hold and coming back to say she is still working on it. Honestly, I can't figure it out, because the guy on Monday took about 2 minutes to do it. Anyone who has ever had to deal with such a scenario can attest to how frustrating it is when they just keep you on hold forever. And my phone battery was draining fast.

She asked me to email her the original letter "so it will go faster ". But somehow it still took her over a half hour.

I put my phone on power saver mode to conserve battery.

Now I'm on 2%. It's 11:10.

I'm sitting there on a bench at the DMV and I have an idea. I made a mental kabbala to donate $20 to a certain tzedaka, IF I am out of there by 11:30 with the problem resolved. I had 20 minutes.
I wrote on the paper the name of the tzedaka, $20, 11:30.

Five minutes pass. Now I'm on 1% battery.
Suddenly, she comes back and says the letter is ready and she is sending it now. 11:15.

Five minutes later, she came on to say that she is waiting for confirmation that the letter went through. 11:20.

Then she said it went through. It's exactly 11:25. That minute, the agent who helped me earlier took the letter from the fax machine and waved me over.

She looks at the letter and says "I see they corrected the mistake in the date, but she left out the account number."

Fortunately, I still had the other paper, and between the two, she had whatever info she needed.

She handed me a paper that said "SUSPENSION CLEARED" and said with a big smile, "And you don't have to pay anything !" (Little did she know.)

I walked out of there and looked at my watch. It was 11:27.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Tue, Jan 16 2024, 9:46 pm

Part 6

The story would end here, but there is one more piece.

But first, I just want to point out something that I only realized way later, when I was repeating the story to someone.

I went to the DMV to correct the problem of my license being suspended unfairly. My license was suspended for not having insurance , when in fact I never had a lapse in insurance. And when I got there, I found out that my insurance had indeed been canceled (4 days prior), something that would have caused my license to be suspended- legitimately this time. And I probably would not have been aware if it for some time. And when I would have wanted to take care if it, it would have been a real hassle.

Instead, Hashem caused me to discover my error while I was at the DMV, so I could correct it right away.

Ok. Now for the epilogue.

I'm driving home from the DMV thinking about what a hassle my day turned out to be, but thinking it was rather neat that my issue got resolved right after committing to give tzedaka.

I got off the highway, entering into my city, when suddenly a tall cop with sunglasses walks right into the street and motions for me to pull over.

I was like, NO WAY. THIS. IS. NOT. Happening. I couldn't believe that I was being pulled over (for speeding, I assumed) RIGHT when I got my license cleared. This was totally nuts.

I sat there waiting for a minute. I took my license out of my purse to get it ready for the officer. Then I realized that it's still better that I got my license cleared. Imagine if I got pulled over while I had a suspended license! (Trying to focus on the silver lining. )

Then the officer comes to the window and says, "Ma'am, you were pulled over because one of the owners of this vehicle had a suspended license. But we just got a message that the suspension was cleared. So you're free to go, ma'am. Have a nice day."

I was speechless for a moment, and then I picked up my paper to show him that I was literally coming from the DMV right then. I had gotten my license cleared less than an hour earlier.

I don't know if this is legal in every State, but in my state, the cops have sensors that can flag a car that has an expired registration or an owner with a suspended license.

So this means that I had been blissfully driving around for a full year with a suspended license, and never once got pulled over. And the very day that I got it reinstated, I was pulled over for having a suspended license.. Not just the very day, but literally on the way home.

So, I thank Hashem for guarding me, as it says, Shomer Pesaim Hashem , Hashem guards the fools.
And yes, I hope I learned my lesson.

Thanks for reading all the way until the end.

The End.

WhatFor ↓

Tue, Jan 16 2024, 10:18 pm

OP, not a judgment of you at all. I have ADHD and when it wasn't treated, things were much more difficult. Obviously I'm not diagnosing you because I don't know you, but if you have it, it's so important to address it to reduce your own anxiety. Also, you're scared of judgment because there were a lot of things that happened that you think you could control so people impose a moral judgment. But the truth is that certain traits are not a choice and someone isn't necessarily more moral for being more organized. But where we do have a choice is in addressing the source of our issue.

Something happened that totally wasn't your fault. Geico messed up. Then you procrastinated doing anything about. I won't get into the nuances of why with ADHD over here, that's easily googleable, but it's extremely typical to not handle things where there's no deadline for multiple reasons.

Lots of the rest of the stressors could have been prevented if you got assistance with your executive functioning skills. It's not your fault that it's not innate in you, but I really hope you know that there's actually help out there. Here are some things that could hopefully be preventable with help:

Impulsively agreeing to the credit card number the Geico rep mentioned instead of verifying it. Not being able to find your glasses for a whole day to the point that you push off an important task. Driving to the DMV on a suspended license. Not making an appointment when a line of people there seemed to know how to do that. Having a low phone battery (not keeping it charged enough for your trip).

One other thing I'm observing that didn't cause you an issue but could potentially have: you impulsively volunteered to the police officer that you were coming back from the DMV where you had just gone to resolve the issue. The truth is, you could have just said "Thank you. Have a good day officer!" But you provided information unnecessarily without thinking through the potential repercussions to yourself. What would you have answered if he had asked you how you took the car to the DMV on a suspended license? Would you have lied and said that someone else drove your car there? I doubt it - you come across as being pretty earnest. But then you basically would have confessed to a police officer that you drove your car on a suspended license, and this saga would have dragged out even more for you. When someone who didn't have a brain that works like yours (or potentially like mine) would simply have smiled and said "Thank you" and that would have been the end of the story.

I'm going to reiterate that I have absolutely zero judgement toward you about this story. I'm just reading you describe yourself as having a "procrastination gene" and thinking there's actually a diagnosable condition that's genetic that may be the cause of this. And getting help is not a simple 1-2-3, but at least for me, it does very quickly make things so. much. better. Not perfect. I still like DH handling a lot of the mundane stuff. But my phone mostly stays pretty charged and I don't feel as overwhelmed and frantic about stuff as I did before. And I think a teeny tiny bit more than I previously did, before unnecessarily volunteering information to others that might not be in my best interest.

So I just thought I'd mention this to you, if there's any chance that it could be useful to you.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Tue, Jan 16 2024, 11:41 pm

WhatFor wrote:

Whatfor, I think you got my number!
It's great that this story worked out well for me, but it certainly could have been much worse.
I especially had not thought of the represcussions of telling the cop that I was coming from the DMV. Whoops.
So thank you for writing that all out, you have given me much to think about.

amother

Bone

Wed, Jan 17 2024, 1:55 am

WhatFor wrote:

I don’t think she has untreated ADHD. It sounds more like she’s living a very hectic life and didn’t have the time or the head to deal with this so it spiraled into a big mess.
She actually does sound levelheaded and focused just very busy which causes procrastination.