Wednesday, April 26, 2006
License To Drive -or- How Terrorism Made Me Lose Hair Today
So, do I have a valid drivers license yet?
Heh. Nope, not yet. No license. Not at all. Not really. Come to think of it. No.
Some of you know the beginning of the story – my driver’s license disappeared, along with a couple of credit cards, in February. Don’t have any explanation as to how; they were just gone one day. Unluckily was a few days before I was about to embark on a relaxing vacation to Florida.
Here’s a story with a lesson: if you travel ANYwhere, get an alternate form of I.D. and bring it with you! If I had been a visitor in NYC, without a passport, with money for a hotel for maybe just a few days – not uncommon- I would have been SCREWED!
Because I had a passport, I could fly. But this was Thursday. On Saturday I was supposed to pick up a rental car in Ft. Lauderdale and drive it across the State to where we were staying, near Naples. (The place where we usually stay in Ft. Lauderdale was uninhabitable due to one of those hurricanes that went through this past year. By the way my mom was there when it hit, but that’s her story.)
I decided the quickest end to this was to apply for NY State drivers license. I went to drivers License Express, a well kept secret on 34th street where it typically takes less than 30 minutes to get your driver’s license!
But since I was replacing a missing out of state license, first I had to get my Driving Record from Colorado.
You’d think that’d be a cinch – you know, send a FAX, get a FAX. Well, turns out the DMV folks in Colorado won’t receive a FAX unless it’s from a State DMV, and the DMV in NY won’t send a FAX. There’s also some skee-doodle about it having to be an original document. Go figure. I decide to give up and do it when I come home. I call my mom and give her the news – like it or not, she’s going to have to drive the rental car in Florida.
Enter my mom’s friend’s daughter’s husband – I kid you not – Joe, who lives in Denver, and who I’ve never met. Turns out he was at home, and, incidentally, unemployed that day. At my mom’s encouragement, I actually asked him to perform for me a task worse than death for any American citizen – go to the DMV.
Luckily Denver is two hours behind new York. In cell phone contact with me every 15 minutes or so, Joe drove the 45 minutes to the DMV in Denver and followed instructions I made up for him by sitting at my desk in Brooklyn, googling, FAXing and making phone calls. He sweet-talked himself to the front of the line, where he was able to pick up a FAX I had waiting for him. (I’d FAXed it to my friend Jessica in Red Hook and had her FAX it, since my machine – well, we don’t have long distance service on our phone, I’m used to putting in my calling card and – it’s a long story made shorter by saying it was of course freaking out that day. And so was theirs- several phone calls to the DMV and FAXes sent by Jessica finally got it through on an alternate machine.)
I brought a map up on my computer and managed to get Joe to the nearest Fed-Ex facility, where he called me, I gave my credit card number to the lady, and we got it in the overnight mail with 20 minutes to spare. Now my only hope was to get that in and get a license the next day.
The “original document” – nothing but a bubble-printer black and white office-fed piece of paper – arrived before 10am. (At the Mailboxes place down the street, of course – I can’t get mail delivered here lest it be stolen.) I got back on the subway and went back to the Driver’s License Express Place in Manhattan.
I’d been there 20 minutes – my eyes were checked, my picture was taken, the lady was sitting with my papers in her hand and they were stamped and stapled, and suddenly she said, “There’s a problem.”
I called the DMV in Colorado. Turns out I had to clear my record of a speeding ticket I got in Indiana in 2002. I don’t remember the incident in particular, but admittedly I can entirely see myself speeding. And I can certainly see myself saying, “Gee, I don’t plan to be driving in INDIANA, of all places, any time soon. I don’t have 125 bucks laying around today. I think I’ll just ignore this.” And so I did.
This “cleansing” of my driving record entailed: send a cashier’s check to Indiana, then when the receipt arrives, send it to Colorado, along with a request for a cleared record. I later discovered that if I requested, also, a duplicate license, it would prevent me from having to take the written and driver’s test all over again in NYC. Okay, who wants to take their road test in NYC??? Oh, and a couple more checks (that’s over 200 bucks and counting…) By now we were well beyond the point where I’d have a driver’s license before my trip. Mom would have to rent the car and we would deal with her anxiety about driving on criss-crossy highways – well, when we had to.
I found a bank and sent the cashier’s check. I went on my trip – had a good time – did the old switcheroo into the driver’s seat when the rental car folks weren’t looking, then freaked out about how if I had an accident in this car I was not officially allowed to drive (and my current logistical problems would seem miniscule.) I did all that was asked of me regarding the receipt and all. Then I waited.
Apparently the cleared driver record and the license were sent April 14. (Picture yourself a tourist stranded in NYC for 6, 8 weeks. Where would you sleep? How could you afford to eat? Where would you find the bank, the post office, the FAX machine, necessary to accomplish these tasks???)
I got the Cleared Driver’s Record yesterday (could have done without that), after it was apparently delivered to the wrong address, first. The license is another thing entirely, I’ve found out. I almost gave it up for lost, today, figuring it should have come with the other document and was probably pilfered by a mail carrier with a relative in need of a legal U.S. Document. But the nice folks in CO (who you actually CAN get on the phone, unlike NY where every line rings busy all the time) tell me it actually has to come through Washington State. Go figure. So it may take another couple weeks.
Meanwhile…
When I had the accident in January, (I had an accident in January) I got a ticket for not having registration in the car. (I suspect it was stolen when it was broken into last year and I didn’t notice.)
The officer told me to send in a copy of my registration with the ticket and it would be cleared. Like a good girl, I did that the very next day.
A few weeks later a notice arrived to my mom’s house which threatened all sorts of nasty things if I didn’t come right down to the DMV in NYC and show them my registration right away! (What if I’d gone back to Wisconsin, as would be expected of someone with Wisconsin plates?)
So I did, just to spite them, yesterday. I stood in the wrong line for 20 minutes, then got set up in front of a judge. He cleared the ticket. But since I’d been assigned a court date and missed it (notification was sent to 514 Jefferson St. in Rayne, WI – that is not my mom’s address) my driving privileges have been SUSPENDED in NY state. That means, I get pulled over for something I could be chucked in JAIL.
Unless, of course, I paid a $35 fine.
35 bucks is a lot to me these days. I just bought a house, I’m financed to my ears, and I’m paying a monologue coach so I can get an agent so I can get work as an actor. Actors are not known for their financial fruitfulness. I’m not even really exactly a working actor right now. I explained as much to the man behind the desk. He was sympathetic, saw the craziness of it, and even went back to a supervisor – or so he said- to try and get it cleared.
No dice. And so I paid the $35, with tears in my eyes. I handed my credit card to the man behind the machine.
“I have one question,” I said. He was all ears.
“WHAT motivation is there, what motivation at ALL, for me to obey the law?”
He did not have an answer.
So that’s my tale. I expect you’ll hear from me again when I get my License to Drive!
Posted by Niki Naeveat 9:37 AM
Niki Naeve 
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