Has this ever happened to you

[SVX92-97]

Nov 16, 2002: A cautionary tale of car-ownership in New Jersey

by Sachin Gupta

What follows might scare you. But it is true. It happened to me one Saturday night on Nov 16...

As I was pulling out of my apartment complex and going down a little sloping driveway that met with the main road, I felt a little shudder in my car. It was raining, overcast and a slight wind was blowing outside. I decided to ignore the little shudder and turned left onto the main road. It was to be a decision dripping with dire portents and calamitous implications. For as I pulled on to the little main road in front of my apartment complex, my car dropped dead. It was right in the middle of the main road. In the ensuing silence, I only heard the persistent pattering rain and the swoosh of passing cars.

I called AAA after my attempts to rejuvenate the dead Honda Civic and my invocations to many gods, goddesses and swear words yielded no results. A sleepy voice asked me for my AAA number, which I provided.

"Sir, that number has expired", she says.

"What do you mean, 'expired'!!?? The card says that my membership expires Feb 2003. We are doing November of O2 right now". Imagine putting drunk operators on the phone

"Sir, we sent you a new card followed by a renewal notice with the expectation that you will send in a renewal payment. Our computer records show that you made no payment"

"Why do you make your renewal notices look like junk mail?"

"Sir, you will need to make your payment before we can provide service"

"Can I discuss this later with you? I am stuck in the middle of this tiny road with a lot of traffic, failing daylight and tropical rain." At this point, I am groping hard for some understanding.

"Sir, we cannot help you if you are not a current member."

"Ok.Ok. Can I pay over the phone?"

"Sure, sir"

"Can you dispatch a tow truck while I give you my card number?"

"No sir." So that trick's been tried before. Darn it.

So I give her the credit card number. I describe my car and my location.

"Sir, someone will be with you within the hour. Thanks for calling AAA"

Money makes things move. I am hoping I will be safely towed before any entanglement with the cops.

Soon enough, the tow truck was there. It went a little ways into my apartment complex, up the driveway and just waited there, while I looked helplessly from the main road. It stood there for ten minutes while I proceeded to invoke some heavy duty swear words. Suddenly a cop car pulls up right behind me. Looks like the friendly neighborhood tow-truck guy called in his best buddy, the friendly neighborhood donut-munching cop. Whatever.

I walk up to the cop and tell him that the tow truck should get me off the road in no time. The cop nodded pleasantly and I walked up to the tow-truck guy. He said he would pull out of the apartment complex and tow my car. I walked slowly back towards my car and stood waiting at the kerb. Its important to remember that at this point I am thinking that the only damage is a broken car.

Then the cop walks up to me and asks me for my license. That changes everything.

I quickly open my wallet, furiously search for my license and come up empty. Actually I did find my valid insurance card and showed that instead.

"I need to see your license" he said in a forbidding cop-like tone.

"I don't seem to have it. Umm... Uhhh... Ummm.. Uhhh..." While I was fumbling with my thoughts, the cop stared down at me. My mind was racing to come up with the most powerful excuse ever given for not carrying a license. Here is what I said next...

"Sir... see I travel a lot. And since 9/11, they ask for your picture id a gazillion times at the airport. And ... and... this last time when I showed my license while boarding, I think I put it in my shirt pocket. And... and.. I am not wearing that shirt right now. And... and... it should be in my apartment... I can quickly go get it..."

I thought I had pulled off a coup. I had somehow tied 9/11 to my inability to produce a driver's license. The cop remained unimpressed.

"Show me your registration"

I was on surer ground here. I ran to the car avoiding traffic. Opened my glove compartment, whipped out my registration and handed it to the cop waiting by the window with a single masterly flourish. He takes my registration card and my insurance card and walks back to his car. The tow-truck pulls in front of my car. Sam, the friendly neighborhood tow-truck driver, steps out and walks past me towards the cop to have a chat. Then he comes to me and says, "Sir, you'll have to pay for towing. Its expired".

Now I have a drunk tow-truck driver. I can't understand where they find these people.

"Look, I just paid for AAA on the phone. They wouldn't even send you if I hadn't paid." This should be part of basic AAA training for all the ex-AA people they hire.

"Sir, its not the AAA service. Your car is unregistered. AAA does not provide service for unregistered cars"

I get up and walk up to the cop car. The cop pulls down the window.

"Hey, why did you tell the tow-truck guy my car is unregistered?"

"'Cause its unregistered", he says pointing to a computer screen in his car. The computer had a touchpad screen and a keyboard. It was connected wirelessly to his base station providing full-duplex data transmission and live access to several police and judicial databases.

I said, "But I registered it. I gave you that registration card didn't I? I distinctly remember standing in line at the DMV." The sullen morose atmosphere of that institution is not easily forgotten.

"Yeah, you gave me a card. It expired in Jooone 2000." His New Jersey accent blossomed as he proceeded to explain that under Noo Jaiisee law, drivers such as myself are supposed to renew registration every year. I found out later that you can do it over an NJ website. They take VISA and MASTERCARD. Why don't they just give a tax credit to people who don't drive?

Ok, so if I plot a graph against time, things were getting way out of control. At about 5PM, my car decided to go into a coma, at 5:15 PM, I was frantically paying 49.99 to a AAA rep and now at 5:30PM my car was found to be unregistered by an unassuming doughnut-munching cop. This can't be happening to me. Pleeeeeeeze let this all stop right now.

But things were on a roll. It seems the cop wasn't done yet. Between munching on his doughnut he went on...

"Your vehicle inspection is past due. That's due every two years. And...."

He waited several seconds to give a dramatic pause.

"... your license is suspended. On account of unpaid parking tickets."

By now I was having an out-of-body experience.

I was hovering over myself looking at the cop car, my red car, the tow-truck's grinning driver and my head splashed with rain-soaked hair.

The cop went on... "So far you have three tickets." Like we were playing some kind of game where you lose with every point.

I look away from the cop. The tow-truck driver shouts out," Sir, do you want to pay or not?" I was struggling to decide whether he was just the most stupidest person I have ever met or if he was a smart ass. He had a grin on his face, so I decided it was the latter.

"I'll pay"

The tow-truck neatly yanks my car into the apartment complex and with a swift nifty back-up maneuver, parks it right in front of my apartment. I can't even parallel park, so it was an amazing sight to watch a car being parked while being towed.

As I am standing in front of my car paying the AAA tow-truck dude, the cop pulls up like a recurring bad-dream.

He starts off again... "So this is your new address?"

"Yes."

"I show a different address in my records"

Damn those computer systems.

I said, "I submitted a change of address request through the DMV website."

"How long ago?"

"Couple of months ago and I haven't gotten back the new address stickers for my license"

He says, "Go get your license"

I run into my apartment and start poking through shirt pockets. I find it. It was in a shirt pocket after all.

I give the license to the cop. He says, "It has the old address on it."

"But, I submitted the address change through the website"

The cop goes, "Did you follow-up with the DMV to see if they got the request?"

I got a little of my confidence back. This was my chance to provide some education to the cop on the benefits of an automated web-based system. I described how submitting information on a web-page means that the DMV has automatically received it. That is the point of a web-based system. I explained how this procedure was more effective than standing in line or snail-mail.

So the cop's response to my little seminar was... " Well... see... that's the thing with computers. They are not always reliable. You should make sure they got the request. The DMV will not go chasing after you."

He chuckled as he started writing up my tickets.

I saw several neighbors pass by. As I stood in the pouring rain in front of a flashing cop-car, I wondered what they were thinking. They must be thinking of me as a low-life criminal. That was good. In NJ that gets you respect. This would finally let me shed my image of a nice guy and swap it for a hell-for-leather bad-guy persona. With all the Sopranos-afflicted women out there, lead times for getting laid could reduce to as low as a couple of seconds from the current lead time of ... well... never mind.

One neighbor stops by and asks the cop, "Hey, are you here for me?"

The cop says pointing at me, "No, I am here for him"

Ok, so I am drenched, my weekend is wrecked, my car is broken, I have an unregistered car that needs inspection, I have a suspended driver's license, I have an unknown number of unpaid parking tickets and at least one of my neigbours is a probable parolee.

The cop looks at me and goes... "How much do you weigh?"

"70 kgs"

"What!!??"

"70 kgs"

"How much in pounds?"

"I don't know" He needed my weight to fill out the tickets.

"Why don't you convert it?"

"I don't know the conversion" Ha...ha... gotcha Mr.Policeman!

"I am putting you down for 170 pounds" Damn it, he over-estimated by 16 pounds. The Americans use their hatred for the French as a cover for their ineptitude in switching to the universal metric system. Here's an idea for the US to get out of its next recession. Switch to the metric system. The Pound2Kg hoopla will surpass Y2K in lifting capital spending on computers and blow us a brand new bubble.

When he was done, he had four tickets for me. He starts...

"Unregistered vehicle... $44"

"Expired inspection... $123"

"Failure to notify change of address... dunno"

And then he paused for dramatic effect. This guy was killing me.

"Driving with suspended license... this requires a mandatory court visit and fines are upwards of $500. Court date is Dec 5"

"I will be traveling during that time" That's right I will be petting a baby elephant on my vacation in India.

"Your offense mandates a court appearance"

"I wont be here. I will be in India"

"You have to be here"

"Can I plead guilty now?"

"Only to the judge. You should call the court clerk on Mundey"

Now see in India, this conversation would seem very bizarre. Any self-respecting cop in India would do some quick mental math (everybody is good at financial arithmetic in India) and realize that I owe about $1000 to the government. He would offer to split that amount with me and be on his way. Meanwhile this donut-munching cop wanted to me to show up at court when I would be out of the country.

So it was that I stood there soaking in cold rain hoping that a Tony Soprano would choose that exact moment to start a gunfight across the street or kill someone in the apartment complex. Anything to divert the attention of this liability-inducing cop. Unusually for NJ, no such thing happened.

I took the four tickets from the cop and my suspended license. As he handed over my insurance card he said, "The only thing thats good is your insurance"

I said, "Yeah. The insurance company takes care of that"

So remember if you own an automobile in NJ:

Its three months for an oil change (the reason my car failed by the way),
12 months for new registration,
2 years for an inspection and,
4 years for your driver's license unless an unpaid parking ticket makes it void earlier.
Change of address should be done in person at the DMV within the week because their computers don't work.

Moral of the story: If you do an oil change every three months... you don't have to bother with anything else!

[BoxerFanatic]

And people think the government is a benevolent overseer, and a big bureaucratic "nanny". Sure it is.

That is an insane ordeal. CRAZY.

[SoCal LS-L]

Originally Posted by SVX92-97

I saw several neighbors pass by. As I stood in the pouring rain in front of a flashing cop-car, I wondered what they were thinking. They must be thinking of me as a low-life criminal. That was good. In NJ that gets you respect.

When walking in Santa Ana, I wear my pants just above the knee for that very reason... in neutral gang colors of course. Thats life in SoCal

[shelfy]

i don't have time to read it, but why are you telling us this almost 7 years later?

[Sov13t]

wtf mate?

2k9 is here

[jmx2323]

am I wrong or maybe it becasue I work for the Gov't but you seem to be in the wrong on all accounts, so the ordeal was completly avoidable other then the short tow to your apt.

[MNYPNNY]

Funny, funny!

[SVX92-97]

Helllooooooo out there. That didnt happened to me, just a story I found when searching AAA experiences.

[SoCal LS-L]

Originally Posted by SVX92-97

Helllooooooo out there. That didnt happened to me, just a story I found when searching AAA experiences.

They really made registering my car in CA painless since they handle DMV stuff at AAA offices, but as a premium member, I kind of expected them to grovel at my feet a little more

[alltrac]

Did this guy drive a SVX?

[subeman90]

...and this has what to do with an SVX? there is a section for this and it is called "not exactly SVX"

[JaySVX]

Hmm, that could have been avoided by simply paying your parking tickets, renewing your registration, getting your car inspected, and performing general maintenance on your car. This thread is full of fail. sure, you do an oil change, but then you get into an accident because your brakes fail because you didn't get inspection so you didn't know they needed replaced. then you don't have insurance because insurance companies don't cover unregistered or uninspected vehicles, or when youa re driving with no license. so you get sued for everything you own and you'll be in debt for the rest of your life because you couldn't be bothered to keep up with basic responsabilities that fall not only on your shoulders, but on every other mature american adult in this country.

[SoCal LS-L]

Originally Posted by JaySVX

Hmm, that could have been avoided by simply paying your parking tickets, renewing your registration, getting your car inspected, and performing general maintenance on your car. This thread is full of fail. sure, you do an oil change, but then you get into an accident because your brakes fail because you didn't get inspection so you didn't know they needed replaced. then you don't have insurance because insurance companies don't cover unregistered or uninspected vehicles, or when youa re driving with no license. so you get sued for everything you own and you'll be in debt for the rest of your life because you couldn't be bothered to keep up with basic responsabilities that fall not only on your shoulders, but on every other mature american adult in this country.

I drove my SVX regularly, for 14 months, with absolutely no registration... and even took it to Reno and back twice . Granted I had insurance, and a valid license....

[Subie59]

I know this is not your car so I am not suggesting you are the idiot but
The Cop is right. Car owner is an idiot. He doesn't change his oil, let's it run out or whatever. Doesn't follow the rules of owning a car. Deserves all he got. I know it's not your car but the lesson here is keep your oil changed and all your registrations up to date... And when a cop pulls you over you have nothing to fear... Driving a car is a privilege not a right.

[Mike621]

Originally Posted by JaySVX

Hmm, that could have been avoided by simply paying your parking tickets, renewing your registration, getting your car inspected, and performing general maintenance on your car. This thread is full of fail. sure, you do an oil change, but then you get into an accident because your brakes fail because you didn't get inspection so you didn't know they needed replaced. then you don't have insurance because insurance companies don't cover unregistered or uninspected vehicles, or when youa re driving with no license. so you get sued for everything you own and you'll be in debt for the rest of your life because you couldn't be bothered to keep up with basic responsabilities that fall not only on your shoulders, but on every other mature american adult in this country.

I approve this message.