So remember how I said I was going to renew my driver's license so that I could finally get behind the wheel of our shiny new car?Well I finally braved the lines at the DMV on the one night the office is open past 5 and got the bad news. My license was suspended for failure to appear in Traffic Court. Failure to appear? How could that happen? The answer in brief: my parents suck.
I haven't had a car of my own in years. I really didn't need one and couldn't afford to replace the car my parents gave me for law school after it died (aka the world's worst car). But once while I was home visiting my parents I borrowed their car to run and errand (for them mind you) and got pulled over and issued a ticket for having an expired registration. Mind you it was my parent's expired registration. I gave them the ticket and was assured they would "take care of it."
I guess when they said they would take care of it that meant not only would they not send in the ticket they would not notify me when a second notice was sent home (the outdated address on my driver's license). So now I can't renew my license until I pay the fine. The damage: $135.
My fiance thinks I should make them pay the fine but really I don't want to get in an argument about it. They should have paid the ticket but I should have 1) updated my address on my license when I moved out and 2) realized that the ticket was in my name (in my defense, the cop told me the ticket wouldn't go on my record if my parent's just renewed their registration).
So that is definitely a Budget Buster. I haven't sent in the money order yet but I'll get around to it. The guy at the DMV said I will probably have to come back in TWO TIMES. Awesome.
6 comments:
to save you a little trouble, most DMVs let you pay your traffic tickets online now - no help, really, excepting saving you heading out to get a money order! perhaps it'll give you your license a couple of days faster, too :)
Although that sucks. If you had just dealt with it the proper way they would have dropped it if you shoeless renewed registration. This I why you should change your address. How are your parents supposed to know what's junk mail and what's not? Regardless I hate when this ruins budgets. I recently got a speed camera ticket for 65! Two months after I was in the state.
Paying it online won't work since I owe the city not the DMV. I don't know why they said I have to come back to the DMV twice though. Guess I'll find out. I would hope my parents wouldn't throw out something that said SECOND NOTICE OF TRAFFIC VIOLATION on the envelope but it seems like they did. Lesson learned: always keep your address updated.
it is really funny reading your post. You are blaming for something YOU should have taken care of. The bottom line is it is your ticket not theirs.You should definetly pay it not even mention to your parents. I mean they are already paying part of your student loan come on give us a break.
I didn't really realize the ticket was in my name in the first place as the cop told me otherwise. But whatever I'm paying it.
Ha! That's crazy! But the same thing JUST happened to my husband when we went to get our drivers licenses in Minnesota. I got mine just fine but his never showed up in the mail. Turns out his license is suspended because of an unpaid speeding ticket he got with his Illinois license while driving through Indiana to New York! (Back in, like, 2001?)
Funny thing is, he never had a problem getting a NY license (and even renewing it once), so it's only now that MN actually cares about little things like unpaid tickets that he has to pay it. I was worried the compounded damage would be thousands of dollars but I think the total due is just a little more than yours! Whew.
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