Posted on 01/29/2012 1:05:34 PM PST by Kaslin
WITH MY DRIVER'S LICENSE expiring in February, I made a trip to the Registry of Motor Vehicles last week to renew it. To my astonishment, I was in and out of the RMV branch at the Watertown Mall in just 15 minutes.
From past experience, I had expected much worse. When I renewed my license five years ago -- at a facility the Registry whimsically dubbed a "License Express" -- I had to wait for an hour and a quarter before being served. An earlier renewal had required two trips to the Registry: The first one proved futile when the clerk shut off the computer at closing time, curtly telling the 11 people in line that they would have to come back another day.
So it was a pleasant surprise when my latest encounter with the Registry proved so quick and painless.
Of course it would have been even more painless to renew my driver's license online, but when I tried to do so my application was rejected. It turns out the Registry was listing me under multiple records; the system had generated a new one whenever my address changed, and it was unable to merge them -- or to issue a new license -- unless I appeared in person. "But I've lived at the same address for 15 years," I said to the clerk. He shrugged. "It should be OK next time," he told me.
Yet why should there have to be a next time? Why should keeping an ordinary driver's license up to date oblige anyone to deal with a government agency, in person or online? I hadn't even realized that my license was about to expire until an airport security agent pointed it out to me the last time I flew out of Logan. The Registry no longer sends renewal notices; and woe betide the motorist who gets pulled over with an expired license, an infraction that can trigger a fine of up to $1,000, not to mention a potential arrest.
Try to imagine Visa or Discover requiring you to remember when your credit card is about to expire, and making you get in line at a branch office or go online to renew it. On the contrary: They do the remembering and renew your card automatically. Before the old one expires, you get a new one in the mail. And if there is an anomaly in your account, they typically flag it and alert you right away.
In the private economy, automatic renewals are routine. From Netflix subscriptions to homeowner's insurance to newspaper delivery, vendors and service providers of every description make it simple to keep your account up-to-date. Your antivirus software and 401(k) investments can be put on autopilot, refreshing at regular intervals unless you choose to opt out. Why shouldn't your driver's license work the same way?
Maybe the real question is why the state should license drivers in the first place.
It's one thing to require would-be motorists to enroll in driver's-education classes and to be tested on their knowledge of safe driving practices and highway signs and signals. And of course anyone getting behind the wheel of a car should be liable for damage caused through negligence or irresponsibility. But to condition driving itself on governmental permission? To extort a chunk of money every few years to keep that permission current? By what right?
It's no answer to say that driving can be dangerous or that roads are public property. Drinking bourbon, building campfires, and playing ice hockey can be dangerous too, but you don't need Big Brother's say-so before you can do them. And if drivers have to be licensed because they use public roadways, why shouldn't bicyclists, joggers, and skateboarders be licensed as well?
In the new state budget he unveiled last week, Governor Deval Patrick chops $15 million from the Registry of Motor Vehicles. "We have to start doing things differently in a whole host of areas," he explained. "That is not just government doing things differently; it is asking citizens to interact with their government differently."
Agreed. But rather than merely trimming the Registry's budget, what Patrick should be asking is why issuing or renewing driver's licenses needs to be a public function at all. You shouldn't need a license to drive a car any more than you need one to use a computer or ride a horse. I'm grateful that my latest trip to the Registry went so briskly. If Patrick is really open to doing things differently, however, eliminating those trips altogether would be a great step forward.
Nice. What’s the source?
But, it will probably be a while before MA catches up to where Texas was even before we left for our "MA exile": license tags by mail, and the same for drivers' licenses -- except when you need a perodic eye test.
And now, 'most everything can be done on line.
But MA will probably never stop using State troopers (and their expensive multi-radio-equipped patrol cars) as "flagmen" on road projects (what a stupid waste!!!). We Texans gripe about our wetbacks -- but, at least we are smart enough to stick them out in the hot sun with cheap flags, rather than tie up fully loaded cruisers and their super-expensive union drivers on overtime...
They’ve been around since BEFORE we even had a National government. Those old taverns that needed a permit along with just about every other business. It’s not going to change.
There is nothing as gridlocked as the bureacratic mind.
A great many things that seemed permanent have been done away with in the past 230 or so years— at least in this counry.
— Bills of Attainder
— Corruption of Blood
— Ex Post Facto Law
— Chattel Slavery
— Women Forbidden to Vote
etc.
This can be done, if enough people get behind it. The choosing of sides has already begun.
Doesn’t matter. If my taxes pay for a road, I have every right to drive on it, period. I can properly be required to keep insurance, but then my driving skills are between me and my insurance company, NOT THE GOVERNMENT. Or are you one of those who has no problem asking government’s permission to exercise a natural RIGHT, in this case the right to travel where and as you will?
Q: Should illegals be issued drivers licenses?
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has a long history of pandering to illegal immigrants. During his first term, Patrick reversed a decision by the previous Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, which gave state troopers the power to arrest illegal immigrants. Let me point out that Romney’s policy makes sense because, as the title may imply, illegal immigrants are here illegally. They are breaking the law. As such, they should be arrested. Shocking, I know. Deval Patrick’s rationale for promptly reversing Gov. Romney’s decision was that state troopers “have a very big job as it is, without having to add enforcing federal immigration laws on top of it.” Ah, well there we are. Those poor state troopers are just too busy enforcing other laws. So if they pull over someone for speeding and it turns out that the individual is also an illegal immigrant, too bad! After all, according to Patrick, they have more important things to do—like enforcing laws that don’t alienate one of Patrick’s key special interests (the immigrant community).
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In November, Patrick announced that he would be pushing for in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, along with giving them driver’s licenses.
http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N28/normandin.html
Pierre Proudhon
Pierre Proudhon
who needs to have a pilot’s license? (/s)
It's called a subsurface drain layers license and it is usually an addendum to a plumber's license. It really doesn't mean much because each job needs to be inspected at every step of the way AND the plans and as builts need to be kept on file with the state. My Dad had a SSDLL since 1950
Is that something new? I built my home in 2006 and I had a permit for my septic, but no one ever came out to inspect it after installation.
My Dad has had his license since 1950 and the procedure has been in place since then. Sometimes if all of the percs are good and the system is essentially over sized AND the inspector likes you he'll sign off on the system without a final. If he decides he doesn't like you he can make your life miserable -- Like the time the inspector with the most to prove made him put in a separate system in for a laundry room. (Another 1000 gallon tank and two 50' pits for a laundry room)
BTW she also made him reconfigure the drain through the basement wall to add 1/4 inch of pitch over the 120 feet to the tank. -- This was to punish him for beginning to back fill because she was three days late in making the final inspection.
OK. I see what you're saying there.
I'm glad that I hired a guy to build a turn-key system for me. The inspector in my area is known to be a real jerk, but the contractor knew how to play him.
You CAN travel ‘where and as you will’, just not on a road. Viel Gluck humping it. And you know nothing about me, so how about you stuff your natural RIGHTS where the sun don’t shine.
Thought as much. May your chains rest lightly (or not).
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