New State Revenue Source, or Extortion Scheme?

The new enhanced Michigan Drivers license, the license that also provides you with the additional convenience of a passport when traveling by land or sea between the USA and bordering countries Canada and Mexico, may well end up costing you much more than the advertised $50.  Even the standard license fee of $35 may be only the entry charge now for a drivers license renewal. 

The reason for the additional cost for my visit to the Michigan Secretary of State is a recent bout of ‘friendly cooperation’ between many other states in the union who now provide mutual support of other states outstanding traffic violations.  Yes, I am a criminal.  I have warrants outstanding for me in other states.  But don’t shake a finger at me yet – because you may be in the same boat.  I had no idea that I was a criminal going into the Grand Avenue branch of the Michigan SOS office on May 1 of this year.  I had only 3 days to secure my drivers license before I would be driving illegally.  I had waited until after April 21 so that I could apply for the new enhanced license, which did not become available until that date, and could only be applied for at a select few of the SOS offices across the state.  With work and home scheduled being what they are, it was tough for me to find the time to get to one of those locations and have open calendar time to stand in line until Friday afternoon, when I discovered it was going to take a whole lot more than 2 hours at the SOS to get my license renewed. 

After waiting patiently until my pink number slip was next, I approached the counter and began what seemed a standard process.  I had even been approached by a Secretary of State employee while waiting to make sure that I had the correct paperwork and had the necessary forms pre-filled before my turn came.  This was fortunate for me, as I had to leave and return with a W-2 document – turns out a current passport isn’t enough documentation to get you an enhanced drivers license.  They also want current proof of residency.  Marching confidently to the counter, I took the required eye exam, produced all my documents, signed the appropriate forms, and just when I thought I was in the home stretch, the woman behind the counter hesitated, looked at the monitor, looked at me, looked back at the monitor and said, “Did you ever live in Vermont?”  To which I replied, “Why yes, around twenty years ago.  Why do you ask?”  “Well”, she informed me, “it appears that you have a suspended license in Vermont, and we are not able to renew your drivers license here until you take care of your suspended license in Vermont”.  She then printed a page off, scribbled some information on it, and handed it to me, along with a pink return slip, explaining that I would need to step away from the counter, use the information on the paper to contact the authorities in Vermont to determine exactly what I needed to do to get back in their good graces, then use the pink slip to return and complete my license renewal process. 

She was friendly but firm when I asked her more about this process.  The state of Michigan is now in a cooperative agreement with several other states.  Each state accesses a list of open traffic violations from cooperating states and refuses to renew a drivers license until restitution is made to those states for any outstanding violations.  I would need to take the matter up with the State of Vermont, specifically the department of motor vehicles in Montpelier, and until Vermont cleared me, I would be denied a drivers license in the State of Michigan.  With a job requiring me to drive, a family that required transportation, and a serious lack of mass transit in the area, I was now a victim of a very powerful form of extortion. 

Calling the number on the slip provided me, I got to someone at the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles after only 10 minutes of updates on hold about how their new computer system upgrade was nearly complete, would speed my future service and was well worth the investment.  When someone came on they were able to quickly take the reference number provided to me at the counter of the SOS office and confirm that they had in fact suspended my license and that it was the result of an offense I had committed in 1988.  That was in fact during the time that I lived in Vermont, so I would take their word for an offense that try as I might, I could not recall having committed or ignored payment on.  Because of the length of time since the offense, they were unable to provide me with any further information, but told me that I would be able to contact a separate Vermont authority responsible for traffic violations that would be able to help me to resolve the offense, after which time they would be able to rescind my suspension and put me back in the good graces of both Vermont DMV and the Michigan Secretary of State.  By this time I had determined that there was no hope of me continuing the process that day at the SOS office, and so began making my way back toward my car. 

Calling the second Vermont number, I was able to again confirm after a wait that I was in fact a wanted criminal in their state.  Since the offense was in 1988, they would have to go back to microfiche to determine exactly what I had done wrong and would then call me back after locating this information to tell me how I could make restitution.  I was amazed at both the length of time that they were going back on traffic offenses compared to, say, armed robberies (statute of limitations on that offense is what, 7 years?), and also at the creative revenue generating opportunities that state governments are now exploring in an effort to fill rapidly draining tax coffers in a down economy.  When I described my awe at the creative extortion racket that they had created, the woman on the line was pointedly non-responsive, but when the topic of old tickets was mentioned, she was quick to point out that mine wasn’t even the oldest today – they had in fact processed one for 1984 earlier. 

I was further impressed to find that Vermont had made the payment process very easy -  in fact, once they pulled my microfiche and called me back to let me know that my ticket was an outstanding one for not displaying a license plate on the front of my vehicle, I found that they were willing to take my money over the phone or on their website immediately.  Never mind that the state I had moved to Vermont from did not require license plates on the front of the car, and the bumper did not even have holes drilled for the purpose of attaching a plate, or that I might have made some restitution in the past, since that type of ticket requires in some cases showing an officer that the omission had been fixed rather than paying a fine.  They were willing to make things good for me in exchange for some quick cash.  This got my hopes up that maybe I could now get back in my car, late afternoon now though it was, or even Saturday morning and get back to the SOS office to get my license renewed before it expired.  No such luck I was told.  Even though my fees could be paid in minutes, it would take the traffic offense office a day to complete paperwork, then they would forward back to Vermont DMV, where it would take several additional days of processing before Michigan SOS would want to see me again.

Gritting my teeth, I paid first the $35 for the failure to display a plate offense, (almost expecting a 22 year interest charge to get tacked on, but let’s not give them any more ideas), then the $67 reinstatement fee to the Vermont DMV.  I then needed to wait, and hope that I wasn’t pulled over in the next few days until I could manage to get back to the SOS office and hope that things had been resolved.  Last week I did get back, paid my $51 enhanced drivers license fee, and now am waiting the remaining couple of weeks until I get my nice shiny new license in the mail.

Good luck with your next license renewal.