<story><title>Debt-related driver’s license suspensions in Ohio</title><url>https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/cd-reports/2024/20240228-debt-related-drivers-license-suspensions</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>liquidise</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll share a lengthy anecdote (from CO, not OH), of how absurd these suspensions can get in strange edge-cases. Also, i think this shows how most processes have &amp;quot;bugs&amp;quot;, but people don&amp;#x27;t think of them that way when it isn&amp;#x27;t in software.&lt;p&gt;One day, while helping someone get their car out of an impound, i was informed by the officer on duty that my license was not showing as valid. They couldn&amp;#x27;t tell why though, said the status&amp;#x2F;notes listed made no sense to her, and i should contact the Denver office to find out what is going on. I was rather confused, as it had been many years since i had last been pulled over, for a minor speeding ticket.&lt;p&gt;Denver was similarly confused by the details. After some research, they tell me what appears to have happened was i paid my ticket years ago by check, in person. They recorded they received the check on time, but either due to a clerical error or something (they aren&amp;#x27;t sure), a late fee was assessed on my ticket prior to the payment being processed. The fee was, i think, $5.&lt;p&gt;Around this same time, i moved, and while i changed my address with the USPS, i didn&amp;#x27;t with the DMV. The DMV was thus sending my &amp;quot;you owe us $5&amp;quot; letters with &amp;quot;Do Not Forward&amp;quot; instructions via the USPS, who were knowingly delivering the mail to the wrong address (my old place).&lt;p&gt;When i discovered all of this, years later, my license had been suspended for 54 weeks due to delinquency. In CO, if your license has been suspended for over 1 year, you may not just satisfy the debt, you must also retake your driving test. But since i didn&amp;#x27;t take my original test in CO, i would also need to re-apply for a permit and pass a written permit exam before being allowed to schedule my drivers test.&lt;p&gt;The poor lady i spoke with in the Denver office recognized the sheer absurdity of everything she was telling me, but could do nothing to fix it. She also let me know the outstanding debt was now $15.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>FireBeyond</author><text>Hah! The same thing can happen in Washington!&lt;p&gt;I was pulled over for something, actually it might just have been this.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Your license isn&amp;#x27;t valid.&amp;quot; What? Why is it suspended?&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s not suspended, it&amp;#x27;s just not valid.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;What the hell does that mean?&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;You&amp;#x27;ll have to talk to the DOL. And you can&amp;#x27;t drive your vehicle from here.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m meant to be working the next night, so I need to figure this out.&lt;p&gt;Go to the DOL&amp;#x27;s website. It literally says my license is valid, in bold green letters. Huh. For fun, I click on &amp;quot;Pay any amounts owed (citations, infractions, etc.)&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;There are no amounts owed on your license.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I take print outs of both of these, and am at the DOL when it opens the next morning.&lt;p&gt;Similar to you. I paid, in person, by check, a fine a few years prior. Because it wasn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;processed&amp;quot; til after midnight, my license was suspended, but unsuspended the same (next) day. But (and I&amp;#x27;m not sure how this is justified) there was a fee attached to removing the suspension (that I didn&amp;#x27;t know about), so my license was &amp;quot;invalidated&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;To their credit, at least, the lady at the DOL was very sympathetic. She stamped all my print outs with a DOL stamp, and then all the print outs of the process to revalidate my license (to try to support my case, that there was &lt;i&gt;no way I could have known this, as the DOL&amp;#x27;s own website tells me my license is valid and is not subject to any restriction&lt;/i&gt;).&lt;p&gt;Went to court to contest the &amp;quot;driving without a valid license&amp;quot;. Still took me 20 minutes of repeating, several times over, to the prosecutor this whole flow, the first fifteen minutes of which he was insistent that none of my paperwork mattered because &amp;quot;they would have sent you a letter, so you must have known&amp;quot;, before finally capitulating and dropping it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Debt-related driver’s license suspensions in Ohio</title><url>https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/cd-reports/2024/20240228-debt-related-drivers-license-suspensions</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>liquidise</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll share a lengthy anecdote (from CO, not OH), of how absurd these suspensions can get in strange edge-cases. Also, i think this shows how most processes have &amp;quot;bugs&amp;quot;, but people don&amp;#x27;t think of them that way when it isn&amp;#x27;t in software.&lt;p&gt;One day, while helping someone get their car out of an impound, i was informed by the officer on duty that my license was not showing as valid. They couldn&amp;#x27;t tell why though, said the status&amp;#x2F;notes listed made no sense to her, and i should contact the Denver office to find out what is going on. I was rather confused, as it had been many years since i had last been pulled over, for a minor speeding ticket.&lt;p&gt;Denver was similarly confused by the details. After some research, they tell me what appears to have happened was i paid my ticket years ago by check, in person. They recorded they received the check on time, but either due to a clerical error or something (they aren&amp;#x27;t sure), a late fee was assessed on my ticket prior to the payment being processed. The fee was, i think, $5.&lt;p&gt;Around this same time, i moved, and while i changed my address with the USPS, i didn&amp;#x27;t with the DMV. The DMV was thus sending my &amp;quot;you owe us $5&amp;quot; letters with &amp;quot;Do Not Forward&amp;quot; instructions via the USPS, who were knowingly delivering the mail to the wrong address (my old place).&lt;p&gt;When i discovered all of this, years later, my license had been suspended for 54 weeks due to delinquency. In CO, if your license has been suspended for over 1 year, you may not just satisfy the debt, you must also retake your driving test. But since i didn&amp;#x27;t take my original test in CO, i would also need to re-apply for a permit and pass a written permit exam before being allowed to schedule my drivers test.&lt;p&gt;The poor lady i spoke with in the Denver office recognized the sheer absurdity of everything she was telling me, but could do nothing to fix it. She also let me know the outstanding debt was now $15.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>macintux</author><text>My license was suspended for a few weeks for a case of mistaken identity. It wasn’t deliberate identity theft as far as I could tell, but no one would tell me how I ended up the target of the court summons which I missed.&lt;p&gt;Fortunately everyone was friendly and willing to wipe my record clean, but that could easily have been much worse.</text></comment>