In what sounds like a dream come true for anyone who has ever fudged their height on an online dating profile and needs paperwork to prove that they are much taller than they seem, the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles says a mixup accidentally added extra inches of height to thousands of drivers’ licenses recently. [More]
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NY Man Continues To Get Parking Tickets Linked To Destroyed License Plates
By 9.22.16
A New York man who keeps receiving parking tickets is stumped. Not because he claims to be a perfect parker, but because the license plates linked to the tickets were destroyed. [More]
DMV Report: Google Self-Driving Car Hit City Bus While Changing Lanes
By 2.29.16
Google has been quick to point out in the past that its self-driving cars haven’t been at fault for any of the accidents they’ve been involved in. In what could be the first incident that’s the driverless car’s fault, a California Department of Motor Vehicles report says a Google Lexus hit a city bus while in autonomous mode. [More]
Colorado Investigating Scammers Who Hoard DMV Appointments, Sell Them To Undocumented Residents
By 1.8.16
When something is free, but it’ll take a long time to get it, there’s always the chance that someone will try to take advantage of the situation to make a profit off impatient people. In Colorado, the attorney general’s office is investigating a scalping scheme that involves scammers hoarding driver’s license appointments with the Department of Motor Vehicles, then turning around and selling them to undocumented residents. [More]
RECALL Act Would Require Consumers Fix Vehicle Safety Issues Before Registration Renewal
By 3.3.15
During 2014’s recallapoalooza federal regulators revealed that the average completion rate for a vehicle recall was just 75%. While some consumers might not be aware their car has a safety issue, others simply put off the needed repairs. A new bill introduced in the Senate Monday aims to make sure potentially dangerous vehicles aren’t on the road, by requiring fixes be completed before registration renewals are granted. [More]
Delaware Wants To Become The First State To Offer Digital Driver’s Licenses
By 1.28.15
We have digital documents that have become just as accepted as paperwork — from contracts to concert tickets — so why not that holy grail of wheeled freedom for the minor set, the driver’s license? Delaware wants to start the technological trend of having digital driver’s licenses, with the state legislature adopting a resolution to start looking into the process. [More]
California DMV Retracts Notice Requiring Uber & Lyft To Obtain Commercial Licenses
By 1.27.15
Just a week after it was widely reported that the California Department of Motor Vehicles issued an advisory requesting all drivers of ride-sharing services to obtain commercial license plates, the agency has revoked the guidance. [More]
California DMV Says Uber & Lyft Cars Need Commercial License Plates
By 1.23.15
Ride-sharing services operating in California have several issues lately: Uber being sued by San Francisco and Los Angeles counties, and L.A. mulling its own ride-sharing-like app just to name a few. Well, things don’t look to be getting any more amicable between the state and car services, as the California Department of Motor Vehicles issued an advisory requiring all drivers for the services to have commercial license plates. [More]
Man’s License Suspended Over A Ticket From 1981 After DMV Fixes Its Typo
By 8.18.14
What’s the last thing you remember about that time you didn’t get a notice that your license was suspended? That’s right, you wouldn’t remember it if it never happened to you. One man found himself with a suspended license over a ticket from 1981, something he wasn’t warned about back then because the notification letter had his name misspelled on it. [More]
California DMV Says Drivers’ Credit Card Data Might Have Been Breached
By 3.24.14
Here we go again: Now that we’ve all gotten used to security breaches, why not throw another one on top of Target and the rest? The California Department of Motor Vehicles says there’s a possible data security breach in its credit card processing services, though there’s no evidence of a hack yet. [More]
Man Doesn’t Understand Why The DMV Doesn’t Like His “COPSLIE” License Plate
By 11.7.13
Each state’s Department of Motor Vehicles keeps a list of letter and number combinations drivers are prohibited from having, whether because they’re offensive or for various other reasons known only to those DMVs. But one New Hampshire man disagrees with what his state’s DMV deems as a “no-no,” and is taking his fight for the right to have “COPSLIE” on his license plate all the way to the state’s Supreme Court. [More]
Woman Has No Choice But To Arrive At The DMV On A Horse To Get Her License Back
By 10.24.13
When you need to get where you’re going but can’t drive, it’s awfully handy to own a horse. A Virginia woman who had her driver’s license suspended during a paperwork mix-up decided to take matters (and the reins) into her own hands when she hopped atop her trusty steed and rode straight to the DMV to hand over her proof of insurance. Other non-car methods: Hoverboards, roller skates or hopping on the back of a trolley. [Associated Press] [More]
Man Finds $6,900 On The Ground Near DMV, Returns It All To Rightful Owner
By 8.14.13
The truth is, it’s a tough world out there. And while we yearn for a time when people doing good things for each other isn’t a surprise, and is simply par for the course, those aren’t the times we live in. That’s why it makes our toes and fingers tingle with goodwill when we hear that a man who found $6,900 on the ground handed in the money so it could return to the person who misplaced it. [More]
Because Of A Typo And A Parking Scofflaw, I Can’t Go To Washington D.C. Anymore
By 7.25.13
Reader Cliff doesn’t have $17,000 worth of erroneous toll violations like the motorist whose story we shared yesterday, but he does have a lot of parking tickets, and they aren’t his. [More]
DMV Error Leads To $17,000 In Toll Violations For Truck Owner
By 7.24.13
Back in 2008, a California man bought a truck but after getting a mysterious toll violation from a county 400+ miles away, he realized that the Dept. of Motor Vehicles had goofed and the license plate listed on his registration did not match the plate on his vehicle. The DMV sent him new plates but has done nothing to help him fight the thousands of dollars in toll road violations being racked up by some other driver. [More]
1956 Porsche 356A Catch-22: I Can’t Sell A Car That I Can’t Register
By 6.24.13
There is surely someone out there who can give this 57-year-old Porsche a good home. It belonged to the current owner’s father, but is now in disrepair and no longer runs. The problem with finding it a new home is that it’s caught in a weird legal middle ground where it can’t be sold to someone who can fix it up and get it to run because it isn’t registered, but can’t be registered because it isn’t running. [More]
Woman Hit With Traffic Ticket For Car She’d Sold To CarMax Months Earlier
By 4.19.13
When you sell your car to a used-car operation like CarMax, you’d assume that anything that occurs with that vehicle after that point is not your problem. But a California woman says she was charged with running through a tollbooth in car she’d handed off to CarMax months earlier. [More]
State DMVs Are Not Amused By Your Attempts To Get License Plates With Dirty Acronyms
By 1.29.13
It isn’t just license plates with clear messages that can get banned (and in one recent case, challenged legally) — each state’s Department of Motor Vehicles has a lengthy list of prohibited phrases it’s had to get hip to, including text speak. Because heaven forbid someone slip in a naughty word. OMFG, right? They’re onto us. [More]
