"Some days the line doesn't move at all....we call those days weekdays..."

The DMV gets a lot of flack for its astounding incompetence. I'm here to say that it is 100% justified. Everyone has their horror story about a terrible DMV experience and I'm here to throw mine into the mix (I've actually got two stories but that's for another time).

Last night in New Jersey my sister's boyfriend was driving my sister's car when a cop pulled him over for expired tags. After running the car's information through the Virginia DMV database they concluded that the car was unregistered. Thus, they impounded the car, fined my sister's boyfriend, called him a cab, and left him on the side of the highway. It turns that when my mom sold me her 96 Accord the DMV took it upon themselves to mark both my mother's 96 and 94 Accord (the one my sister has) as sold. Miraculously, the DMV still saw it fit to bill my mother for registration and property tax every year since then. The woman at the DMV counter admitted this much to my mother. However, when my mother asked her for the documents that supported this explanation the woman refused. She even told my mother that all the managers are not working at that particular office today.

After a lot of calls to the Richmond office of the DMV (with some assisted phone-bullying from me) my mother actually found a person at the DMV that gave a damn (I know, I was shocked to hear it as well). The woman wrote up a letter explaining how the error was the responsibility of the DMV, not anyone in my family) and faxed it to my mother. Hopefully this letter will convince the NJ police to wave the $200+ fines against my sister's boyfriend. Oh, and get the car out of the impound lot.

As my sister said this afternoon, “You’re not ghetto until you’ve had your car impounded”.