So I'm driving home the other night. I usually take the highway as I don't like driving through small towns in a flashy car because it seems to be a magnet for a police "escort". This time I need gas so I skip the highway. Sure enough I have a police car behind me on the way to the gas station. I pin the speed to the posted limit. I can see he's reading my plate because he's tailing at every light. After about four blocks later he pulls me over.
Long pause before he gets out of the car. I don't seem to recall him saying "the reason I pulled you over was..." instead he tells me that my license is suspended.
Apparently here in NJ if you get 1 (one) parking ticket and don't pay it they send this info to DMV who suspend your license. The cop asks me if I have any tickets. I tell him I've not had a moving violation in over 15 years, no points no accidents.
What about parking tickets? I respond "I have one for an expired meter", which I lost but went online to pay for. Problem was for some "interesting" reason simply entering your license plate number will not pull up the ticket -- you need the ticket number. From a prior parking ticket I paid online I know that when you enter the ticket number your license plate number is one of the meta data fields that comes up, one that could easily used for cross-referencing the search result. Hmm..... that makes it easier for the process of suspension to get rolling. convenient eh? A ball you don't know is rolling by reading the ticket... Well in order to restore your ticket DMV collects a handy $100 fee. And of course the township gets to triple the initial $24 ticket to $80 for "costs". Seems to me that the appropriate thing to do -- for the purposes of fine collection-- would be to put a hold on registration renewal until the ticket is paid. DEFINITELY NOT suspension of your license, and the person parking the car may not be the person whose license is being suspended. The lady at DMV says people have come in to get their driver's licenses restored for.... "fishing without a fishing license and riding a bicycle down a one way street". Nice...
So the cop comes back and says "I'm going to cut you a break and not cite you for the tail light or tow your car, you're going to have to go down to the traffic court pay the ticket and then go to DMV to get your license back". Fair enough, this is indeed a break because I'm pretty far from home. He saw my driving record and figured he'd cut me some slack but he cites for suspended license which requires a court appearance.
I get out of the car to check which tail light is out, the cop sees this and says "it's only when you hit the brake... the right side". So as I'm getting gas later I pin the brake down with an ice scraper that I still have in the trunk so I can check the tail light. I walk around to the back of the car.. all three lights are working....
