I’m sure many of you are wondering who Jesse White is. He’s the Secretary of State for Illinois, in charge of, amongst other things, the DMV.
A year and a half ago, I moved, so I went down to the DMV and changed my address and got a shiny new driver’s license. Then like many others, I forgot about the DMV. Last April they didn’t send me a renewal for my plates, but I caught it and went down and got the new sticker.
Well, again this year I forgot when April came around. And no renewal in the mail. So when I was parked at Midway airport, the Chicago Police sure noticed. Uff, $50 ticket. Oh well, I can suck it up. So off to the DMV I go to renew my plates. While at the desk I ask why I’m not getting stuff mailed. The lady informs me I didn’t update them with my new address. I pull out my license, but she waves it off. That’s the licensing department, not the DMV. That’s the other side of the room.
The reason I couldn’t renew by mail was because they couldn’t send my new address across the room. Fuck you, Jesse. You can find the time to come up with dozens of goofy plates, include one for Youth Golf, but you can’t find a way for your damn departments to coordinate with one another? Or even let us know that they are seperate deparments, unlike any other normal state?
Now I have to go get a emissions test (because that’s another mailing I wasn’t getting) before I can renew, another trip back to wait in line. No more votes for you, Jesse.
I thought he was the original Maytag Repairman, and dead since 1997. I was wondering why you were pitting him. He’s made some bad career choices (who hasn’t?), and I found his Maytage character annoying, but it’s a bit late to chide him for that, especially since he can’t hear you anymore:
This is first class mail, isn’t it? I don’t understand why at least last year’s notices didn’t get forwarded to you. You did turn in a change of address with the post office, didn’t you? Still, it sounds like a really stupid system, with them not sharing the information through the departments. Why in the world would they want to take the time to take that info several different time, instead of just putting it into one database?
What bugs me about the system is that they renew license stickers in the month they were first purchased. Which doesn’t sound so bad, until you have two or three cars and have to deal with it every time you turn around. Seems like we always have some kind of mail coming in from them.
And this is a problem why exactly? Notre Dame strikes me as a school which is very likely to have loyal alumni, many of whom may live across the state line in Illinois. I’m not keen to have my college on my bumper (and I went to a small, not as well-known school), but I’m not seeing why Notre Dame shouldn’t have special plates in Illinois if there’s enough interest.
I dunno how it works up there, but in FL a percentage of the revenue from sales of specialty tags goes to whatever cause/school they’re for. Why should Illinois subsidize a private out-of-state university?
Well, they aren’t really subsidizing, it’s more like facilitating a donation. The extra fee covers whatever additional cost there is to the state, plus the university gets some, and I think the state actually gets some extra as well.
I’ve always wondered that too. You’ve always had to change your address with both the Sec of State and DMV. I don’t remember how I first figured that out – from a pamphlet in the DMV I think. The good news is you can change both easily online; no trip to the DMV necessary.
Agree with Sarafeena that it’s more facilitating a donation than subsidizing. I’m not neccessarily a fan of specialty tags, I’m just not seeing why a private out-of-state university is such a problem.
I don’t really think a Notre Dame license plate is a problem- I don’t live anywhere near Illinois, for one thing- but it seems wrong for the state government to be promoting a private company.
I can agree with this-- I just think that Notre Dame and Sony are in entirely different categories of “private company”, and since my limited exposure to how they figure out what kinds of specialty plates to offer (admittedly not in Illinois) is that they decide based on which special interest groups propose a plate and come up with sufficient signatures to support it. So in theory, if enough people wanted a Sony tag, I’m not sure I’d say they couldn’t have them.
I changed my address online, and there was a message after I submitted asking me if I also wanted to change my registration. So I did, and I took care of applying for organ donation and re-registering to vote (they still had to mail me the forms to sign). Weird how they will let you know online but not in person. My driver’s license has the wrong address still, but I guess that’s not the important bit?
