Earlier this week New York's DMV proudly announced that it would no longer require drivers to come in for a vision test when renewing their licenses. Because, y'know, if grams says she can drive then clearly she can drive! But that was earlier this week. Trusty sources are now reporting that Governor Andrew Cuomo is putting the brakes on the plan (which actually went into effect yesterday). more ›

The DMV is trying to make your life a little...easier? That, at least, is what Commissioner Barbara J. Fiala is saying. Yesterday she announced a bunch of changes to how New York's DMV works with licensed drivers. Most notably, starting tomorrow drivers can "self-certify" that they meet the vision requirements for driving (though first time drivers will still have to take the a vision test at the DMV). Also, there is now something called "MyDMV," which is like that MySpace thing the kids are using—but for your driving records (it is "Your Path To Personalized Online Services!" according to the website). more ›

Got the end-of-weekend blues? Well here's a cycling story that's sure to imbue you with enough self-righteousness and indignant rage to make you forget your troubles: a cyclist is complaining about receiving $1,500 in fines for running red lights. "It's absurd," pedicab driver Juan Rodriguez tells the Daily News, referring to his miserable luck in getting three red light tickets, despite the fact that 30 people probably ran a red light in NYC by the time you finish reading this sentence. "When you look at the fines leveled and the actual offenses, it makes no sense." more ›

If you've been planning on going to the DMV and getting a second license with a different name, you might want to reconsider. Thanks to newish software the state is actively seeking double dippers and today it announced that it has arrested 51 bus and truck drivers for having two licenses. Including four who were working for the MTA. What makes this story really fun though are the fake (not to mention the real) names they used! more ›

Just a little more than a week ago—after "certitude" but before the press conference—it was starting to look like Weinergate was winding down (that was then). So we turned to other Weiner-related things to distract us like the fact that his Nissan Pathfinder appeared to be unregistered. We laughed for a bit and then Weiner's rep's explained the whole thing away. Except now it appears Weiner's camp wasn't really truthful. more ›

NY State bus driver crackdown, which has been going on since the March 12 fatal Bronx bus crash, has now caught city school bus drivers. According to WABC 7, "The men, drivers in Queens, had reportedly been driving with suspended licenses, in one instance for more than 15 years. They were picked up by detectives with the Queens District Attorney's Office for obtaining new licenses by submitting false names and different dates of birth and social security numbers to the Department of Motor Vehicles." more ›

You already know you shouldn't be talking on your cell phone while driving, but the DMV wants to make those bi-annual ticketing blitzes a little more scary. Starting Wednesday, drivers found guilty of driving while talking on a cell phone or texting will get two points on their driving records, as well as the $100 fine. DMV Executive Deputy Commissioner J. David Sampson said, "By strengthening the current law, our hope is that motorists will become even more aware of the potential consequences of their actions if they use a cell phone while driving." more ›

Like any good New Yorker, Frank Bruni can't drive. Well, he could, but after a long residence in the city he let his license expire. However, after he was pick-pocketed in May, the former Times food critic needed to take the driver's test again, and was terrified. He chronicles the red tape he had to slice through just to take the test, which culminated in his test with the dreaded "Examiner X": more ›

A few weeks ago, right after dropping his bulldog at the vet's for knee surgery, Ice T was arrested for driving with a suspended license near the Lincoln Tunnel. Ice T said it was bullshit and blamed an overage rookie cop (which raised the ire of the PBA). Now Ice T says he's suing...the DMV. more ›

After previously approving a New Jersey motorist's personalized BIOCH license plates, a single complaint from a retired uptight cop has prompted the DMV to take the BIOCH back. Manville's Kim Romano was so shocked when her BIOCH plates were approved four years ago that she even called the DMV to make sure they knew the word was slang for "affluent Garden State housewife." Romano claims the DMV assured her they knew all about BIOCHes, supposedly telling her, "Congratulations, you're the first ‘bioch’ in New Jersey." more ›

Despite a boom in the number of people riding bikes around NYC, the number of reported injuries sustained while cycling is declining. Last year, 2,730 cyclists were injured and 12 killed in traffic crashes, according to the DMV. In 2008, there were 2,916 injuries and 26 deaths. As you can see by this handy graph, cyclist injuries have dropped every year but three since 1998. (A high of 5,205.) However, fatalities are a different story; according to Streetsblog, cyclist deaths don't show any real pattern over the same period. more ›

The Harlem DMV must be trying to make some sort of secession move. One New York teacher recently got her license renewed uptown, but upon receiving it in the mail discovered she was actually living in "New Yoerk, NY." We're assuming a teacher would have legible handwriting, so this mistake is on the DMV (which obviously needs more persnickety commenters). To get it fixed, she'll either have to pay the $17.50 for a mail-in change of address application, or go back to the DMV and wait in line again! This is how they treat an organ donor?! more ›

A Pakistani deli worker in Staten Island is accused of trying to buy the identity of a dead child from the boy's mother. Rizwan Ahmed, 24, allegedly promised to pay $10,000 to obtain a birth certificate and social security card that belonged to Michael Keller, an 8-year-old who died of respiratory arrest in 1996. But he was busted when he tried to get a state ID under the new name. more ›

DMV employees in NYC made over $1 million issuing fake identification to convicted criminals, including one man who appeared on "America's Most Wanted." Cops cuffed six members of the ID operation today, including its suspected ringleader Wilch DeWalt. According to Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara more than 200 people were sold stolen identities for $7,000 to $10,000 apiece. [PDF] "The fraud ring's client base was essentially a rap sheet," he said, adding that "The integrity of any security system, no matter how elaborate or expensive, is only as good as the integrity of the people who carry it out." more ›

With growing outrage over the state's plan to charge all drivers $25 for new license plates—up from the current $15 and up from $5.50 in 2001—Governor David Paterson said yesterday, "If the Legislature works with me, prior to the release of the 2010-11 Executive Budget, to identify real, recurring savings that will replace the revenue that would be lost, I will eliminate the new license plate requirement." more ›

New rates for things like driver's licenses and registration fees from the NY State Department of Motor Vehicles went into effect yesterday. All over NY State, the standard driver's license fee is now $64.50—up from $50, but in NYC and surrounding counties drivers will have to pay $80.50, because those areas are helping bail out the MTA. Registration fee-wise, a typical passenger vehicle will cost $55 (up from $44), but in the NYC-area, it'll be $105. Republican legislators are using the high fees to show how much Governor Paterson has raised taxes, but Paterson said he'd consider reducing them if the GOP can find revenue elsewhere, "I'd be happy to entertain it but they are not just going to be able to get up at a news conference and act shrill. They are going to have to tell us where they can close the gap." more ›

Queens resident Jimmy Hedin is feeling a different kind of sticker shock this week after a defective vehicle registration decal landed him two $65 parking tickets. As 1010 WINS reports, Hedin parks his car in Rego Park most of the week, "so a few days had passed before he realized he had been issued two tickets for the same offense—failure to properly display a current registration sticker." Hedin appears to have received one of 2.5 million registration stickers backed with defective glue. The adhesive loses its grip and causes the stickers to peel off—a flaw the DMV has acknowledged by offering to replace defective decals for free—so Hedin challenged the tickets in court. A judge dismissed the first ticket on account of the defect, but refused to dismiss the second ticket: "The claim that the sticker became unglued does not present a valid defense." Apparently, even some traffic tickets have more adhesive power than those registration stickers. more ›

The strange case of the plucky former NYPD officer Arno Herwerth (who is from Long Island, natch) and his GETOSAMA license plate has gotten even stranger. This time the man with “Kill Bin Laden” crudely painted on his American flag themed minivan and a habit of attending Smithtown board meetings in a chicken suit has rejected the offer of the DMV allowing him to keep his plates, since they would not pay his legal fees. more ›

An estimated three million people assembled along Broadway during yesterday's ticker tape parade to celebrate the Giants' 17-14 Super Bowl XLII win over the New England Patriots. more ›

Arno Herwerth, the Long Island man who the DMV rejected his GETOSAMA vanity plate, then sued them now wants to have a 9-11 commemorative license plate available to the Empire State’s motorists – something several other states have for their drivers. However, in New York then Governor George Elmer Patkai vetoed the idea in 2006 and put the brakes on any new optional license plates thanks to a pro-life groups suing states, including New... more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unusual rescue on 68th St. and Central Park West in Manhattan, a confined space rescue at Lorimer and Meserole Sts. in Brooklyn, and a shooting on Carpenter Ave. and 221st St. in the Bronx.
• Columbia University is a-brimming with protests, against things like torture and apathy.
• A young man and his family are recovering from a freak accident involving a fallen tree branch in Riverside Park that put him in a coma.
• Billionaire Ron Perelman is suing his ex-wife Ellen Barkin and her brother for draining a company they founded together of a few hundred thousand dollars.
• The Long Island man with the "GETOSAMA" license plates filed a federal suit against the DMV to have them returned.
• Regulatory and zoning issues continue to hold up the construction of a Brooklyn Whole Foods grocery store, despite a groundbreaking that occurred a year ago.
• A 37-year veteran with the DOT was arrested after being accused of accepting bribes in relation to bridge construction.
• The application for a zoning change to the St. Saviour's property in Queens has apparently been withdrawn.

There are 9.3 million vanity license plates in the United States, but every now and then there is one person whose choice of to proclaim on his/her plates causes some problems. Typically, the problematic plate is weeded out thanks to the DMV’s “blue list”of banned letter and number combinations ranging from the obvious, like GOD, NYPD and POL1CE, to the less so, like 3M TA3. Still the NY State DMV’s online plate lookup allows for... more ›

There appears to be another license plate problem for New York, but unlike the problem of people and groups getting official license plates without being eligible, this situation wasn't created by the DMV. A Missouri-based charity that provides bicycle helmets to children and sells old license plates as a fund-raiser, the American Children’s Safety Network (ASCN), is selling what appears to be a new design of a New York optional license plate in both car and motorcycle sizes. more ›

Governor Spitzer's plan to allow illegal residents of U.S. to get New York State drivers licenses by producing a valid foreign passport is generating widespread opposition. More than 80% of New York's DMV offices are supervised by county clerks and The New York Times reports that many oppose Spitzer's license plan and will resist processing applications that don't include proof of legal residence. Clerks in NYC, Westchester, and Long Island are agents of New York State, and have little autonomy to resist Spitzer's wishes, but the county clerk in Rensselaer County near Albany told the Times he will simply refuse to comply, although he doesn't know the ramifications of butting heads with the governor. more ›

Gov. Spitzer announced yesterday that illegal immigrants will be able to get valid New York State drivers licenses if they provide a valid and verifiable foreign passport. Spitzer hopes that the change, which reverses a four-year-old Pataki-era decision, will legitimize the 500,000-1 million undocumented immigrants who are driving in New York. In a repudiation of the federal government's stance, the governor said "We will not become part of what is propagated on the federal level that if we don't admit they are here then we can somehow not provide services. That is bad policy." more ›

The saga of the issuance of Official New York license plates to people, businesses, and groups that are not a part of the government continues. Yesterday, the Daily News followed up with a story about how the New York Public Library received several sets of the plates for its vehicles. In case you didn't know, the New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library and Queens Borough Public Library are not a part of the city government, but instead are all private nonprofit corporations that get funding from the federal, state and city governments unlike some other libraries in the state which are directly part of local government. And of course the News mentioned they found vehicles with the Official plates parked illegally and free of parking tickets. more ›

After a month of investigation, the Daily News revealed a major problem with the DMV’s issuing of Official license plates. What are Official license plates you may wonder? They are the license plates issued to local governments, such as towns, cities and counties, as well as other quasi-governmental entities like the Port Authority and MTA for their vehicle fleets, with the exception of most marked local police cars and fire trucks, since they do not have state issued license plates. The plates are issued permanently, with out any registration fees and do not have to go through the yearly renewal process. Plus they practically guarantee no tickets for the vehicle and most importantly they are important identifiers in times of crisis. more ›

Yesterday, the controversial immigration bill proposed by President Bush stalled in the Senate when both Republicans and Democrats could not come to a final vote. The bill, which neither party liked very much for different reasons, represented a historic to change immigration law, and both parties tried to work on a compromise that would satisfy most Senators. Sixty votes were needed to stop debate and move to a final vote, but there were only 45 votes (37 Democrat - including Senators Schumer and Clinton - 7 Republican and 1 Independent) to break the filibuster. more ›

Woe to the Segway commuter: A Brooklyn man who commutes from Brighton Beach to Midtown Manhattan has failed in his attempts to fight a $90 ticket he received while riding the contraption. Jonathan Gleich told the Post, "New York City wants to be green, but to me they're being mean. For me to get to work costs 15 cents instead of two bucks to take the subway. There are never delays, there are never strikes. There's nothing to stop me but rain and snow." more ›

It's a tabloid Saturday jackpot as a Los Angeles County judge sentenced "celebrity" Paris Hilton to 45 days in jail. Superior Court Judge Michael Sauer agreed with prosecutors who felt that Hilton's driving with a suspended license (she was busted for DUI on September 7, 2006, ordered to go to alcohol education this past February, and then was pulled over yet again in late February) deserved jail and sentenced the infamous sometimes New Yorker to 45 days in jail. Both the Post and Daily News put her on their covers and detailed yesterday's hearing. From the News:

When a prosecutor asked if she read the license suspension notice that was mailed to her from the DMV, she replied, "I have people do that for me." more ›