Results tagged “dmv”

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."

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."

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.

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.

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.

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...

• 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...

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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."

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."

Continue reading "More Than One Night in Jail For Paris"

When you shell out $5.4 billion for thousands of apartments in Manhattan, some of them rent-regulated, clearly the next course of action is to oot out the illegal subletters. The NY Sun reports that private detective Fred Knapp has been hired by Tishman-Speyer to find out if tenants are violating rent stabilization rules.

Last week, the virtues of organ donation were extolled with news that actor Jerry Orbach had made sure to donate his eyes to two New Yorkers. But making sure that people know you would be a willing organ donor is not so easy. The Daily News points out the license format is not very donation-permission friendly. The surface quality of the licenses which is meant to prevent counterfeiting does a good job of not registering pen ink. (And it also turns out that simply signing the back of your license "doesn't constitute full legal permission to harvest organs, but it may at least indicate a desire to do so.")

Well, it depends on the situation. The minimum driving age in New York State (NYS) is 16, with a NYS learner permit. However, for drivers under the age of 18, the driving regulations get a bit sticky, and restrictions vary depending on where you live in NYS and the time of day you want to drive - and making sure you have a licensed driver in the car with you at times. People under 18 are not allowed to drive in New York City unless they are 17 AND have passed a NYS Education Department approved driver education course. This includes drivers who hold licenses from other states. Out-of-state drivers are expected to follow the restrictions of both your home state and the NYS restrictions. For those of you, like Gothamist, who are already totally confused, the DMV provides a chart here with the specific restrictions for each type of license. (Perhaps at this point the subway is sounding better and better?)

Insurance company GMAC surveyed drivers across the country and found that NY State drivers are terrible - they only rank 47th when asked questions from DMV test. Well, we're not that surprised, given what we've seen, but we'd like to know where NJ drivers ranked, but it's Gothamist's firm belief that the crap drivers are not just in NYC but all over the state. Anyway, the state with the most knowledgable drivers? Oregon. One of the questions NY drivers did worst on was when is the road most slippery. "1) During a heavy rainstorm; 2) During light rain; 3) Just when it starts to rain after a dry spell." We'll put the answer in the comments.

Carol Mayse, Senior Housing Court Clerk

Scott Lapatine, Stereogum.com

I'm a New York City resident but have never voted. Is it too late to register for the November election? How do I register in time?

The Smithsonian on the Star-Spangled Banner. And Gothamist's readers on other good DMV locations to go to, besides Herald Square which might be the Manhattan location from hell.

Gothamist recommends the License X-Press location at 7th Avenue and 34th Street in Manhattan, but you can also find other local NY State DMV offices.