[airspirit]

I think I have finally had it with the incompetance of government. I was pulled over last night for failure to use a turn signal (it is a "Y" intersection, and technically I don't NEED to use my turn signal there, but that is beside the point). The cop didn't give me a ticket and I went on my way. An hour later, the cop appeared at my door to give me a misdemeanor citation for driving on a suspended license in Washington state stemming from mid-2001, which expires on 1/28/03 (wtf, 2 days left and I'm just finding out???!!!). I was like, "What the f*ck are you talking about? I've been living in Idaho for the last three years!" The cop didn't have any more information, and told me to ask the prosecutor's office about it. Understand, at this point I was extremely mad: in Idaho, standard sentencing on this is six days in jail and a $380 fine.

The next day, the prosecutor's office refused to look into the cause of the suspension, and told me to contact WA DMV for information, so I did. They said that it was stemming from an accident I had in 2000, in which the gal that hit me and I were going to go to court to determine fault and who was financially responsible to whom. She never took it to court, and since my car was only worth a couple of hundred dollars anyway and still ran, I just blew it off. I figured she came to the conclusion that I had: she had no case.

Well, Washington State requires reporting of outcomes of such contests, and since one wasn't reported, they suspended both of our licenses until we reported whether there was suit, and if so, what the outcome was. The only requirement on each of us was to fill out an affidavit of non-suit, and we'd have our licenses back. There are no fees or fines: just one piece of paper through the fax machine. That would have been an easy thing to take care of ... if they had bothered to notify me.

When I questioned the DMV rep, she said that no notice was ever mailed, but she'd be more than happy to mail the form out to me. So here I am with criminal charges hanging over my head because WA didn't bother to send out notice of their actions, and my wife has to drive me to work and back (50 miles a day). I am so f*cking angry I could strangle someone, but really there is nothing I can do. Where do governments get off on unilaterally punishing people and not bothering to tell them? Now I'm at the mercy of some c*cksmoking prosecutor who gets paid to lock people up ... and I have no recourse but to bend over and take it.