Ready for a rant? I hope so, because that’s what this is. No spell check or grammar for this guy, it’s time for a good ol’ fashioned RANT.
The MVA and the City of Baltimore Parking Authority are probably the worst entities in existence. I have always known this, but I had up until now not fully understood their villainy.
Ok, let me start from the beginning. I, like many Baltimore residents, have accumulated many parking tickets. It’s not a surprise. It also shouldn’t surprise you that I often let them go past due (I know, I’m a role model and totally deserve an advice column). Well, here’s what no one told me. When you go past due, you not only have to pay your tickets and exorbitant late fees, you also have to pay the MVA! Why the MVA deserves money for my lateness in paying my parking ticket is fucking beyond me. But there it is, $30 per late ticket. But whatever, so far nothing is that outrageous.
So, knowing my registration was expiring soon, I paid off all my MVA flags. And yet, my registration was still being blocked online. Apparently I still had one outstanding parking ticket. I don’t know if it blew off my car or what, but there was an extra $120 including late fees. Fuck. Well, I paid it. Here’s where things start making me angry. There is a big banner on the City’s parking ticket website that says the following:
Now, to any normal human being, that means that the city will take care of notifying the MVA that the tickets have been paid so they can release my registration renewal. Right? That’s what it means by “All requests will be mailed within 2 to 3 business days.”
NOPE!
There is a secret rule that states that if you pay your tickets within the same month of your registration renewal, you must go in person to physically pick up your piece of paper that says you have paid. You know how I found this out? I waited the requisite amount of time until the MVA surely would have gotten this form, but they hadn’t. So I called MVA to see what the hold up was. THAT is how I found out about the unadvertised – and therefore secret – rule that fucked me over. When I informed them this particular rule wasn’t on the website and asked how I was supposed to know about this, you know what she said to me?
EXCUSE ME?! What the actual fuck. I timed this out perfectly so that the MVA would be notified and that I could renew my registration today, the day my registration expires. Now I’m fucked. Will they fax me the form or email it to me? Nope. I have to take off of work to drive back into the city to get this god damned piece of paper. And will the MVA accept a fax of the form? Nope! I have to physically take it to the MVA.
Are you kidding me? With your secret rules and your refusal to communicate, are you just trying to fuck me over and let the terrorists win? Why won’t these two entities communicate with each other?! Why can’t my fines all be in one place? It is the year 2011. We have cell phones that can do amazing things. We are on the brink of space tourism. I can take a picture on my phone and instantly send it to a friend halfway around the world. But apparently the Parking Authority and the MVA are so ass backwards that I have take my time to hand carry a piece of paper from one building to another. Is this a joke? Is their carrier pigeon sick?
Let’s recap:
Pay fines on Baltimore City’s website
Find out MVA thinks it deserves money due to my beef with the City of Baltimore
Pay fines to MVA
Pay more fines to City of Baltimore
Find out there’s a secret rule designed to infuriate people
Take precious vacation time to leave work
Pick up a piece of paper from Parking Authority
Bring it to MVA like some kind pack mule
Get my registration?
And Probably somewhere in there I’ll also get a ticket for having expired tags.
So here’s my advice to you, MVA & Parking authority: Eat a dick and stop jerking me around.
I don’t know, I guess that could work. Maybe?
UPDATE:
Thank you to Meghan for pointing out the difference between DOT and the Parking Authority. Apologies to the Parking Authority, but i don’t know how to edit the title of the post.
NOW, back to my rant:
So I took the morning off of work to resolve this issue and minimize the risk of being ticketed for having expired tags, thus prolonging this shit EVEN MORE. I got to the City Municipal office bright and early and was 4th in line. When got to the front desk, I tried to be as pleasant as possible.
“Good Morning, I’m looking for form…”
“TAG NUMBER.”
Um, Ok. I gave her my tag number and she walked away without a word. Well, not a word to me. I did her her jovially talking to a her co-worker about Words with Friends. She came back a few minutes later and gave me my form.
I then drove my form to the MVA where I saw a fun sign:
“Why wait in line, go ONLINE.” Twitch It was like salt in the fucking wound.
When I get to the information desk I hand over my license so the VERY old man can tell me my waiting number and in which section I should be waiting. And guess what!
I HAD NO FLAGS ON MY RECORD!
Apparently DOT did indeed send my form over to the MVA and i wasted my fucking morning on a wild goose chase. I did not need to go to the municipal office, and I didn’t even have to go to the MVA. With my flags gone, I could have done the whole thing online. FUCK.
Anyway, so ends my saga. I’m ready for the week to be over. I hope you got a little amusement out of this. If I weren’t able to laugh about it a little, well, let’s just say I may have been on the news tonight.
On top of everything you mentioned, everyone in the whole process is completely miserable, hates their job, and is unwilling or incapable of showing empathy. Ridiculous. They can all DIAF.
Welcome to Baltimore! I feel your pain. Many hours of frustration, burned up cell phone minutes, and about $500 later, I am driving with expired plates (although my license and registration are no longer suspended). The city was particularly a pain in the ass because in order to pay on line, you have to have the citation number, which is not listed on the “flag” notice. REALLY???? You know that when I get tickets I get pissed off, crumple them up, and throw them away. The thing about getting the releases faxed to MVA seems to be an issue peculiar to the city (i.e., they’re too fucking lazy to do it). The county told me to call when I go to MVA and they will fax the release. I verified with MVA that they would accept that. I refuse to go and pick up a piece of paper. With my parking karma, someone would slash my tires again, I would get another parking ticket, plus a citation for having expired tags, thus beginning the next cycle. To add insult to injury, if I heard correctly, the registration fees just went up, so we’ll have to pay the increased fees. Yeah, Eat a Dick is right.
Just for clarity, the Parking Authority has absolutely nothing to do with parking tickets, those are handed out by the Department of Transportation. The Parking Authority runs the permit parking programs and manages the parking garages. So part of your problem might be you’re calling the wrong place. Not to say that it’s not a huge pain to have your registration flagged and pay extra fees. Also, if you have a problem like this and you’ve paid your tickets, call your Councilman/woman, a lot of times they can help get the DOT to move a little faster. Just FYI.
Thanks! Next time I will call my representative.
I had a tag on a motorcycle expire. I didn’t bother renewing. I let insurance lapse because, hey, the tag was expired I can’t ride the bike. $450 fine for not having insurance on a vehicle that I could not drive when I finally did decide to get a new tag.
that’s the worst.
I’ve heard of that before. The car is unusable and you get a fine for not having it insured. Lame!
I swore I wasn’t gonna become one of those smarmy bike people, but I never have to deal with the MVA again, and my bike was probably less than your fines. It’s not hard to ride from Mount Vernon to the Space telescope building.
true, but it is quite hard to ride from Mount Vernon to Greenbelt!
Yes, this. I only wish I worked at Hopkins.
Beat me to it, Chop. Not that it applies in this case, but lots of people could ditch their cars and never deal with this crap ever again.
Comcast is terrible too, write about them.
Contributor Angry Mike tackled such a thing last March!
http://citythatbreeds.com/2010/03/a-simple-case-for-google-fiber-or-mike-hates-comcast/
CITY THAT BREEDS IS TERRIBLE IM WRITING ABOUT IT
I wouldn’t advise it.
Glad that this was at least worked out finally 🙂 But seriously, screw MD government!
I got one of those MVA notices about the $30 the other day and I assumed it was one and the same with a parking ticket I got a few months ago that I totally forgot about. Guess not. Bastards!
That was my mistake too! I had 6 flags!
That was my problem. I thought the MVA was crazy when they kept sending me stuff. “No, I already paid that.” But I hadn’t.
On the bright side, I just had to renew my registration about 3 months ago, so I have another year and nine months to blissfully ignore the MVA’s notices!
Just make sure you pay your fines prior to the month when your registration expires.
oh, just try dealing with DPW about one of their bogus water bills, if you really want a laugh
Here’s Baltimore County Government at it’s finest: In September, they issued me a citation for having WEEDS TALLER THAN THREE INCHES in my yard. Uh, yeah, like I was going to go out and pull weeds when it had been raining every single fucking day. Last year, I got a citation for not having a lid on my trash can. Well, duh, if the trash collectors won’t put the lids back on the cans, they blow away. Our tax dollars hard at work….
Wow. Just wow.
I got that trash can fine too! what am i, made of trash can lids? I found it one time, like 5 houses down, but the second time it disappeared it was gone for good.
Since the city parking enforcement people are too incompetent to get the tag number right on my MARYLAND tag, they can’t get me flagged at the MVA. Which is awesome. Unfortunately, since the city parking enforcement people are CONSISTENTLY too incompetent to get the tag number right, they can still boot my car (with the wrong tag number on all the documentation).
And the advice above about calling your councilperson is good advice. If your councilperson is smarter than a mushroom (DEAR GOD WHY DO PEOPLE VOTE FOR WARREN BRANCH!?!?!?!), they should be able to help you out.