Thankin' Muh Lucky Stars I'm Broke as Shit! (or "Reinstatement, ho!")

Do YOU fall into that sad little box on the left, as I do?  Yay!  You Win!

      I am not the worst driver I know.  In fact, I pride myself on being very cautious and defensive on the road, a trait I learned from my folks.  My mother has had only a single, one-person, non-critical accident in which she spun out in the rain and jumped a median; my father has had none.  When I was 21, I had a single, one-person accident in which I hit a wall and flipped my car while changing a cd on an unfamiliar road.  Maybe it was the wet, winding road, or my genuine shock at how stupid I was and my subsequent crying at how much trouble I was going to be in (the X-Terra that I had made but 4 payments on was in my father's name), but the officer who helped me climb out of the passenger door of my side-laying car let me go without so much as a citation.  The car: totaled; picked up by a flat bed truck.  Me: seatbelt burn, sore neck.  My friends, who were right in front of me when it happened, came back and picked me up, and we continued on to the concert we were heading to; yes, I drank my sorrows away that night, hoping it would make me forget.  That would be the first and last time I had an auto accident.  And the last time I've had a highway patrol officer in Texas understand and have any sympathy for how broke I am.

      I am not the worst driver I know, and yet I've spent most of my adult life in Texas without a valid driver's license.  It probably started shortly after the auto accident, which raised my insurance to a cool $190 a month for liability.  I didn't even have a vehicle for a year or two, and in that time learned to love cycling everywhere (not an easy task in a city the size of San Antonio, where biking and bussing to school took about an hour and a half).  In those two years though, I sometimes borrowed my brother's car, and incurred 2 tickets for driving without insurance.  Mind you, this was well before the state's brilliant idea of Surcharges, or "Driver Responsibility" taxes charged to the delinquent driver in addition to the standard fine.  As time went on, and I accrued a few warrants from unpaid speeding, suspended license, and other minor infractions of the law, I started to think I'd just move to Mexico rather than own up (and pay up) to the mess I'd made of my driving record.  My debt to the state, if I ever wanted to drive legally again, had reached over $2,800 in three years!  Mexican beaches on a bike or dune buggy were starting to look better and better.

      That attitude changed when I moved to Austin and decided I was going to get back into school.  The bus system, so I had heard, was quicker, cleaner, and easier to access the entire town within an hour, and so I moved up here with just my clothes, my bike and a dream.  My father, noticing the spark of determination which had sprung from the virtual abyss, offered up a challenge: pay your shit off, get your license reinstated, and you have a car!  Now, up until then, I was plenty stubborn, and stingy with my money, but I weren't no idiot.  I worked hard, paid off almost 3 thousand dollars in 3 year old fines to 3 Texas counties, and voila!  Instant license, instant car!  Easy, right?  Well...It woulda been.  Except for the fact that in the time I had been unlicensed, Texas had enacted the Driver Responsibility Program.

      Now, anyone who's had unpaid tickets should know, there is an entity called Omnibase, which is essentially an 800 number you can call (since the DPS is just too busy to answer these questions via phone) to find out exactly what you owe, and what it'll take before you're in the clear for reinstatement.  It's supposed to be the All-Knowing Entity, finding even the oldest infractions from the furthest counties.  When I called Omnibase in 2006, they told me what was owed and where.  Little did they know, the new Driver "Responsibility" program had placed additional surcharges, or "bad driver taxes," onto my record.  So, within two weeks of getting legal again, even though I had complied to Omnibase and TxDPS's liking, I received a letter stating that unless I paid, or started a payment plan, of over $2,000 again, my license was rendered invalid immediately.  I honestly thought I was in a Nightmare!  Mexico (pre drug-war, that is), was starting to sound good again.

      Yes, kids.  The Driver Responsibility Program that went into effect since I had last driven, was imposed upon me expressly because I paid my tickets.  In all honesty, I probably wouldn't have parted with $3,000 if I knew they were going to immediately screw me out of another $2,000.  I mean, What student can afford that?!  Even managing a restaurant full-time (a position which brought in a cool $21,000 after taxes), I struggled to comply, but I did.  They offered no choice at the time.  You couldn't talk to the municipal or county judge, the DPS or county clerks office.  They all said they were "Powerless to fight a mandated tax law."  (What always sucked was the way most judges knew it was a stupid law, and was going to cost Texas driver's more headaches than it was worth.)

      I promised to pay in monthly installments of about $89 while I could, but as soon as money got tight and I defaulted once, I owed the entire amount before I could drive legally.  Meanwhile, I continued to drive to work and school.  Every time I got pulled over (which at this point, I was such an immaculate driver, they were just pulling me over after random running of my plates), I got arrested, locked up for at least 24 hours, and slapped with, (YUP!) a NEW SURCHARGE I couldn't afford.  In the end, after losing two jobs in one year, I sold my car just to pay rent, and decided to get back on the bike.

      That was last October.  This January, after much criticism over the constitutionality and failure of the surcharge program as a whole (I mean, knowing that I was amongst almost 1.8 million Texans who couldn't afford a valid license was both good to hear and disturbing at the same time), Texas DPS offered an amnesty program meant to get Texas driver's back in compliance, and help reduce the growing number of uninsured motorists.  The Surcharge Amnesty Program was to reduce the fees owed by motorists to 10% of what they owed, not to exceed $250.  Carless as I was, I was excited to apply for amnesty, in the hopes I could one day drive legally again.

      As my luck would have it, the stipulations for the program were kind of stringent, or narrow rather, and didn't include all drivers.  Guess why I wasn't eligible to take advantage of this most awesome of "leniences" allowed by the state... Both because my surcharges were too new (aka, I had already paid off my oldest ones), and because I was currently making payments on them (aka, I wasn't in default because I had the audacity to try and comply, carless as I was).  Were my efforts all for not?  Do I just not belong on Texas roads?  How far does $2,000 go in  Mexico?

      My main reason for writing this extensive blog is to alert those battling the same ridiculous system that there may be One More Option left for us.  The Driver Indigency Program!  Thanks to a Google search I did on "Texas Driver Surcharges," I found this article by Texas Tribune author Brandi Grissom that says people living below the poverty level, otherwise deemed "indigent", are eligible to receive a discount on delinquent surcharge accounts similar to that of the amnesty program.  Indigence in Texas runs rampant, with an estimated 4,262,000 Texans now being lucky enough to claim the title.

      Now, I know for a fact as a server in today's economy, even with 3 part time jobs, I make less than $13,600 on paper (last year, my taxable income was about $8,200).  So, for now I am excited that my license-less woes may have finally come to an end.  This, of course, dependent on my application to prove my broke-ass is really broke being approved without further complications by unreachable hurdles.

      What really chaps my ass though, is that I have to find out this extremely crucial, relevant, invaluable information on my own.  The MSB, or Municipal Services Bureau has got my number...believe me.  About twice a month, I get a phone call by an automated teller, giving me a number to call to make an automated payment to my delinquent account.  Also, about twice a month, I get letters in the mail from the MSB.  In fact, when I moved last October and changed my address online, they were the first ones to send me a welcome to the neighborhood greeting, except it went something like "You owe us $500 USD for a red light you ran in 2007."  They know the Hell I've gone through to try and comply, and they know I applied and got rejected from the amnesty program, and yet they just send me a bill!  Nowhere in their fancy, typed-up letter was there even an utterance of a way for me to avoid paying $2,596.66 in surcharges before being eligible for license reinstatement.      


      When are these money-hungry public institutions going to get their act together, communicate better, work for rather than against safe driving practices, and stop being the bane of poor Texas driver's existence?  Why is Texas so reliant on these petty funds to keep trauma centers alive, when these same drivers already pay hundreds in gas, vehicle registration fees, parking and traffic tickets, not to mention among the highest of sales tax in the nation?  Is charging an exorbitant surcharge, 3 years in a row, for a misdemeanor traffic violation that we've already been fined and tried for even legal?  And isn't it going to have a negative ripple affect as more drivers go uninsured because they can't afford to get reinstated, never mind missing a day's work.  I'm sorry, but I fail to see the logic in expecting more money out of the poorest people in the nation; creating debt out of thin air (we now owe more) to pay for someone else's debt (so they can owe less).  


      As an educated adult, I'm all about owning up to my faults, and making right the wrongs I did as a stupid young man.  But sometimes, just sometimes, when people (the Texas DPS) don't want to let things go, it hardly seems worth all the effort.  I have a motorcycle I bought late last year for $800 dollars on Craigslist; it's currently in the shop, and should be ready any day.  Although I appreciate the calves I've grown and other health benefits from riding my bike 5-10 miles a day in the lovely 107 degree sun, I can't wait to be back on the road legally.  If my application to the Indigence Program gets denied this month for some crazy, unforeseen, asinine stipulation, you can bet your boots I'll be taking my wheels to the Texas roads...for just as long as it takes me to cross the border.