To all my massachusetts friends.

[dalesql]

Many folks have not noticed, but the Massachusetts registry of motor vehicles stopped sending out reminder notices to their customers that their drivers license or vehicle registration was about to expire. I know a few folks who have gotten hit with big fines and having their car impounded and towed to wreck their plans, and enhance the revenues of the commonwealth. Due to cost cutting measures by the state.

Watch your own license and registration renewal dates! Nobody else is except the police officers who have a ticket quota to finish.

My own personal hassle, inspection sticker on my car expired last month. took it in for inspection, and was not that surprised to have it fail, since the check engine light was on. Yup, fuel vapor leak. Then the kicker, the part to repair is was not available. New or used. So I'm waiting for chrysler parts division to get around to ordering a new batch of them from the manufacturer, get them made, pass QA, and then send me my part. All in the 60 day time limit of a emmisions fail sticker. I am not confident. *sighs*

Comments

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Huh. My driver's license was due to expire this past July. The state mailed me a renewal notice 6-8 weeks before then, or something like that. And they've always sent me some sort of license tab renewal info. Thanks for your note that they've since stopped doing so -- I certainly would have continued expecting the reminder otherwise.

I find it easy enough to remember the inspection month since there's a sticker on my windshield telling me it's May. Before Massachusetts, every state I've lived in had annual license tabs. The fact that Massachusetts has 2-year tabs, and that mine expire in *March* rather than May, when my inspection is due, continues to confound me. It's totally non-obvious and I just don't read the stickers on my rear license plate all that often.

[rifkafox.livejournal.com]

That's very odd.

I received my registration renewal notice in the mail last week. My driver's license expires in the first quarter next year, I'll let you know if I get a notice in the mail. But as far as the plates on the two cars and the trailer, we received the registration notices on all three of them in September, October, and most recently mine in November.

I wonder when this went into effect.

[rifkafox.livejournal.com]

Ah - According to this http://www.telegram.com/article/20081113/NEWS/811130797/1116 the registrations will still come in the mail, just not the licenses.

[fyrdawg.livejournal.com]

Hey I don't have a quota.... But then again I also don't work down in Mass.

[dalesql.livejournal.com]

No, there are not any actual written down anywhere ticket quotas in police departments. At least not any written down where some lawyer from the ACLU can get their hands on it. But.....But......

I'll bet money that the majority of the police departments are keeping track of the number of traffic tickets written by their officers. Especially in those states where the agency writing the ticket gets a share of the fine money. And for those, if an officer has not written about as many tickets as the other officers on similar duties in the department, I'll bet that the officer is going to get a little talk from his supervisor about it.

It's so easy to keep track of everything nowadays. I'd be surprised if a department that is large enough to have more than a dozen officers isn't keeping track of that and a dozen other job 'productivity measures' on their officers. A police department produces negative results when it s doing things well. That's why they have such a hard time getting budgets when money is getting tight. If crime rates are high, then their budget priority goes up with the city/town.

[sniffles-fox.livejournal.com]

There were some memos that were leaked from the State Police a number of years ago that did not use the word "quota" specifically, but made it very clear that they expected patrolman to fill out their ticket books by the end of the month.

These things tend to be somewhat fluid since overtime is a key motivator for most cops. In times when OT is cut way back (and officers can't go into court on OT) they tend not to issue nearly as many tickets whereas plentiful OT = ticket them until they bleed.