March 18, 2010

Your Government at work

A couple years ago Indiana changed the way it assigned licence plate numbers. Previously car plates began with a prefix denoting the county the owner lived in. For instance plated issued in Adams county were assigned a 1, Clinton a 12 and Shelby 73, and so on. Then the county prefix was followed by a letter, then random numbers. So your plate would look like this :

12 A 3456

Motorcycle and Truck plates were always a combination of letters and numbers. They also had "motorcycle" or "Truck" printed on the plate.

In an effort to make life easier for consumers The State decided to do away with the county prefix, allowing one to buy their plates at any BMV Branch in the State. This was a good thing. Plates for all vehicles are now a combination of letters and numbers.

Some bureaucrat decided that as long as the tags had "motorcycle" or "truck" printed on them there would be no problem if the combination of letters and numbers for the plate numbers assigned to automobiles might be duplicate. The geniuses in the Government had no clue that the wrong person might get a ticket. Since some States and localities use traffic cameras to issue a ticket (nefarious at best) the wrong citizens are getting tickets! Idiots. Source

Example two of Government incompetence. My oldest son is a server in a restaurant. To handle or sell alcohol in Indiana you have to have a liqueur licence (must the State be involved in everything?). He applied, sent in his $60 and took the required class in January. To date he still has not received his paperwork. More than six weeks to process a Liqueur Licence. This should be simple. Is the paperwork filled out correctly? Is the applicant over 21? EOS, issue the damn certificate. Three minutes tops. Why would this take six or eight weeks to process?

The State revenue agents are cracking down in the community where he works. An application on file at the restaurant is not good enough, without the actual licence on hand he is not allowed to work. Incompetence and bureaucratic laziness means he loses his income until he can get the paperwork.

He has tried to call numerous times to follow up his application. The ATC (Alcohol Tobacco Commission) has a recorded phone line telling the address and hours of operation. My son cut class yesterday to go in person. They are only open until 4:30 -- way to serve the working public Indiana. He drove an hour to the capitol City, paid to park. he spent ten minutes going through security and arrived at the ATC at 4:31. The doors were locked. The work schedules are done on Wednesday, so now he is out of work for another week.

And just think, some of you think the Government would be the best option to control or health care system.


* Yes, I know these are examples of State Government idiocy. Do you really want to make the argument the Feds are better or even less incompetent?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yep.

Re: the license plate numbers...

1. I know of a guy who had a parking boot put on his car at O'-friggin-'HARE because his IN plate matched someone who'd had the plate number in the past, and owed Chi-town money for parking tickets they never paid. Took him 2 or 3 days to get his car back, and likely only because he sent the letter on some pretty threatening letterhead.

2. I know of a 16-year-old kid who is being delayed in getting his driver's license because his rather common name matches someone's in New York who's done some bad stuff.

It's ridiculous.

And too many people are just stupid these days to be supporting this kinda crap and letting them get away with this kinda stuff.


Fred

mts1 said...

Oh sweet Jesus. I am due to take a class and apply to renew my liquor pouring license in April, so I can legally run my parish's beer tent for their July fest. No, there are no more non-profit pour licenses - there is only one pour blue card for everyone. If mine hangs up like this, we are most assuredly farked.

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