Through the Eyes of a Delivery Goddess |
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If you did not read the two-part installment of Dead Tags from a couple of days ago, then you should go back and do that before reading this story. This took place about a month after we got my truck registration straightened out - meantime, our neighbors had sold us their old Corolla. We sold the Subaru in need of a clutch, and took the Corolla to the local notary for transfer. I put the plate from my Subaru on the Corolla, and was driving through West Deer - I was almost home. I noticed a police cruiser tailing me for a couple of miles ... he finally pulled me over. He wanted to know why the plates on my car were showing up dead. (Oh brother - here we go again). I said that I had transferred them, and that PennDOT probably hadn't caught up yet. He gave me a hard time about it, saying that the plates had been turned in as if the car had been crushed. I said there was no way, he said the notary made an error. He gave me a warning and said I had 15 days to call PennDOT and get it straightned out. You can imagine the outrage I felt. I rattled off to him, all of the information from the previous owner, and all of the information from my previous car - he said he could see all of that on his screen, but the plates were still not valid. GGGRRRR!! I was a bad girl, I lost my temper at him. He was about 20 years old and was pretty flustered with me after a few minutes. I told him that there was NO way this would be straighted out that quickly, it had just taken nine weeks to get my truck straightened out. He said I should have had one of those sheets of paper in my back window until my registration came, and I said that I owned the plate, I HAD the registration, and that those papers were only for temporary plates. He told me I was wrong, and the notary should have given me one, and that she really made an error with my paperwork, and I had fifteen days to fix it. I told him if I got a ticket out of this, I'd come looking for him, and it wouldn't be pretty, and I pulled away before he was in his car. I was LIVID. Once I was home and calmed down enough to tell Bob the story, we went straight to the West Deer police station. They confirmed that the plates were showing up as dead, as if they'd been turned in from a crushed car. They sent me to a Notary in Russellton - someone they trusted - for advice on what to do. He too, said that the notary had made some errors, and I needed to go back to her. I asked if I should have had a paper for my back window, and he said, "No, you own the plate - that's just for Tplates". Well, at least I was right on THAT point. He then sent me to a notary in Natrona Heights, someone who is a "messenger", which means that she has the authority to do overnight registrations and title transfers and so on. She would have more access to PennDOT's computers than anyone else. We went to John's Auto Sales and explained our dilemma. She said that it was listed as "Tag Only", which looks like we sold or junked a car, and kept the tag, unattached from any vehicle, until we found another one. Then she said the police don't know what they're doing. We decided we would not relay that piece of information when we returned to the police station to tell them that we were right, and as usual, PennDOT was lazy. Someone had apparently started the trasnfer, they took the neighbor's name off of our Corolla, then quit- didn't complete putting our name ON the car. Then an amazing thing happened... The West Deer policemen said that they would post my name on their bulletin board, and if I got any tickets from any other townships, to bring them the ticket, and they'd get it taken care of. I was afraid if I asked them to reapeat it, they'd change their minds. Over the following two weeks,while waiting for my registration to show up, I was pulled over by four other policemen, two locally, two from other townships. Each time, though, when I explained that I knew my plates were showing up as pulled, and that I had just bought the car, they all backed off and said, "Ok - if you're aware and taking care of it, that's fine". Did I die and go to na-na-land? I want to work for PennDOT |