Sometime between late Sunday night and now...

[gerisullivan]

...the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles online pre-staging of my application for a duplicate driver's license magically went from "you must complete this application in person" to "you can complete this application online."

I now have a second handy piece of paper to accompany my incident report from the 49th Precinct in the Bronx. This one says, "The requested duplicate license has been successfully processed [date/time]" and "You cannot legally operate a vehicle until you receive your duplicate license, unless you print and carry this e-mail with you. The bearer of this e-mail has successfully requested a duplicate Massachusetts license. The license is in good standing and is not currently expired, suspended, or revoked."

I am amused by the security regulations: "Federal privacy laws prohibit the [RMV] from printing the name, the driver's license number, or the social security number of the licensee in question on this receipt. M.G.L c90 sec 11 allows the Registrar to issue a receipt for the fees paid, which may be carried in lieu of your license for up to 60 days. A printed copy of this e-mail shall be deemed a receipt for the fees for the purposes of M.G.L. c90 sec 11."

Of interest to my fellow residents of the Commonwealth: "Sign up for our FREE RMV Reminder Service and receive an email, phone or text (SMS) message when your license is due for renewal. For more information, please visit RMV Reminder Service.

(The RMV stopped mailing reminders a year or two ago. It's clearly a cost-saving measure, and also a revenue enhancing one...a tax for the inattentive. As someone who's received reminders in the mail all her life, it would have been oh, so easy not to notice when my license is expiring. I'll be signing up for the email notification as soon as I have my duplicate license and can confirm its number.)

Onward. With a once-again legal driver behind the wheel.

Comments

[madfilkentist]

If the receipt is good even though it can't have any identifying information, does that mean you could hand it to someone else and the cops wouldn't be able to tell the difference?

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

It would seem so. The receipt, however, does have a receipt code from my application. It's entirely possible, and, indeed, I would hope that it was true, that a cop pulling me over could punch in the code and get information about my license that isn't on the receipt itself.