A car, at last

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After a long wait, a car at last. And I'm allowed to drive it around California. If that sounds surprising given that I have a California's driver's license, read on...

My new car, a Hyundai Sonata 2005

My new car is Hyundai Sonata, fresh off a dealers' auctions lot. This is a particular way of buying a car that (kind of) ensures you get a good deal if you are not too picky about which specific car instance you need. You just tell a dealer what car you want and he goes looking for it on those dealers' auctions where car dealers buy their used cars. I just told my man that I wanted a 2005 Hyundai Sonata, silver, at around 20,000 miles. Which is what I got.

The car is fine; it is a good deal as the 2005 model is at the end of a long line of Sonatas, and all the kinks have been worked out. At least when it comes to the motor and mechanics. When it comes to the design of the center console, all I can say is that the car's designers must have been color blind. Three different shades of green and sometimes in inverted black/green too. I'll spare you a visual.

No, the real trouble had started with my driver's license. When I had returned to the Bay Area in May to interview, I had already noticed that the car rental agency rejected my driver's license, because it had been suspended. Well, no problem, I thought, I hadn't renewed it and would do so when I return.

Turned out, the license suspension was based on a speeding ticket I had received back in 2004, two weeks before I left the country. I had long forgotten about it, and back then the promised notice to my home address had not happened. Or at least it had not reached me; the court told me they had sent a letter, but it had been returned to them. This, of course, didn't stop them: Not knowing about all of this I did not appear in court and was fined for the incident. That "failure to appear" led to a "failure to pay" as the bill was sent nowhere as well. While the court was grinding away, I was happily (or not so happily) working away in Germany.

Anyway, when I returned to the Bay Area, my driver's license had been suspended because I had not paid for that speeding ticket. What's more, the total of the ticket plus court proceedings and what-have-you had accummulated to a whooping $377. Rather hard to swallow, but so I did and paid the fine. It didn't happen right away, but in the end my license got reinstated, and so I can legally drive cars around here again.

Unfortunately, this was not the end. When I wanted to sign up for car insurance for my new car, I first got a quote of $500 for the first half year. A day later the insurance came back to me, requesting a rate increase from $500 to $1400 because of the license suspension. Having your license suspended amounts to starting all over again, as if you hadn't had a license before, and hence your insurance costs go up. $1400 rather than $500 is already a lot, but this was for half-a-year, and the suspension would be on my record for a total of three years. Hence to the fine for the speeding ticket I know would have to add 6 half-years times $900 (the difference between $500 and $1400). The total bill for that speeding incident thereby increased from $377 to $5977.

I find this hard to swallow. First, the incident that I remember was speeding on Route 17, which is curvy road in the midst of a forest, mostly. I did 45mph where I was supposed to do 35mph, and the cop claimed that I did 55mph which I found already quite annoying. But that doesn't matter, of course.

I ended up doing some comparison shopping and finally signed up with my old car insurance company from before I had left the area. I guess they gave me a better rate because I never had had any incident. Still the costs of all this are potentially staggering, and I'll try to get the courts to reconsider the ticket. I never had an accident and this was my first speeding ticket. They call it "pleading for leniency." I have no idea what my chances are. What a nuissance.

Copyright (©) 2007 Dirk Riehle. Some rights reserved. (Creative Commons License BY-NC-SA.) Original Web Location: http://www.riehle.org