Challenging Situation

The Harford County (Maryland) sheriff impounded my car yesterday because they said my license was suspended.

We're not even talking about the bogus reason he pulled me over: tailgating! I was not tailgating the guy in front of me. Maybe if we were going 70 MPH, but we were going about 40 MPH and you could have counted "one thousand one, one thousand two" between my vehicle and the one in front of me.

Officer Ryan saw a Black man that he thought had drugs in his vehicle. In fact, when he asked me to step out of the car he put on gloves and searched the car for drugs.

Anyway, the license came up suspended. Turns out there was some misconmunication between Lenoir City (Loudon County), Tennessee and PennDOT.

My license was scheduled for suspension on 12 December 2007 for a speeding ticket I had gotten earlier that year. My ticket had been paid by 30 November 2007. It was paid on time. But that didn't get to PennDOT (obviously).

And I didn't know that Lenoir City hadn't sent it electronically to PennDOT until yesterday.

Been trying to work it out all today. Not many helpful people work in traffic courts. (If they do, they don't answer my calls.)

I want to get my car out as soon as possible, but no one wants to accept proof that my ticket was indeed paid on time. When you call PennDOT there are no prompts to speak to a live person. I finally called and acted like I had a rotary phone to reach a human being.

Shawn is the first guy I talked to at PennDOT at 8:15 AM. He told me it would be 7-10 days before my license could be restored. It did not matter that I had actually taken care of the ticket BEFORE the scheduled date for suspension and that I'm being charged $35/day for storage where my car is impounded.

The long and short is that this has been a challenging day. One person suggested that I get Lenoir City to electronically notify PennDOT. I called Laura Standbridge and asked her to do it and she told me that she only does it on Fridays. Amazing. She was unwilling to do what should have been done MONTHS ago.

Laura Standbridge decided to lecture me. Then she hung up on me.

One nice lady named Julia is trying to get things moving, but it could still take up to three days. So, I wait. And I pay: $150 for the tow and $35/day for storage. And I listen to hear what lesson God is trying to teach in allowing me this test.

Sent from my iPhone