Dillen and the Dmv

TO: Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner, Chief States Attorney FROM: Dillen Dye’s Employer 8/16/16 RE: Some apparent non-compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act; common courtesy, civil respect; freely accessible pursuit of health, happiness, and prosperity I don’t know where the States Attorney Officers and the administrators of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) were hiding when the Americans With Disabilities Act issued regulations protecting us from things like bullying, intimidation, failure to disclose information, discriminating to the disadvantage of those who have more than their fair share of disadvantages pursuing those values our Constitution explicitly mentions as meriting our mutual protection. One of my employees now has a five year troubled history with Officers of Other People’s Peace and the DMV. The latest episode is a denial of his application for a Work Permit, submitted with a nonrefundable $100 application fee, which he can ill afford, especially given the just arrived denial of his request for the great privilege of driving himself to work during the duration of his currently suspended driver’s license. How his license became suspended is a long and troubling history of miscommunication between DMV and State Attorneys who seem to assume it is their job to represent the healthiest interests of everyone in the State except the one resident they are currently fleecing, but also troubles between Dillen’s hyper-deficited mind and right foot. A quick skim of the American With Disabilities Act might cause reasonable people to take the position that Dillen should either receive the Work Permit that the State Attorney told him he would get if he would simply bother to apply, or have his application fee refunded. After all it does seem difficult to justify he received fair value for his $100 investment in a public system that has at best ignored, and at worst messed with, his private system, getting through each day and night without further suicidal ideation. This past May, the State’s Prosecuting Attorney was a surprisingly happy young person, probably not all that long a member of the Bar, and it was getting late in the afternoon on a perfectly lovely late Friday afternoon. She came close to begging Dillen to pay a bargain basement reduced moving violation fee of just $400 if he would just agree to cancel his date with the apparently beleaguered, and perhaps not in such a great mood, judge. In fact, if he would sign up for a guilty as charged notice going to the DMV, so they could suspend his license yet again, but not to worry because they would surely jump out of their collective skins to give him a free pass to drive to work and school whenever he needed, because after all we are all good people and we want those good things to be happening in your life, if he would sign up for this line of bullshit right now, she would knock off another $100 because she could see he was such a cooperative kinda guy and wouldn’t it be nice to get out of here and enjoy the rest of his day, if not maybe quite so much his life? She didn’t mention any problem about now having 7 violations on his DMV record so investing $100 in the Work Permit application would be delusional, at best. She didn’t mention that AfricanAmerican 20-year-old Dillen, driving a beat-up looking van in a rather lavishly comfortable ecopolitical environment, had cars in front of him and behind him also going 45 mph, but apparently he was the only one unaware he was driving on a suspended license, because, after all, how could the DMV send him a notice through the mail that would actually get to him—although email would have most certainly worked—due to his nomadic ways. So, yes, Dillen has more than three moving violations, but probably would not, if he had been told, upon his first Suspension, that he could apply for a Work Permit to drive despite Suspension. This was news to him, as he was about to begin his third Suspension, although he has yet to receive his first Suspension Notice. Apparently no one, except perhaps the person whose digital signature appears at the bottom of the Denial?, knows about this three strikes and you are out of a $100 non-refundable application fee. He saw no notice specifying possible reasons for denial. Nothing in red, or even black, ink saying: WARNING, If you have four or more moving violations do not waste your money! Yesterday, Dillen had an appointment with yet another State Attorney. This, a few hours before receiving the denial notice from DMV. When Dillen told him that he was waiting to hear back from DMV about his application for a Work Permit, this Attorney too was remarkably sanguine, saying something like “Look, you have no DUI on your record, we want to get you on the road for work and school.” So they continued his case, hoping this latest Suspension would be over, license restored, and Dillen could move on, put this self-propelling mess behind him. Dillen, State Attorneys, and I are all surprised and disappointed to learn of this covert restriction on issuing Work Permits. And I am his employer. I believe you should give him his permit or at least refund his extorted application fee. Not to blow this out of all reasonable proportion, but to add larger and longer perspective, this denial of Dillen’s application for a Work Permit is only the latest episode in his five-year troubled history with driving safely and responsibly as part of his moving into independent adulthood project. Dillen’s level of sensory-neural challenges and his motivation to live a reasonably accommodated life, without intimidating-bullying Police Officers and inscrutable labyrinthine DMV communication issues, and fee extortions that could not possibly pass any discriminatory effect legal challenge, are concerns we might all approach with better implemented concern and integrity. Other than that, I hope you are having a blessed day. Warmly, Gerald Dillenbeck