Blessings in Disguise

Thank you for reading and commenting on last week’s blog. This week, I thought I’d update you on the rest of my day last Wednesday: Lesson, Part Two!  

After I bought my sneakers, my husband and I headed to a state park for a fun afternoon of photography. I was driving my car so I could stop if he wanted to photograph something along the way. As we left the park and started heading home, I realized I was driving too fast so I slowed down. But as I drove around a curve, I was too late in slowing down and a policeman was waiting for me. I’ve been driving for fifty-six years with only one speeding ticket from when I was much younger. 

The officer approached the car, and I was ready with all the important documents. He asked me if I knew why he stopped me, and responded, “Was I speeding?” As I handed him the required documents, I told him about my outstanding driving record. He politely smiled at me and said, “I know, everyone does.” When he came back to the car, he agreed with me that I have a great driving record, but there was an issue with my car registration–the state of NJ had suspended it! Both the officer and I were confused because I’d just received my new registration the previous week, and everything appeared to be in order. Thankfully, he didn’t have my car towed and impounded; he only gave me a warning ticket for speeding (no fines or points) and a court date for the registration suspension. Although it wasn’t good to be speeding, getting stopped was a blessing in disguise because I wouldn’t have known about the suspension.

Now the real fun began: dealing with the Division of Motor Vehicles to resolve this issue! The lesson for me to learn: stay present, be patient and keep my attitude in check! It was a weeklong process of phone calls, lots of waiting on hold, and customer service representatives digging deep into my files to find the answer. After several days, they did, and it dated back to 1994. It was a real challenge for me to remember what had happened, but after an hour of questioning, my memories started to resurface. I’d purchased a 1986 Dodge from my father-in-law, and after the car had broken down, I wasn’t sure I wanted to fix it. So it sat in the driveway for a while, and since I wasn’t driving it, I decided to remove it from our car insurance: big mistake! You can’t have a car sitting in a driveway (even if it’s broken down) with license plates but no insurance. The DMV sent me a suspension notice, so I returned the plates. The DMV gave me a receipt confirming the return, so I thought that was the end of it…until now. Apparently, I was eleven days too late in returning the license plates after canceling the insurance, and I now needed to pay a twenty-eight-year-old fine of one hundred dollars in order to drive my current car. 

I’ve paid the fine, I can drive my car, and I’m due in court in June to prove the suspension has been resolved. I would’ve never discovered any of this if I’d not been pulled over. Although this was a challenge to rectify, I’m glad it’s cleared up (and that I kept my cool!), and I’m back on the road again.