Comment by cortesoft
6 years ago
I love when people double down out of principle, when the only person getting hurt is themselves.
He refuses to change it because he did nothing wrong...sure, but you are also the only one being hurt by it. Is this really the hill to die on?
The DMV made a mistake, they know it, and they aren't fixing it. In this case, the problem is relatively inconsequential but it is an institutional failure. The DMV is a government agency which is, at least in theory, somewhat indirectly accountable to the people. Which means that if they're treating one particular citizen unfairly, one option that citizen has is publicly shaming them. (Another option is to file a lawsuit. That's more work, though.)
As I see it, this person is performing a public service by not budging on this. It's nowhere near on the same level as Rosa Parks not going to the back of the bus, but sometimes we need people to not simply go with the flow because it's the easiest thing to do.
Considering that the DMV in most places already has a lot of shame heaped on it, I doubt this extra spoonful meaningfully moves the needle.
This guy is really just wasting his own time for no actual benefit to anyone. If he genuinely enjoys it, then sure, I guess each to their own, but if not...
But they're only performing a public service if it gets fixed -- which there's no indication in the article is happening.
And frankly, why would it? Different government agencies likely have zero reason to cooperate on it. Especially if, say, the DMV is responsible for the error, but the courts are the ones dealing with the cost.
So unless this guy has a reason to think it will get fixed because of him... he's just wasting his time, no?
Sure he did nothing wrong because it backfired like one of Wile E. Coyote's schemes but the article makes it clear he was hoping to confuse automatic ticketing systems. He was trying to get out of tickets. Sure he didn't break the letter of the law but he tried to break the spirit of the law and it bit him. Some might call that karma, I think he needs a better hobby than standing in line at the DMV which is ultimately what he has taken up. I wonder how long he'll keep going.
AKA he was attempting to commit fraud or rather obstruct justice. I don't particularly feel sorry for him.
But it does actually work! He can never get any tickets. If he does he'll just claim it was a false one.
Yeah he ends up paying all those tickets with his time though. And time is more valuable than money for a lot of people...
After the second go round or so he'll have a form letter. After the 4th or 5th time the DMV people will recognize it when it arrives. If it goes on long enough eventually all the employees will be aware of this edge case and he can probably appeal legitimate tickets.
Exactly! All he has to do is collect all the notices and deal with them every few months. Not to say there aren't other implications that might be more troublesome :P
“It made my tickets free (if my time is worth nothing)!”
It reminds me of the guy who owns nissan.com, who probably blew his life savings on lawyers defending himself from Nissan Motors lawyers for decades.
Nissan treated that man very badly. I never owned a Nissan car, and never would because of this.
His family name was Nissan, and he registered the domain when Nissan still called itself "Datsun" in the U.S.A.
I wonder how much you could sell that to them for if you were really good at negotiating. Maybe as much as $100k?
Multiply that by a thousand or more if they had already accrued $10 million in "damages" by 1999 as they claimed. Apparently it would be extremely valuable to them.
Die on?
But how - he can challenge the fines in a court of law. Since it's a vanity plate, adding an extra notoriety won't hurt.
On top of that, if anything, forcing the government to fix it's bad code (insert snarky ambiguity between software code and legal code) can't be a bad thing. I'd buy the guy a beer.
I'm pretty sure the government will continue to just waste money processing his appeals instead of making an effort to fix the system.
So in reality, this guy is indirectly wasting taxpayer money. Sure, the government is wrong in not fixing it, but knowing that the government won't fix it, but continuing to behave this way, is his fault.
The problem is it's a "a privately operated citation processing center" that's causing the problem. They might even be instructed to hand-enter a NULL for these cases.
I'm don't really see an incentive for the govt agency to do anything about it. It's no skin off their nose. They'll just keep sending the tickets.
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Except they won't fix it, and he will have to keep filing protests
Figure of speech... I just mean he is making a stand for something not that important but causes him (and only him, really) inconvenience
Maybe this particular bug inconveniences only him, but it exposed an improper practice that in general could have affected others too.
I know what "die on" is - it's just inappropriate in the context: nothing bad has actually happened to him.
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>he can challenge the fines in a court of law.
If he sees spending time and effort expunging his record every few weeks as worth the trade-off for the 'extra notoriety', then power to him. I wouldn't do that.
I'd presume - the court decision may force the agency to fix their code.
Court isn't cheap.
You're paying for it with a lawyer or with your own time
> Droogie contacted the DMV who told him to change his plate. He refused because he didn't do anything wrong. While they wiped the fines off his record, unfortunately for him, they didn't fix the problem in the system so once again, Droogie has accrued another $6,000 in tickets that he had nothing to do with. He says he won't be paying those either.
Except he just contacted the DMV. No lawyers necessary.
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> Court isn't cheap.
> You're paying for it with a lawyer or with your own time
At some point surely you can countersue for harassment?
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I can image something more fun to do with my free time than sitting in court every few weeks...
He can challenge the fines but still has to pay court costs most likely.
Yeah, pick your battles.
Sure, it would be nice if the systems where patched. But maybe he should just get a job at the DMVs IT department instead :)
In the end I would probably rather pay the fines than fix this bug, it's probably a lot of horrible systems barely held together..
> But maybe he should just get a job at the DMVs IT department instead :)
Ew.