Comment by xxs
6 years ago
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.
6 years ago
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.
> "a privately operated citation processing center"
In a way, this is the real bug - one that affects more areas of local government than most people know or understand.
Our local governments are constantly seeking - and usually getting - private companies to do what should be public. The potential (and actual) repercussions to the system are serious.
For instance, how do such arrangement affect FOIA requests? What about other forms of transparency? Are we really getting our money's worth as taxpayers? Is the money actually being used properly or are costs being inflated?
It's a form of government privatization "by a thousand cuts" - we already know of the problems inherent in the system of privatizing out and contracting of private prisons; plus the loop they cause because of recidivism rates, because a repeat "customer" is better for the bottom line than one reformed for society. Which may be better for the private company, but has huge costs to society itself.
I wouldn't doubt that similar issues are happening with the privatization of other parts of our local government. It is sickening to me, personally.
At some point, can you not file some kind of harassment lawsuit? Is it legal to continue to send someone bills for which they aren't liable?
Don't you have some kind of illegal prosecution laws? In my home country people could go to jail for that.
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That's assuming it's an error in their code.
For all you know, they have a list of too-clever license plates (null, no plate, etc), and they purposefully divvy up the no plate tickets among them.
"hand-enter a NULL for these cases" <-- should be a reserved word then.
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.
You obviously still don’t know what the phrase “choosing to die on a hill” means.
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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.
Really I'm surprised they didn't just add NULL to the list of banned words and ban/refuse to renew the tag which seems eminently within their powers.
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Knowing the California DMV, that contact probably took at least two hours.
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... and then the second half of the parent's sentence (which you conveniently ignored) applies: he's paying with his own time.
I dunno about you, but I value my time way too highly to voluntarily use it to spend time on the phone with the DMV every month or three.
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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?
For the first time or two, maybe. But you'll be paying for it with hours, possibly tens of hours, of your own free time. And the US legal system is a fickle beast; what seems to you like a slam dunk might not actually be so certain.
After the second or third time, the judge will ask, "why didn't you just change your license plate to something else and avoid all this hassle?" And when you answer, "I've grown fond of the plate, and want the DMV to fix its systems", the judge will sigh, and rule against you for wasting his/her time instead of just changing your license plate.
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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.