I talked to my insurance agent to insure the new ATVs today, and when the agent called me back with a quote, he informed me that my driving record showed that my driver’s license was expired. I was really confused because I was sure it wouldn’t have expired without me knowing about it, so I pulled out my license to check. Sure enough, it expired on my birthday, six and a half months ago! I guess I’m lucky that I didn’t find out about it the hard way.
The lady at the driver’s license office told me that they do normally send out renewal notices, but I sure didn’t get one. I was also technically required to take a written driving test because it had been more than six months since my license expired, but I sweet-talked her out of it. I had a nice smile on my last license–a certain friend’s mom who worked there wouldn’t let me get away without smiling–but my new license picture looks more like a mugshot.
This isn’t the first time the driver’s license division failed to notify me about something important. When I moved to Provo to go to college in 1998, I sent them a written change of address as required. The address got entered into their system, but apparently they omitted the apartment number. Several months later I got a speeding ticket (one of many that I’d gotten as a teenager), and my license was suspended for three months. However, the suspension notice never reached me, and I didn’t find out until about six months later when I got pulled over and ticketed yet again. For some reason, and luckily for me, the ticketing officer didn’t run my information through dispatch (possibly due to the remote location in Spanish Fork Canyon). Upon returning home, I called the driver’s license division to see how that ticket would affect my record, and it was only then that I was informed that my license had not only been suspended, but that the three months were up and I could get it reinstated that same day!