RMV License Suspensions Coming Out of the Blue

Inside News from the MassterList

March 6, 2024….In the internet age, the past is really never that far behind, and it can resurface seemingly out of nowhere with current-day consequences.

Just ask a few constituents of Millbury’s Sen. Michael Moore — he said last week that he had two people get in touch with him recently to say that they were called in for hearings with the Registry of Motor Vehicles and had their driver’s licenses suspended based on things that happened 18 years ago in one case and 30 years ago in the other. Both people, he said, had substance abuse issues “many years ago.”

“So I’m just kind of curious, is there an initiative going on?” Moore asked Registrar of Motor Vehicles Colleen Ogilvie last week at a budget hearing. “I don’t see the public safety benefit where these individuals have now — they’ve been clean and sober for many years, they’re back in the workforce. Can you help me with that?”

Ogilvie said the most likely explanation is that “other states are cleaning out their closets” and following through on their responsibility to inform Massachusetts if there are any outstanding violations or convictions associated with drivers licensed here.

“Typically, we’ll find out from other states there was an unpaid fine or an unpaid, unresolved action that we were not notified [of at the time]. It’s our requirement to put it on the driving record. In certain cases, we adjudicate it if it wasn’t adjudicated at the time,” she said. “So if they were supposed to have been suspended at the time of the event, but we were never notified and we didn’t suspend, it is our obligation to suspend them upon notification.”

The registrar also explained during the budget hearing that the RMV is continuing its focus on trying to maintain up-to-date driving histories amid electronic record-sharing between states in pursuit of the goal of “one driver and one record.”

She said more states are adopting the “driver history record process,” which “supports the electronic exchange of out-of-state convictions, withdrawals, and provides visibility of individuals that may have more than one driver history record and sets rules for us maintaining those records.”

So if you thought you got off scot-free for not paying that speeding ticket in another state years ago, maybe keep an eye out for a letter from the RMV. — Colin A. Young