My apologies to those who were patiently waiting for this next installment. It’s been an interesting couple of days with my girlfriend just learning she had mono yesterday and not feeling so well.

Part II:

My tickets took place in one weekend in August. When Monday finally
rolled around, Amanda and I went to get my car from the place where the
police had my car towed to. An hour later and $200 lighter, I began to
investigate why my license was suspended. After going to a Secretary of
State office in Orland Park and calling around, I found out the reason
why: My SR-22 had expired too early.

Allow me to backtrack. About a couple of years ago, I got pulled over
for rolling stop through a stop sign and I didn’t have the proper
insurance documentation with me. This was when I drove my piece of crap
Pontiac. That thing broke down every other month. For not having the
insurance with me, I had to go to court and they asked for an SR-22,
which is a flag on your insurance. Your insurance company will have to
notify the state if you don’t have insurance any more and they will
suspend your license. I had to have it in effect for one year. After
that year is up, I don’t have to worry about having my license
suspended for lack of insurance unless I get caught.

I got rid of the Pontiac and bought my current car and later decided that I was paying too much
for my insurance, so I switched over to another provider. By this time,
I thought the SR-22 had already been allowed to expire and I didn’t
need to ask for it. That’s where my mistake came in.

It was still in effect and my old insurance company notified the state that I was no longer insured with them
and the state thought I was driving uninsured so they suspended my
license until I notified them that I had insurance. That was the
only thing I had to do to get my license valid: renew my SR-22.

Except… I didn’t know my license was suspended because I had moved.

So, armed with this new knowledge, I asked the Secretary of State worker
how long I had to have it in effect for. He told me that I had less
than a month to go. (D’oh!) So, I called my current insurance provider and
asked for an SR-22 to be placed on my account.

About a week later, I got a letter in the mail from my insurance
telling me that they had placed the SR-22 on my account. Great news.
The very next day, I got two letters from the Illinois Secretary of
State and a letter from my insurance provider. The first letter said
that they acknowledged that I had an SR-22 in effect and that I can
drive again. Good deal!

The second letter said that I had satisfied my year-long fulfillment
with the SR-22 and that I didn’t need it anymore. The letter from my
insurance said that the Secretary of State notified them that I did not
need my SR-22 anymore so they were removing it from my account.

The dates in all three letters were the same: the day after I asked for the SR-22 to be placed on my account. I was only a day short
from completing my SR-22 with my old insurance policy when I switched
over to another provider. That got me angry, but it meant that I now
had a valid license again.

Next up was to tackle the court dates in September and hope I wouldn’t walk away too poor.

To be concluded…



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