© 2024 New England Public Media

FCC public inspection files:
WGBYWFCRWNNZWNNUWNNZ-FMWNNI

For assistance accessing our public files, please contact hello@nepm.org or call 413-781-2801.
PBS, NPR and local perspective for western Mass.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Mass. 'Literally Wasn't Opening The Mail': How The RMV Process Is Supposed To Work

Massachusetts Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack, at right, with Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker.
Sam Doran
/
State House News Service
Massachusetts Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack, at right, with Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker.

The review system for driver violations at the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles is broken. After more than a year's worth of unopened paper violations from other states were found, more than 1,600 drivers are just now having the law catch up with them. 

This came to light after a West Springfield driver with a very spotty record was charged with killing seven motorcyclists in New Hampshire last month.

Beacon Hill lawmakers on the Joint Committee on Transportation have scheduled a RMV oversight hearing for next Monday.

It's not just that the system in Massachusetts for processing complaints from other states failed. The state has also failed to alert other states of violations that take place in Massachusetts.

For context on this, Jason Levine joins us from the Center for Auto Safety, a national advocacy group, to explain how the notification process is actually supposed to work.

Jason Levine, Center for Auto Safety: So there's two different processes, one for non-commercial drivers and one for commercial drivers. 

For commercial drivers, there is a national database that is supposed to be checked on a regular basis. Then, of course, there are various state rules in terms of who does and does not qualify for a commercial driver's license. And that's a situation that was at stake with respect to this tragedy last month.

The larger concern, actually, that we're now seeing, is that from a noncommercial driver's license — your average person just driving — the national database doesn't really exist in a way that would allow people to be sure that the person they're driving next to doesn't have multiple DUI convictions in the next state over.

Carrie Healy, NEPR: From the report issued last week by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, it seemed like there were a mess of different systems among the states.

This is exactly the problem. You know, we have 51 — and you know, if you count some other jurisdictions, more than that — that are issuing driver's licenses. The goal is to make sure that everyone is talking to each other.

The idea is that the states are supposed to be sharing that information on a regular basis, both electronically and via the mail.

What is particularly shocking, in this instance, is that Massachusetts literally wasn't opening the mail, and is the only state in the union that has not agreed to join in either the driver's license compact, or have a regular system for sharing this information with those other few states that have chosen not to participate in the driver's license compact.

So there is a systemic problem that is both nationwide and local.

But then there's also the management problem: that in Massachusetts — even if it's not going to be as up-to-date as everywhere else, which there's no reason that it can't be — they haven't even taken the minimum steps that you would expect for something that literally can cost lives, as we've seen in this recent tragedy.

Connecticut sent both electronic and paper notices to Massachusetts to inform them about the drunk driving bust of Volodymyr Zhukovskyy earlier in the month, before he allegedly killed that group of motorcyclists in New Hampshire. Are you saying the process Connecticut used is a good one?

The best model would be a system — similar to the commercial driver's license national registry — where all the information is going into a centralized database, where access could be achieved by any of the states on a regular basis.

Maybe you'd add onto it, a periodic updating every time a new violation pops up, making sure that there is a flag that comes back to the individual department of motor vehicles in that state to then notify law enforcement. That would be something we'd all like to see. There's no reason from a technology standpoint we can't get there.

But at a minimum, we expect our city, our local and our federal agencies to open the mail.

And in this circumstance, they literally weren't opening the mail, which would've alerted them to the situation. It might have led to a suspended license, and getting this person off the road prior to this horrific crash which took seven lives.

Carrie Healy hosts the local broadcast of "Morning Edition" at NEPM. She also hosts the station’s weekly government and politics segment “Beacon Hill In 5” for broadcast radio and podcast syndication.
Related Content