|
I
was asked by a friend who received a traffic ticket, to look up a
traffic violation: "Obstructing Intersection /
Crosswalk" on the New York State DMV Web site. So I punched
it up ( www.nysdmv.com ) and did a
search for "points", "moving violations", and
"Obstructing Intersection / Crosswalk" and it yielded one
result - buried in the text of a lengthy PDF file. Perusing the system,
I finally found a list of violations and "points" at
www.nysdmv.com/license.htm#points (reproduced below).
|
Violation |
Points |
|
Violation |
Points |
|
Speeding (MPH over
speed limit not indicated) |
3 |
Following too closely |
4 |
|
Speeding (MPH over
speed limit): |
Passing improperly, changing
lanes unsafely, driving to the left of center, driving in the
wrong direction |
3 |
|
1 - 10 MPH |
3 |
|
|
|
11 - 20 MPH
|
4 |
Failed to obey a traffic
signal, a Stop sign, or a Yield sign |
3 |
|
21 - 30 MPH |
6 |
Railroad crossing violation
|
3 |
|
31 - 40 MPH |
8 |
Failed to yield the
right-of-way |
3 |
|
More than 40 MPH |
11 |
Passenger safety violation,
including seat belt and child safety seat violations for
passengers under the age of 16 |
3 |
|
Reckless driving |
5 |
Left the scene of an accident
that includes property damage or the injury of a domestic animal |
3 |
|
Failed to stop for a school bus |
5 |
Other moving violations |
2 |
|
Inadequate brakes |
4 |
Inadequate brakes (vehicle of
an employer) |
2 |
Since
"Obstructing Intersection / Crosswalk" was not specifically
listed, I wondered if it fell under the category of
Other
moving violations.
Knowing how sneaky, devious, and
evil State agencies are in general, someone who was not as diligent (or
as paranoid) as I, might have gathered from the above chart that
"Obstructing Intersection / Crosswalk" was NOT a violation
that carried any "points" and just pled guilty and paid the fine (and
got 2 points as a surprise bonus) — but I knew better than to leave it
to guesswork. So I went to the contact page and found the phone number
list at:
www.nysdmv.com/call.htm. I called the New York State Department of
Motor Vehicles (212) 645-5550 and
spent the
next 3 hours trying all the combinations of numbers from their automated
phone system trying to reach a human being in order to ask a simple
question. I tried all the combinations on the menus, until I was ready
to throw the phone against the wall. Finally — I don't know what I
pressed — I was transferred to an operator who transferred me to a
dial tone. I spent the next 15 minutes recalling the key presses from my
phone's keypad memory, and was transferred to
another operator who could finally tell me the answer to my
simple question. The audio on this page is just a sample of the endless,
convoluted, menus-within-menus with no option EVER offered to speak to a
human being, designed to make law-abiding citizens contemplate the
exercise of their 2nd Amendment rights. Whoever thought of the New York
State DMV phone system should be taken out and shot repeatedly by a
firing squad using toy B-B guns until he cries for his mother.
Download the recording on this page
(MP3 format, 1.56Mb) |
