Mistake at DMV and Insurance Causes Driving on Suspended

[upsetboyfriend]

My question involves a driver's license issued by the State of: Illinois

So here it goes, in the fall of 2011 my girlfriend was pulled over and ticketed for driving with no insurance and at court was given 6 months to pay a small fine and prove she continued to have insurance(which was done) at her final court appearance the Judge told her everything was taken care of and that was that. The very next day while we are in town driving to do laundry we get pulled over(still never given a real reason as to the traffic stop) and she is told she is driving on a suspended license due to "financial" and was arrested. Her grandmother and I went and bailed her out right away and have now started down a huge road that's filled with screw ups ranging from with her insurance agency and the DMV. To start things off, directly after the original ticket in the fall we were told she needed to go to the DMV to change her address on her license. We go and she does what she thinks is that, to find out now nearly 6months later they didn't in fact change her license information, no they "changed" her vehicles registration address to the same address it had always been listed under and even charged us while doing so(that's right we paid them to do absolutely nothing). So when they tried to mail her information about her license needing reinstated, it was mailed to her old house address that is currently unoccupied, most likely sat in the box for awhile and was then sent back to the state. As a result of no SR-22 form being sent in to the secretary of state by her insurance company(also their mistake which I'll explain) they decided to suspend her license. The reason it was her insurance companies mistake was because whenever at some point they had taken down her information from her license(i was there with her when it happened the man took her license and filled it all out himself) he messed up and placed a 0 on the end instead of a 6 like it should have been. This meaning the SR-22 form they sent to the state was wrong so the state never accepted it. So not only were we never informed this was going on until we've had to dig into the situation but we were never told at court or by her insurance agency that there was EVER a possibility of her license needing to be reinstated and we never received any paperwork or documentation of this. Now comes the real problem, although the form has now been sent in and the state seems wiling to reinstate her license, the states attorney is still holding onto her license and has yet to say anything on the subject of dropping the case and made it clear to my girlfriend over the phone she would be proceeding to bring it to court in 2 weeks. It has a $300 fine attached which is no problem and we are more than willing to pay it immediately, the problem is my girlfriend commutes 30mins to work 5-6days a week and i work full time and can't begin to try to drive her. Is there anything we can do to try to talk the states attorney into letting her drop the case if we pay the fines and the insurance company admits to their mistake on sending in the correct forms in the first place? should we get a lawyer and try to fight the case? and finally should we consider taking her insurance company to small claims court over the fact we've already had to spend around $600+ on a msitake one of their employees made? I'm at my wits end, the system is more or less kicking her around and everyone we talk to has a "wait and see" attitude which for me IS NOT good enough. Most of all I feel like were being punished for other so called "professionals" total lack of attention to detail and professionalism. Thanks for any information and help.

[Mr. Knowitall]

If she was driving around for six months with a driver's license that showed the wrong address, no new license or sticker with the new address issued, she should have figured out that something was wrong. She's not likely to convince anybody at the DMV that when she completed and filed the wrong form, it was their fault for not figuring out that she intended to file something else. The forms indicate their purpose. That said, if the prosecutor is sympathetic, your girlfriend can document that she "changed" the vehicle registration to the same address, and the address issue has since been resolved, it's quite possible for the prosecutor to agree to reduce, defer or dismiss the charge.

In terms of a clerical error resulting in her SR-22 not being processed, if she can adequately document the error she may be able to get that issue resolved with the documentation from her insurance company that she did in fact obtain the SR-22 coverage in a timely manner. You indicate that the DMV is willing to process the correction so that should, at the end of things, be a minor issue.

In terms of the state's attorney wanting your girlfriend to go to court on the new DWLS charge, there's no way we can get her out of that one. She can try talking to the prosecutor, or can retain a criminal defense lawyer to do so. If the biggest problem is that it would be too difficult for you to drive her to the court hearing, she can explore the possibility of a friend or family member giving her a ride.