They lied. My wait time was a little over 90 minutes, but the best was yet to come.
Colorado has a convoluted DMV/license plate system. Perhaps other states do, too, but ours is pretty messed up. Add to that system the current economic problems that result in reduced services and staff, and here is what you get:
When I sold my Audi (trade-in) somehow the new owner received a copy of my registration for the vehicle. This allowed the new owner/somebody to register my vehicle plates in their name. This is not supposed to be possible (as I was told repeatedly today) since vehicle plates are assigned to a person, not a specific vehicle. The really amazing part is how the plates were assigned to somebody else while they were in my possession. Everything I was told today says you can’t transfer them to another party without physical possession of the plates.
After about an hour of checking with supervisors, updating my records and phoning the other Denver DMV branch offices, the clerk “thinks” she has it all sorted out. Hopefully I won’t ever be stopped by the police and find out otherwise. The critical part of getting the plate snafu sorted was that I have a half-year of paid “credit” on those plates and I wanted to apply that amount to my new vehicle registration fee.
I felt a little badly that my turn at the window was taking so long. I could feel the eyes of the 100+ people waiting their turns burning a hole into my back. It would have helped if Denver DMV had more than 3 of the 10 windows running…
Two and a half hours and net $344 later, I walked out of the DMV with the same plates with which I entered. There’s no telling if they’re really “my” plates or not.
Average wait time: 54 minutes
I am forty years old and today was the first time I have ever dialed the emergency 911 number.
I was driving home from my office in Colorado Springs as the rain and snow were coming down. As I approached Monument from the south, a bright light suddenly lit the foggy, rainy gloom. At first I thought somebody was shining a spotlight directly at me but I slowly realized an electrical transformer on the side of the freeway had exploded. As I headed towards the slowly diminishing chemical glare I saw a power line that crossed the roadway drop in front of me as sparks began flying on the other side of the road. There was no time to slow down or stop since I was driving at least 75 MPH and the traffic was heavy — a sudden stop would have created a fifty-car pileup during rush hour. I sped up and drove over the power line and… nothing happened. At least, nothing happened until I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the power line burst into flames and shoot sparks onto the cars directly behind me. Whew!
I quickly called 911 and reported the issue. By the time I was driving through Monument I could see a fire engine crew heading out towards the scene of the issue. Hopefully no one else attempted to drive over the power line, although knowing how incredibly stupid people are these days I am sure many did.
So having performed my civic duty today I was interested to see if any of the local media had picked up the story and perhaps could shed some light on the cause of the explosion. CBS4 mentioned the road closure during their 6 PM newscast but had no details other than the “road is closed.” I checked the Colorado Springs Gazette and realized the reason that traditional print media is dying is because they don’t give a shit anymore. The Gazette didn’t even bother to cover the story themselves, instead handing it off to the Denver Post. Read the linked article and tell me if it is informational in any useful way. How did the power line fall on the roadway? Was it an accident or domestic terrorism? When did the roadway close, and were there any vehicle accidents or injuries?
I think it would be more reliable and accurate to get my news from a blind wombat.
UPDATE: I see the DP updated the story with a slight bit of info regarding accidents, but which “officials” did they ask for the cause of the issue? The officials I spoke to were the CSP 911 Dispatch officer and the El Paso county sheriff’s office when I called it in.
CBS4, please reconsider this decision. Stacey is the reason I started watching your news broadcasts in the first place. You lost a lot of credibility with me when you decided to present the bad-grammar-and-blogger-presentation style of Gloria Neal and now this. It saddens me that all broadcast news organizations feel that chasing ratings means replacing their intelligent and professional news- and weather-casters with flashy fluff. I’ll be getting my news and weather exclusively from the internet now if Stacey does not land at one of the other local stations.
Recent Comments