Yesterday Calvin and I finally managed to maneuver the treacherous waters of bureaucracy and get our car and ourselves registered in this fine state of Massachusetts. What a pain! To re-cap on our whole car experience thus far since moving here:

1. We find out the Geico does not insure in MA while doing routine change of address notifications.
2. We check the time until our current policy expires - a little under 2 months - should be plenty of time to get signed up with a new insurer and register the car, right? - and start the search.
3. Geico recommends us to a place where they send their MA exitees, we call for a quote, they send us paperwork.
4. We begin the process of filling out the paperwork. For some reason, they need our DL #’s for all states we’ve driven in in the past 6 years and our date of first licensing ever! For some other reason, we’ve just never thought to keep that information?
5. Calvin calls the PA DMV and explains the information that he needs from them. They tell him he has to pay for his own personal data, and then after directing him to the form online he needs to fill out in order to obtain it, we read on the form where in order to obtain the information that he told them he needed, he has to give them the very same information. *smack*
6. We call Geico. They were happy to provide us with all the information we needed, that they already had on file. I’m reminded again of my consternation at having to switch.
7. We finally can fill out the paperwork and send it in.
8. We wait.
9. We receive the form to take to the RMV (Registry of Motor Vehicles) with the insurance companies stamp on it with instructions on what to take.
10. We go to RMV to get our car registered and new drivers licenses. We wait for 30 minutes in queue.
11. We get to the new available window. The lady, who reminded me severely of the lady at the New York DMV who didn’t know what a Social Security card looked like, took one look at my title, points to a line and says, “Who’s that?” “My dad, he’s still on the title because it was my car before I got married…I want to take him off of it if I can.” She looks at me sternly. “He needs to sign this paperwork.” She pulls out a form and slides it to me. She then starts highlighting sections on the title. “He needs to sign the title saying he’s sold it to you.” “But he lives in Virginia…” “Then you’ll just have to mail it to him.” She stares at me. End of discussion. “Um…can I just leave him on it for now then…?” “You’ll have to get the insurance to give you a new registration form with his name on it then, and he would still have to sign it.” She stares at me again. End of discussion. “And…there’s no way of registering my car without just…leaving it a Virginia title?” She scowls at me. “NO.” “Okay. Thank you.”
12. We leave, quite depressed about the whole situation. I call our new insurer to tell them what the RMV said. They put a new registration form in the mail with my dad as the “seller” of the car instead of the dealer I bought it from, so it’s all “proper” now.
13. Pressed for time, I then pay $30.00 to overnight the TITLE to my dad so he can sign off saying he “sold” it to me (IT’S ALREADY MY CAR!) and the other paperwork saying it was transferred within a family so I don’t have to pay sales tax again. He overnights it back to me.
14. My dad somehow forgets I’m married (???) and puts my maiden name on the envelope. They get confused up at the mailroom and didn’t put it in our box, because for some reason GCTS doesn’t have FedEx, UPS, DHL, or large USPS packages delivered to our own apartment, but has everything delivered right to a student mailroom. A minor irritation of ours that got alot bigger when the title to my car almost got lost.
15. Meanwhile, I get the pink notice from Geico saying that they are canceling my policy as of the expiration date because I didn’t pay my renewal fee. I panic, thinking I’ve done something wrong. Obviously I want it canceled as of the expiration date! We’d already called a thousand times to talk to them about this, but never officially “canceled,” I didn’t think I needed to, so I call to make sure everything’s okay and to tell them, yes, I do want to cancel, I moved to MA as we’d already told them we did.
16. The lady I spoke with says she actually can’t cancel my policy anyways, because if she did, then they would have to tell the NYS DMV that we don’t have insurance and we’d get fined since the car was still registered in NY. She said once we registered the car in MA, we had to actually mail the NY license plates to the NYS DMV to prove we were no longer operating the vehicle in NY, with a return receipt. Once I had the return receipt proving NYS was in possession of the license plates, then they could cancel the policy. However, if this didn’t occur before my expiration date, they would be mandated by law to notify NYS of the expiration of my policy and I could still be fined. Unbelievable!
15. Back to the RMV, and we wait 30 minutes again. Finally, the registration goes smoothly. Back in line for a driver’s license for almost 45 minutes. While waiting, I notice that they put the wrong city and zip on my registration. After I’m done, and Calvin is doing is stuff, I go and get that fixed. Fortunately, that goes fairly smoothly, and we’re done at the RMV after almost 1 1/2 hours and $266 poorer. $90 for a driver’s license! Each! I’ve never paid that much, even in NY!
16. Next day, I mail the NY license plates back to the fine happy NY to the tune of $15.

And here I am, breathlessly waiting to see if NY gets my plates before my Geico policy expires so they won’t have to fine me for something I didn’t even do, considering I’m now 100% legal to drive my car in MA as an MA resident. I don’t even know if they can fine me, given that I’m no longer a NY resident, but oh, I’m sure they’d love to try. It really makes me angry. I’ve never experienced bureaucratic bullcrap like I have with D/RMV’s.

What a nightmare. Sorry for the long whine. I’ll try to be more productive next time.