And it’s over
Yesterday, I hit snag #1 on my trip around the world. It took until I was almost finished with the trip to encounter a serious problem, and of course that serious problem had to occur in America — not Russia or Morocco, or even Venezuela with its mudslides.
It looks like the drive across the country will not be happening, and we can all thank the Pennsylvania Department of Motor Vehicles for throwing up roadblocks.
In Russia, plenty of paperwork was filled out, stamped, and filed; in America, no one seems to know how to fill out the paperwork required — and when they do, they decide that it will take 2 weeks to do it.
I tried to get my Drive-Away car the other day. The idea behind this system is that people who move across the country don’t want to drive their cars; so, they pay a company to find a driver to do it for them. Its a great idea, and allows many foreign visitors to see America very cheaply, as they get a car essentially for free as long as they get it from point A to point B.
I informed the drive-away company of my desire to drive across the country, and everything looked perfect: There was a car going from San Francisco to Windsor, CT; it was a small car and would be cheap in terms of gas; I had given them my information and was set to pick up my car on Friday afternoon.
Then, the hassles started.
If I had been a foreign visitor with an international driver’s license, everything would have gone smoothly. Unfortunately, I was a Pennsylvania resident and Pennsylvania is one of 3 states which require up to 2 weeks to perform a simple driver’s background check. The guys at the drive-away company hadn’t realized this when they told me to head up to San Francisco, and when I arrived it was a disaster.
Without a driver history, the drive-away company can’t insure me, and I can’t drive across the country. There is no way I can wait 2 weeks to get my history, and so it looks like my trip will end here.
I tried to go online to see if I could expidite the process, and PA does offer an online driver history system. Delightfully, after paying $5 to get it, the PA system failed to work — instead giving me a blank page with a big “Log Out” button.
In Russia, state-sponsored atheism had one benefit: people worked on Sundays. Here in America, no one does, and so I am stuck. I can either wait till monday morning and call the PA DMV and hope to be able to work things out, or I can say, “screw it all” and board a $250 plane back home. I need to buy the ticket with at least one day’s notice to get the cheapest fare, so that’s another difficulty.
It’s a sad state of affairs… I knew this part of the trip would be the trickiest to organize, but to come so close just to have it all dashed is still upsetting. Part of me wants to wait and see if I can get it sorted out; the other part says, “you’ve lost 15 pounds in Siberia; you’ve sailed across the Mediterranean; you’ve stayed in both a 5-star hotel and a sleazy guesthouse in Hong Kong. It’s time to go home.”
If you have an opinion, voice it now.
May 15th, 2005 at 9:07 pm
Oh Mike, that stinks. My opinion… if you can wait and continue in a day or two after some well placed and carefully worded phone calls, try to do it. The American road trip is such a great way to end the world tour and it might be a while until you get to trek across America again. Maybe you could look into trains or something like that if you can’t get the car?
May 16th, 2005 at 9:26 am
i agree with jess. the drive would be kewl but i would settle first for a train before throwing in the towel and buying a ticket home. and good luck with Penn Dot. they are all a-holes there who do nothing and get paid. (god i wish i was one of them). anyway done hold your breath on them but dont quit.