RMV PULLS 869 MORE LICENSES
Rep says gov stalling probe – as list of ignored violations nears 5,000
The embattled Registry of Motor Vehicles has suspended 869 more driver’s licenses with more possibly on the way as an internal investigation uncovered thousands more infractions.
The latest update brings the total number of suspensions to 2,476 as legislators call out the Baker administration for “limiting” its own probe.
“It seems to be a recurring theme that they are reserving what they think is an ability to hold documents back,” Transportation Committee Chairman William Straus told the Herald, adding he backs steps being taken to correct the failures “but it seems to me that it’s also necessary to identify a cause so that you can ensure that those mistakes don’t occur again.”
A preliminary MassDOT report released Thursday reported almost 5,000 unprocessed license infractions that could lead to suspensions and 22,000 “work items” that need to be addressed for “any kind of missing data” in driving records. The open convictions were found through what the Baker administration has deemed an “unprecedented” double-check of the state’s data compared to that of the National Driver Registry.
Of the more than 5.2 million drivers in Massachusetts, 166,317 drivers were identified as having incomplete information, the survey found. Of those, 4,724 were identified as potentially open convictions and suspensions concerning “serious violations” that belong to a specific driver.
MassDOT maintains it continues to “cooperate” with the Joint Committee on Transportation’s document request for its own investigation into the matter, and has provided over 66,000 pages of material, “while not withholding any documents.”
But Straus said the committee is still, “unfortunately,” waiting for the full and complete response to requests made in mid-July and the first week of August. He added that the Baker administration is “leaving this door open,” by saying it “might” withhold documents.
“That ongoing delay is limiting the committee’s ability to identify and assess the root causes of the failures at the RMV,” Straus said.
The update is part of a top-to-bottom scrub of the RMV after West Springfield trucker Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, allegedly plowed his pickup and trailer into a group of motorcyclists in June in Randolph, N.H., killing seven.
RMV chief Erin Deveney, who resigned hours after Zhukovskyy entered a not guilty plea, admitted in a legislative hearing in July that she knew out-of-state violations weren’t being processed as early as 2015.
An outside report conducted by Grant Thornton is expected to be released today.
In another new development in MassDOT’s update, officials have asked to meet with the attorney general’s office on reinstating oversight.
The AG’s office confirmed that it does have a designee on the Merit Rating Oversight Board, which the report admits has not met “for some time,” and that the AG’s office has made “repeated requests” to meet. The Merit Rating Oversight Board was the last RMV office in charge of monitoring out-of-state license infractions — and missed Zhukovskyy’s May arrest in Connecticut that would have kept him off the road.