Remember when I said I was having fun in San Francisco last month? Well, there’s more to the story. A lot more.


Upon my arrival here to California, I decided to not change my driver’s license and registration over from Texas so that I could save money. I knew that once I changed everything, it would cost me more than I could afford at the time. It was just easier this way.

Fast forward to last month. I drive up to San Francisco to visit a friend from Texas. It’s about a six and a half hour drive from my house to my destination. For the most part, the whole drive was awesome. No problems, fast speeds, I was living large!

I entered San Francisco at the Civic Center exit off of the 101 which was luckily the best exit to take. I pass through the Civic Center area, recognizing the area from my previous trips to the city. It was certainly exciting! I was almost to my destination when I come up to a stop sign. Sitting at the opposite traffic stop sign was a motorcycle cop.

He spots me.
He sees something that’s missing. It’s my inspection sticker… it’s not there.

I peeled it off because it was expired and had no reason to sit there and display my illegal status. However, that seemed to backfire once this cop decided to pull me over.

At this point I had no idea what was going to happen. I didn’t have very many options. I was hoping that he was just going to ask me a question and move me on my way. Instead, he questions my inspection sticker. My instinct told me not to lie about it, so I told him that it had expired. He asked where I lived.

I really, seriously thought about telling him I drove in from Texas. I was so close. But, I didn’t know what exactly he would do because all he could do is call and verify the information on my driver’s license. But, the address on the card was old, none of my family lived there anymore, I had no inspection sticker, and revealing all of this information was bound to get me in way too much trouble. So I told him the truth.

That backfired. He asked me how long I had lived here.

“For a while,” I answered.

“Sir, I asked you how long you lived here.”

“Um, over a year”

“And how long has your car been in California?” he questioned.

“Um, about a month. I know I need to get my license transferred over.”

“Well, I’ll help you speed that along.”

He totally didn’t believe me, however he had no proof that I was lying so he had to take my word. This is what could have gotten me in to a lot of trouble. But, my reaction was solely based on the fact that being here for only a month was much less likely to send me to jail or get in big trouble than saying I lived here and drove here for over a year. I knew the law, but I had to play stupid.

After another trip to his motorcycle, the cop came back to inform me…

“I’m going to have to impound your car.” He didn’t give a crap that I had all this stuff in my car. He was just a big jerk, though polite.

“Can I get my stuff out of the car?” I had no idea what exactly was going to happen until a few moments later, when I decided to take just about everything out of the car.

“I highly suggest you get whatever you can.”

So there, after making a phone call to my friend a few blocks up to come pick me up, I began to grab almost everything out my car that was worth anything to me. I had a lot more stuff than I would have thought, so I left a few things in there that didn’t matter like a company jacket and some oil bottles. Then a few minutes passed before my friend’s sister arrived with her new, fuel efficient Prius. I loaded my stuff and formally introduced myself, reminding her that we’d met on one previous occasion, which she didn’t remember.

So basically, I had to camp out at her place the rest of the weekend until I could get to the DMV and take care of business. So why wait until the following week? Because I didn’t have my passport or birth certificate, and the car had to be transferred into my name. If I hadn’t transferred the car’s title, I wouldn’t have been able to claim it from the pound.

I decided that I needed to just forget about this incident and enjoy my weekend, which for the most part I did. Sure, it was on my mind a lot, but at least I caught up with my friends and saw a lot more of the city.

Fast forward to the following Tuesday. It turned out that on Monday the DMV was closed for some reason. Great. One more day worth of impound fees to pay. I got up bright and early to be one of the first give in line for the DMV.

So, the rest of the day was spent walking or riding the buses all over the city to the San Francisco Hall of Justice, the DMV and the impound. All in all, the whole process took me about six and a half hours, partly because I got lost trying to find the impound.

Once I took care of business, I high-tailed it out of that city as fast as I could. Man, what a pain in the arse.

So the next month I spent trying to figure out everything. Even though my license and registration was valid in Texas, I got a few violations written up for having no valid license, registration, etc. One of the violations was written up as a misdemeanor, and I had signed the ticket stating that this next Tuesday (August 23) I would go to court to show that I took care of busy and either plead my innocence or guilt. I had no idea what I was going to do. I sought out advice from websites, people, and whatever I could to figure out what to do. I really had no idea what was going to happen because I could be fined up to $2,500 or up to a year in jail. I always try to just expect the worst and spent lots of time trying to figure out what to do.

Then this week I called back up to the courthouse to make sure everything was in order. After a couple of phone calls to the criminal and traffic divisions, it turns out that my ticket was demoted from a misdemeanor to an infraction, thus it did not appear in the criminal division’s database and only in traffic division. WHAT A RELIEF! This saves me a huge trip, a lot of money, and a lot of grief and stress.

So, what lesson did I learn? Well, take care of business so that this doesn’t happen again. Or, don’t get caught.