New Hampshirites will of course tell you that MA plates drive the absolute worst. The whole “x state plates drive bad” thing is like this little harmless parody of cultural xenophobia.

But trucks with NH plates drive the worst, no doubt.

[deleted]

Call her provider. These days phones can usually just work in Europe in my experience, with a small fee. If you tell them you’re going they can let you know what options they have. Last time I think I paid $10/day for AT&T to just work normally in Prague. Way more convenient than finding a sim over there in the airport or something.

[deleted]

If there's one thing I think we know about the RMV it's that they don't particularly care about having insane backlogs, sensible bureaucracy, or a good customer facing experience.

And hopefully no one else with him.

Exactly, the RMV operations and customer service could be vastly improved except for the fact that the only people that can enact real change are our legislators. Now if there were a chance that they might lose an election because their constituents were fed up they might do their job but for the most part, they have no opponent to fear. Bill Weld made it a priority and in a short time, the registry experience vastly improved. Instead of voting out these useless people who give us terrible public transport and RMV we vote D and head to AAA to try to get service.

For those in similar situations:

• not all rmv branches are created equally. For example, if you are a person of color, the Watertown RMV is a better choice than the one in Boston proper. It sucks and it shouldn't be this way, but that's the truth of the matter.
• if you have a system glitch that or a catch 22 like the OP, contact an Ombudsman. System glitches are common and difficult to override, and because of the power dynamics there is little incentive for RMV staff to bother fixing oddities. Sometimes even mentioning you are working with an Ombudsman is enough for your issue to be resolved, even if it was ongoing for years.
• If you registered to vote using the RMV be sure to keep an eye on your records to make sure nothing odd happened, least you lose your ability to vote. This can be done easily online and is easily resolved, but don't assume everything is fine
• If your understanding of the law is different than the RMV staff, be respectful and positive but clearly state what is going on. If you are friendly enough they will verify your understanding with their peers and admit mistake. If this doesn't happen it is often easier to try again at another date and hope you get a more educated teller.

One last update if they do drop it would provide us all some closure!

Thanks for letting us know! It’s been a fascinating story!

[deleted]

Car reported abandoned; check EZ pass data. It’s super easy.

When assessing residency for state income tax purposes, the rule is 183 days in a year, or 1 day with intent to establish residency in Massachusetts.

It's the latter one that requires tax officials to interpret intent, and the tax version of this RMV official could try the same thing. But tax doesn't have the canceling a driver license enforcement stick, and is all done after the fact.

A change to the car registration rules would likely follow something like the tax system rules, to cover requiring people who move to MA over half way through a year.

For thirty days? Yeah. More likely it was assumed abandoned. Also before they do this they usually issue multiple parking tickets. Sounds like OP dumped his car and never checked on it. It’s unusual in that neighborhood for a car to not move for more than a week or two and someone might have been pissed or concerned. The registration law is secondary to the problem that initiated this. He’s lucky it wasn’t towed and accruing $1000s in impound fees while he wasn’t checking on the vehicle. If he had moved his car even once guarantee this wouldn’t have happened.

[deleted]

Shouty ones in particular.

Although those in academia will claim that "homeless" is a pretty good description of junior faculty moving around all the time to try and get tenure...

I should’ve mentioned ATK in the toxic workplaces post. I knew several ppl who worked there when Chris Kimball was at the helm and they hated it and him. Hope it’s better now that he’s gone.

You're being downvoted, but this is not a bad take at all even if OP's situation sucks. Having lived in a neighborhood that people not from there used as a dumping ground for long term parking, it's irritating to come home from a long day of work and see the same car sitting where you could have parked. Whether you're a resident or not, it's kind of disrespectful to the neighbors to not move your car for a month.

This was my hunch from their initial post; that it had nothing to do with a couple parking tickets. I don't at all support the frustrating outcome with the RMV dealings, but am not surprised some random car just sitting there for 30 days (if this is indeed the case) drew the attention of a resident and pissed them off.

[deleted]

Transient professors sounds like a euphemism for homeless people 😂

[removed]

[deleted]

Im assuming the downvotes are from people who feel dumb because they didn’t realize you could adjust them. In the vast majority of cars it takes no effort, the housing is easily accessible.

I’ll check that out. Thanks for the tip!

understandable but no.... :-)

https://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html#9/42.4539/-71.6657

we need to turn off/down/shield nighttime lighting. In the context of high beams, it's like stationary high beams that will never turn off.

Broken record time: excessive nighttime lighting has done serious damage to core wildlife i.e Nocturnal animals and insects. There are also some strong indicators that excessive nighttime lighting affects human health and mental well-being.

It's not hard to control. Ideally, people would use Using dark-sky friendly lighting fixtures and motion-activated lighting. But quite frankly, it as simple as pointing light fixtures down and using lower-wattage, lower-color temperature bulbs.