Insurance verification study 'wasteful,' lawmaker says

Thursday, April 19, 2001

The Associated Press

TRENTON -- An assemblyman is wondering why the state is only now poised to spend $500,000 on an auto insurance verification system promised as part of a 1998 reform package.

Assembly Democratic Leader Joseph V. Doria Jr. of Bayonne wants the state to abandon "an inherently wasteful feasibility study" and immediately implement the program designed to help police detect uninsured drivers.

"The auto insurance reform law mandated insurance verification, not bureaucratic procrastination," Doria said in a statement. "This $500,000 feasibility study has all the earmarks of a wasteful exercise."

Under the auto insurance reform law, the state Division of Motor Vehicles was instructed to create a computerized network for verifying which drivers had insurance by November 1998.

DMV spokesman Dana Sullivan agreed with Doria about the slow pace of implementation. But he disagreed with the lawmaker's characterization that the money is targeted for a feasibility study.

The agency was sidetracked in recent years by the new auto inspection system, which was beset by numerous technical bugs and long waiting lines upon its start-up in December 1999, and by preparing for Y2K glitcheswhich never materialized, [now that's funny :-§] Sullivan said.

"Frankly, we share the assemblyman's frustration," he said. "Now we can turn our full attention to this."

Sullivan said the $500,000 is needed to set up the new computer system, not to study whether it would work.

"We see this as a necessary first step in solving some technical problems," he said.

The state must devise a system compatible with the more than 100 insurance companies that do business in the state.

The Bergen Record

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001