“How did they get their license?!”
I get that question a lot, especially when I’m giving behind-the-wheel instruction to new students and another impatient driver breaks the law and jeopardizes our safety. Like the other day when the driver of a grey Jeep two cars behind us decided to cross the double-yellow lines, drive against traffic for about 25 feet, then turned right against the light without yielding to the pedestrians who were about to cross.
“They were not driving like that when they took the test,” was my usual answer — until the news broke in July that some DMV officials awarded licenses to drivers without evaluating their driving skills in exchange for bribes as big as $2,000.
Now my answer might have to be, “Maybe they paid for it.”
State DMV officials claim they are doing everything in their power to claw back these fraudulently obtained licenses — but as a former DMV examiner and driving instructor myself, I’m skeptical. The rot likely runs far deeper than what law enforcement agents have uncovered — and it’ll take real reforms to prevent further misconduct.
In the 131-count indictment, Staten Island District Attorney Michael E. McMahon revealed “countless acts of tampering with state records and identity theft” carried out by T & E Driving School in Queens in cahoots with DMV workers in Staten Island, including three road test examiners. McMahon estimated the number of fraudulent licenses issued by the DMV workers to be “in the hundreds, maybe thousands.”
Despite the DMV’s claims that it will invalidate licenses that were fraudulently obtained, my experience as both a former DMV-certified road test examiner and driving school owner makes me less than optimistic.
I was told by some DMV employees that they have seen a small increase recently in the amount of drivers turning in their revoked licenses, but nowhere near the “hundreds maybe thousands” that the news reported.
The fact that the exact number of fraudulent licenses on the road is currently unknown, along with the reports that the scam was uncovered by an undercover NYPD officer — who either came across one of the school’s social media posts or was tipped off about the scheme — indicates the possibility that much more fraud may persist undetected.
In the interest of full disclosure, I know the owners of T & E. We crossed paths many times at the road test locations and always greeted each other with a smile and handshake. His grey Toyotas were always packed with students, which got my attention but didn’t raise any flags — I knew he worked seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
I also interacted often with the three DMV employees accused of accepting the payoffs. Over the years, I never heard or suspected any wrongdoing. But, because of my six years of experience as a DMV road test examiner in the 1990s, I was not shocked by the news that they’d been committing alleged fraud.
When I was an examiner, we were told not to test everyone who arrived in a car, since some license applicants might bring along someone else to do the road test. However, I couldn’t help but notice that some of the examiners were testing all four of the students that arrived in one car. Another thing I noticed was that it seemed to always be the newer employees who were doing so.
“They will target you,” we were warned — the implication being that fraudsters could ID which examiner might be easier to dupe. We were taught how to spot a “substitute.” That’s what we called someone who showed up to take a road test for someone else. They usually showed up in a floppy hat and shades and almost always gave their date of birth instead of that of the person they were substituting for. If they were good impersonators, we would be forced to go on the road and conduct the test where, if you have done it long enough, it was easy to tell the difference between a new driver and an experienced driver trying to drive like a new driver.
In October, news broke that the DMV in Garden City saw seven arrested, including a DMV supervisor, in an “alleged scheme to sell commercial permits to truck drivers who never showed up for their required tests.” According to the Nassau County DA, “drivers paid a woman to wear disguises and take exams for them.”
Instead of floppy hats, it was fake beards and shades.
Following the scandals, most fingers have pointed at the DMV employees. An attorney for one of the defendants blamed a “toxic culture inside the DMV. One DMV employee described the problem to me as “too much power with too little pay and supervision.”
DMV has implemented more changes in the last month. Before the start of a road test, officials will now take your photo in front of the car in which you’re testing. The examiners will also photograph all of the required paperwork — vehicle registration, insurance, permit, and pre-licensing certificate.
These changes can eliminate the “ghost exams” where a road test examiner inputs one's “test results” without them being present. What they don’t do is monitor what goes on once the actual driving begins. What happens during those 15 minutes of driving cannot be verified.
In a day when dashcams and body cameras are readily available, the DMV still uses an honor system. Would we know if someone slipped the examiner a few hundred at the first stop sign? Or maybe they let someone’s mistakes slide in exchange for a phone number. When you call the DMV information line, a message tells us that the call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes. Are those phone calls more important or dangerous than a driving test?
The DMV may not have the staffing or funding to monitor or review the footage and audio, but something must be done to stop people from paying bribes to avoid taking their driving test.
For now, I’ll advise drivers to scan their mirrors often and pedestrians to look both ways before crossing. Clearly no one else is looking out for us.
