License suspension comes as news to prosecutor in Kansas City

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- To his surprise, Jackson County prosecutor Mike Sanders learned recently that his driver's license had been suspended by the state -- for more than a year.

Sanders is back in good standing now, after he verified that he no longer owned the car on which he'd been asked to provide proof of insurance. But his experience calls attention to an often-overlooked or ignored requirement of state law that results in suspensions for thousands of Missouri motorists.

Since 2002, the Missouri Driver and Vehicle Services Bureau in the Department of Revenue has been taking action when it gets reports from insurance companies that a motor vehicle is no longer under coverage. Every day it randomly picks about 300 names from that list and sends letters asking the recipients if they still own the vehicle in question and whether they have insurance on it, as the law requires.

If there's no response, the department sends a second request, this one saying that the driver's license will be suspended if there's no reply.

Last year, the state said, it suspended the licenses of 7,865 drivers for not properly answering the insurance questionnaire.

Sanders said he never received a second letter about a 1998 Honda that he and his wife, Georgia, once owned. He said his wife responded to the first letter.

Ruth Otto, a revenue department manager, said her agency had no notice that the car had been sold until last month, after Sanders had been pulled over by a state trooper. The prosecutor was dumbfounded when the trooper told him he was driving with a suspended license.

"I told him it was a mistake," Sanders said. "He said, 'Yeah, that's what everyone says.'"

The charge was dropped Monday by assistant Cooper County prosecutor Bob Reinhardt. Reinhardt said he comes across cases like Sanders' a few times a month.