Blog Prompt #13: Best Op-Ed

After receiving feedback from Dr. Macek about my op-eds, my second op-ed turns out to be my better one. Have a read and I hope you enjoy it!

Mark Your Calendars

As if we all don’t have enough to remember and worry about, the state of Illinois knocks us down again. Every year vehicle owners must renew their license plate registration sticker and we all used to get reminders in the mail to do so.

Well not anymore!

This was quite an uproar when the state announced that they will no longer be sending out the mailed reminders for the sticker renewal. I can’t say that I blame anyone though. 

I recently had to renew my license plate sticker and without the reminder from my dad to do so, I would have had to pay a late fee on top of the original sticker amount. This got me questioning why the state got rid of the mailed reminders in the first place. Is it because they are lazy and selfish?

First off, the state of Illinois is money hungry. Just like colleges and universities, Illinois will try to take every penny you own. Sending out the reminders to renew your license plate stickers costs them some money because of the printing and postage. How will the state survive with a hit like that?

According to Secretary of State Jesse White, Illinois spent about $450,000 sending out license plate sticker renewal reminders each month. There are about 11 million drivers in the entire state, so let’s hope everyone forgets instead.

The state is able to make up for the cost of printing the reminders and mailing them out because each sticker renewal is over $100. Postage costs less than 50 cents.

So instead of sending out a friendly reminder to renew your license plate sticker to save the 50 cents, Illinois will hope you forget so they can squeeze even more money out of everyone’s pocket on top of it. They save the money from printing and postage and may even get a few forgetful people having to pay a late fee.

White says he wants to be able to serve the people of Illinois for as long as possible, so why not just cut out minor resources that could greatly affect some? Great idea White! How is this minor change helping serve the people of Illinois?

The people of Illinois aren’t really being served if they are left to remember to renew their license plate sticker on their own, especially if they have gotten so use to receiving the reminder. Whoever said life is like the survival of the fittest wasn’t kidding.

One way the state feels that they haven’t walked over us completely is that we are given the option to signup online to receive notices, but what about the elderly people who don’t use the Internet or even know how – or anyone for that matter.

Well, the second way the state still feels that they are helping serve the people of Illinois, is that they will have to physically go into a facility to sign up for reminders if they choose.

White claims that there is a budget crisis, which I believe, but I’m sure there is a simple solution to fixing the problem without completely changing the system. What about a phone call that reminds everyone, or would that cost too much money and effort, too?

This new change for the state is a really big inconvenience. The age of technology has definitely changed the way the world operates and we unfortunately must be ready to move with it.

Frankly, I think that the state is just too lazy to do their job. Sure, there may be a budget crisis, but cutting out the process of mailing sticker renewal reminders wont help turn things around. And it definitely wont help better serve the people of the state anyway because they will be stuck with paying more than they should be paying if they forget.

There are bigger fish to fry and this issue has caused a bigger upset that I think anyone could have predicted. The reminders need to be reinstated and the state needs to look for another avenue to make a bigger impact on the financial issues of Illinois.