RichardBronosky
20080418064
As a database administrator I am well aware of the importance of data accuracy. When I was being handcuffed and arrested for possession of a stolen vehicle, I was wishing that others found data accuracy as important as I do.
So here is the story - I notice a police car following very closely behind me. Hmmm I'm doing 39 in a 35. I'd like to speed up because of how close he is, but I won't. I notice another police car coming the opposite direction makes a U-Turn to get behind me. And then the lights come on. I pull over into this lovely business park you see in the photo and an officer approaches. He asks for "license, registration, and paperwork proving ownership of the vehicle". I laugh and say, "I've never heard that last part before." It turns out that the plate on my vehicle matches a stole car from Phoenix Arizona. They read my "VIN number" to the dispatcher and she says "That's a match. This is the stolen vehicle." They frisk me, handcuff me, and have me sit on the "push bar" (bumper) of the squad car. Over the next 2 hours they ask me the same 3 questions 60 different ways. "When were you last in Arizona? Have you been in any domestic disputes that may cause your father-in-law (the title holder of this, my wife's, vehicle) to report this vehicle stolen? Do you have any drugs, guns, knives, or weapons in the vehicle?"
Through it all I kept imagining the Apostle Paul in prison writing letters to the the Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon. I remained clam, polite, and shared details of my life with the officers who where engaging me. I told them how I was a database administrator and I knew how these kinds of data errors can happen. I told them that my father-in-law was a police sergeant and I understand that police officers have procedures they follow and that I needed to just wait until everything got figured out. I did, however, have to remind one of them that this is a mistake, I would be let go, and so we might as well be polite to each other now as to not make this awkward later.
The mixup turned out to be this - when the officer following me ran my plate number, dispatch told him it matched a stolen vehicle from Arizona. He pulls me over to get more information. Everything is okay so far. When he reads the VIN to dispatch, she gets a "match" that it is the VIN number for the Georgia plate. Here is the problem. Every innocent person's VIN matches their plate. What would not have matched if the dispatcher had done this correctly was my VIN and the VIN of the stolen vehicle. I asked several times, "So my plate matches the plate of a stolen vehicle from Arizona and the VIN numbers match?" They kept saying yes. I chuckled and told them that my 6 character plate matching a 6 character plate from one of the other 49 states is almost a statistical certainty. The odds of someone keying in one character of the 16 character the VIN for a stolen vehicle incorrectly and it matching mine, it also pretty fair. If my VIN is one character away from another it's very likely to be the same year, make, model, and color... At least I would think so. But the likelihood of my VIN matching the mis-typed VIN of another vehicle with the same plate is very, very, very low. But, I fear that my explanation didn't sound as credible when being given by a guy in handcuffs and surrounded by 4 police cruisers.
20080418064
As a database administrator I am well aware of the importance of data accuracy. When I was being handcuffed and arrested for possession of a stolen vehicle, I was wishing that others found data accuracy as important as I do.
So here is the story - I notice a police car following very closely behind me. Hmmm I'm doing 39 in a 35. I'd like to speed up because of how close he is, but I won't. I notice another police car coming the opposite direction makes a U-Turn to get behind me. And then the lights come on. I pull over into this lovely business park you see in the photo and an officer approaches. He asks for "license, registration, and paperwork proving ownership of the vehicle". I laugh and say, "I've never heard that last part before." It turns out that the plate on my vehicle matches a stole car from Phoenix Arizona. They read my "VIN number" to the dispatcher and she says "That's a match. This is the stolen vehicle." They frisk me, handcuff me, and have me sit on the "push bar" (bumper) of the squad car. Over the next 2 hours they ask me the same 3 questions 60 different ways. "When were you last in Arizona? Have you been in any domestic disputes that may cause your father-in-law (the title holder of this, my wife's, vehicle) to report this vehicle stolen? Do you have any drugs, guns, knives, or weapons in the vehicle?"
Through it all I kept imagining the Apostle Paul in prison writing letters to the the Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon. I remained clam, polite, and shared details of my life with the officers who where engaging me. I told them how I was a database administrator and I knew how these kinds of data errors can happen. I told them that my father-in-law was a police sergeant and I understand that police officers have procedures they follow and that I needed to just wait until everything got figured out. I did, however, have to remind one of them that this is a mistake, I would be let go, and so we might as well be polite to each other now as to not make this awkward later.
The mixup turned out to be this - when the officer following me ran my plate number, dispatch told him it matched a stolen vehicle from Arizona. He pulls me over to get more information. Everything is okay so far. When he reads the VIN to dispatch, she gets a "match" that it is the VIN number for the Georgia plate. Here is the problem. Every innocent person's VIN matches their plate. What would not have matched if the dispatcher had done this correctly was my VIN and the VIN of the stolen vehicle. I asked several times, "So my plate matches the plate of a stolen vehicle from Arizona and the VIN numbers match?" They kept saying yes. I chuckled and told them that my 6 character plate matching a 6 character plate from one of the other 49 states is almost a statistical certainty. The odds of someone keying in one character of the 16 character the VIN for a stolen vehicle incorrectly and it matching mine, it also pretty fair. If my VIN is one character away from another it's very likely to be the same year, make, model, and color... At least I would think so. But the likelihood of my VIN matching the mis-typed VIN of another vehicle with the same plate is very, very, very low. But, I fear that my explanation didn't sound as credible when being given by a guy in handcuffs and surrounded by 4 police cruisers.