April 19, 1994

Installing an Illinois license plate on my car. My first year in Carbondale I retained all my New Jersey car related situations- license/registration/insurance/inspection. (this is legal for full time students from out of state) I had been told that my NJ based insurance company would lower my rates considerably, since my car was now located out of New Jersey. This turned out not to be the case. So I went out and got auto insurance from an Illinois based agent of a national insurance company, saved about 2/3 of what I would have paid. Toward the end of my second year, I decided to complete the transition and convert my driver's license and registration to Illinois. This both saved me money and meant that I wouldn't have to waste half a day getting my car inspected on my summer trip home (or any other time since downstate Illinois required no auto inspections). The process was made extremely simple by the fact that the local DMV was usually empty. On the day I went to take care of this I was the only customer, a big change from NJ where getting anything done at the DMV usually meant waiting in multiple lines and a minimum of about 2 hours. It took me about 20 minutes to get my new plates, take the Illinois written driver's test, and have a new photo license produced. Back home, I put on my new plates and registration sticker.