Baker Says His Office Was Unaware Of Problems At RMV

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker faces reporters during a news conference, Friday, July 5, 2019, at the Statehouse, in Boston. Baker took questions about an investigation into the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles in the wake of a June 21, 2019 collision that took the lives of seven motorcyclists, in Randolph, N.H.

Arjun Singh is a producer for Boston Public Radio. A California native, Arjun moved to Boston to study international relations at Boston University. Prior to working at WGBH, Arjun worked at a tech company and for a political campaign.

September 19, 2019

Updated August 07, 2023

Gov. Charlie Baker insisted on Thursday that his office was not aware that out-of-state notifications about Massachusetts drivers' records were not being processed by the Registry of Motor Vehicles until after a deadly crash in New Hampshire in June that killed seven people.

“It was a giant fail, and it was a fail in many ways that led to an awful, terrible tragedy,” Baker said during an interview with Boston Public Radio. “If I had known about it I would have fixed it, and once I did know about it I did.”

Preliminary findings by the law firm Grant Thornton related to the crash say the RMV had been aware since at least 2016 that out-of-state notifications about drivers' records were not being processed. The report also includes an Oct. 7, 2016 memo by RMV officials describing a backlog of unprocessed notifications from other states about Massachusetts drivers, but says Grant Thornton has not to date "seen evidence that this memorandum was emailed outside the RMV." However, the "review of email communication is ongoing," the reporter further states.

It is unclear when the governor himself was made aware of the memo.

“The RMV’s Driver Control Unit has identified a backlog of paper-based-out-of-state citations that have yet to be entered on the driving records of Massachusetts operators,” the memo states. “These citations point to Massachusetts operators who have been cited and found either responsible or guilty of committing certain motor vehicle traffic violations in fellow jurisdictions.”

Baker said Thursday that the notifications sent to his office were strictly about the implementation of technology and not about a backlog of unprocessed notifications.

“[Those communications were] actually a comment on the ATLAS platform that was installed in the registry to replace ours, which had been there since the mid-1980s, ” Baker said. “Once we knew about the backlog, we jumped on it.”

The Baker administration's level of knowledge about the RMV’s inner-workings has been under scrutiny since The Boston Globe reported that Baker’s office was heavily involved in reducing wait times at the RMV — even to the point of dictating where the RMV logo should go on a web page.

Listen: Ask The Governor: 09/19/19

Since the revelations, Baker said that his office has been taking proactive steps to solve the problem. He said Thursday that 5,200 licenses have been suspended and cast more of the blame on outdated technology rather than a lapse in oversight from his office.

“Someday I think it would behoove all 50 states to come up with a far more technologically sophisticated National Driver Registry where, when the state of Massachusetts sends a notification to the National Driver Registry about somebody on Massachusetts roads who’s from New York, the driver registry would automatically ping the state of New York, and tell them,” Baker said. “In the meantime, everybody’s opening up a lot of mail.”

The public was first made aware of the backlog of unprocessed notifications after Vladamir Zhuvovskyy, a West Springfield resident, was driving a truck that slammed into a group of 10 motorcyclists in New Hampshire on June 21. Seven people died in the crash. After Zhukovskyy was arrested, it was revealed his license had been suspended several times in other states for drunk driving.

According to Grant Thornton’s report, Connecticut notified the Massachusetts RMV on May 29, 2019 that Zhuvovskyy refused to take a breathalyzer test there on May 11. The notification also said that the state planned to revoke Zhukovskyy’s driving privileges at a later date. Despite an RMV official being aware of the notification, the RMV took no action.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Grant Thornton's report found that the Oct. 2016 memo by the RMV was sent to the Office of the Governor-Legal Department. The report said it could not confirm that the memo was sent outside of the RMV as of its publication, but the firm is still investigating.

Correction: This article has been updated to clarify Baker's statements about communications between his office and the RMV.