License suspensions up to over 2,000 after fatal motorcycle crash

MassDOT, in conjunction with the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, have released an update in wake of the failures that were found after a horrific fatal motorcycle crash in New Hampshire involving West Springfield’s Volodymyr Zhukovskyy.

According to Marie Breen, MassDOT General Counsel and Jamey Tesler, Acting Registrar of Motor Vehicles, the three-step process described in the July 1st report has been completed for all of the unprocessed out-of-state violations, both the backlog found at Quincy headquarters and the 72 boxes of violation notices dating back to 2011 retrieved from the Concord archives. The cumulative number of actions taken totals 2,039 suspensions issued pertaining to 1,607 unique drivers.

According to the report, the data exchange and process for reviewing all 5.2 million Massachusetts licensure records against the National Driver Registry (NDR) via a batch process has begun. At this point, although the batch processing has begun, they have no results to report.

The report states that an initial meeting occurred with the Massachusetts Inspector General’s Internal Special Audit Unit and the US DOT Inspector General’s office. Next week the Registry of Motor Vehicles is meeting with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). An end-to-end forensic review of RMV processes with respect to out of state notifications for both CDL and other licenses has begun.

Zhukovskyy, 23, pleaded not guilty to negligent homicide and had an OUI arrest in Connecticut that should have flagged his license for suspension.