Victim of a computer crash

The car directly in front of Charles Beyer's white van stopped at the red light at a Long Beach intersection; so, naturally, Beyer stopped behind it. He glanced into the side-mounted, rear view mirror and saw a Buick barreling straight for him, clearly unable to avoid slamming into the back of the van. Beyer pressed his right foot down hard on the brake pedal, braced himself and winced when he felt the impact.

He composed himself, looked around, determined himself intact and got out to see how the driver of the Buick had fared. Just then, another car screeched to a halt. Its enraged operator jumped out of the car, ran for the Buick, reached in and extracted the ignition keys. A police officer arrived next. The man who ripped the car keys out of the Buick explained to Beyer that the Buick had first smashed into his car, then swerved into a woman pedestrian who was apparently killed on impact, then continued down the road to the rear of Beyer's van. The man with the keys had commandeered another car to chase the Buick.

Meanwhile, as Beyer listened, the Buick driver, whose head had slammed into the Buick's windshield, stumbled around the street, bellowing to the police officer that Beyer had stopped short in front of him without affording the warning customarily provided by working brake lights. On examination, however, and despite the van's extensive damages, the brake lights worked. The police officer arrested the Buick driver, initially charging him with leaving the scene of an accident, and, according to the accident reports filed later that day, took him to a local hospital for observation, treatment and a Breathalyzer test.

Two weeks later, Beyer returned home from work, switched on his answering machine and heard the recorded voice of his insurance agent convey the abrupt message: "Nice accident. Call me in three years." Beyer telephoned the agent and deduced after a bizarre conversation that when police personnel fed the accident report information into the state's computer system, someone had switched the names of the Buick operator and the van operator. Though the other driver was charged in the death of the woman, Beyer was now listed as having been involved in three accidents on the same day, including one that resulted in a pedestrian death; as having left the scene of two of the accidents; and as having driven a motor vehicle while measurably intoxicated. He had also inherited warrants for arrest for failure to respond to a series of traffic summonses.

Beyer called his father, Stanley, a Manhattan lawyer. Stanley listened to the story, mulled over its vast, bureaucratic implications and then told his son that he was - in one monosyllabic, herein-unprintable, Anglo-Saxon euphemism - headed for discomfort, inconvenience and frustration. The father mapped out a tedious but unavoidable strategy for the son to follow.

First, Beyer drove to the precinct to obtain a copy of the police report. It was no longer at the precinct but had been entered into the computer at police headquarters. He drove to Mineola, where he learned that he could not obtain a copy, though he could read a microfilmed version on screen. For a printed copy, he had to drive to an- other building in Mineola and pay $5. He did. Sure enough, the police report showed that he was at fault in three, nearly simultaneous accidents, drunk, and responsible for a pedestrian death. He was also listed as having not responded to a summons for driving at 70 miles per hour in a 45-m.p.h. zone, answerable, now, in Hauppauge. He drove to Hauppauge and stood on line until a clerk told him that he could only plead guilty at that office and pay a fine. If he wanted to plead not guilty, he would have to appear in Queens, where the summons had been issued. He drove to Lefrak City and after filling out three not-guilty forms for three separate violations and standing on three lines and waiting in court for more than an hour, he appeared before Administrative Law Judge Richard Kramer, whom Beyer described as the "nicest man in the world." Kramer laughed through Beyer's tale and then stamped every item "Dismissed." Next, Beyer drove to the City of Long Beach to clear up another moving violation, which a sympathetic Judge Jack Mackston dismissed, "in the interests of justice."

Finally, having cleared up all the violations mistakenly attributed to his driving record, Beyer drove to the Motor Vehicle Department office in Westbury to present the evidence that would permit the department to amend its computer entries filed under Beyer's name. He stood on line and eventually appeared before an examiner who searched the mind of the computer and discovered that Charles Beyer was no longer listed in the State of New York as possessing or having ever possessed a license. Beyer then produced his driver's license as proof of its, and his, existence. "I'm sorry," the clerk said. "I know it's bureaucracy in motion, but you'll have to reapply and retake the written test and the road test, too."