North Carolina drivers who haven't had a ticket in years are being denied new licenses because their names have popped up in a national computer database that has flagged 42 million Americans as "problem drivers."

States are supposed to use the National Driver Register to warn each other about dangerous drivers who lost their licenses for impaired driving and other motor vehicle offenses.

But the register also penalizes good drivers for unresolved paperwork that is sometimes decades old. Some motorists describe the register as a blunt instrument that combines the clumsy weight of 50 state bureaucracies.

Greg C. Wait was a 20-year-old sailor when he got a ticket for driving drunk in upstate New York. He paid a fine and lost his Illinois license and his New York driving privileges for a year.

That was in 1983. This year, three states made him pay again.

Wait has a record of safe driving since he moved to Raleigh in 1996. But, citing objections from New York and Illinois, the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles refused to renew his license in September when he turned 45.

North Carolina DMV officials do not tell drivers that they check the National Driver Register for every one of the 2.5 million licenses they issue each year. Under state and federal law, if another state says your license there is revoked or suspended, you must clear your name before North Carolina can issue a new license or renew your old one.

North Carolina motorists have to cough up forgotten fees, pay off disputed tickets and then wait for the paperwork to go through before they regain the privilege to drive.

"Is this to generate revenue," Wait asked, "or to keep the highways safe?"

Some drivers admit they are guilty of failing to pay for speeding tickets in other states. But sometimes their problems have nothing to do with their driving.

Before Robert Chasse of Apex could get his North Carolina license in October, he had to pay New York $50 for plates he does not recall having kept when he left the state for Illinois in 1997.

"I agree with the concept of the National Driver Register," said Chasse, 61. "Some of the details are not always logical."

States began putting information into the National Driver Register in the 1980s, but North Carolina then checked only its applicants for new licenses. In 2003, federal auditors told North Carolina to start checking the database for duplicates and renewals, too.

Pay up -- or walk

Wait's license was due to expire in September. After 11 years as a North Carolina driver, he thought his trip to the DMV office would be routine.

"Then the guy said, 'Have you ever been in Illinois?' " Wait said. "I said, 'Yeah, 24 years ago, when I was in the Navy.' "

He had been on leave in New York, with an Illinois license, in 1983 when he was arrested and convicted for DUI. He was still in the Navy in 1984, serving in Australia, when Illinois and New York offered to reinstate his license and privilege.

He says he did not receive their letters and did not need an Illinois license again, anyway.

This year, N.C. DMV officials told Wait to settle his accounts with both states. He telephoned the Illinois DMV, which demanded a $70 reinstatement fee.

"They said, 'You pay the $70, or we don't remove the block from the National Driver Register,' " he said. "So I paid it."

New York officials accepted his $25 reinstatement check but said they would take up to two months to process it and clear his record.

"I quit drinking in 1984," said Wait, who works as a technical writer in Research Triangle Park. "Didn't I pay for this stuff when I was younger?"

Wait worked from home for 11 weeks and relied on his wife and his in-laws for transportation. On Dec. 14, New York restored his driving privilege, and North Carolina renewed his license.

He returned to his office for the first time last week.

Ghost of DUIs past

It took Victor B. Long a few years to regain his North Carolina license after a string of DUI convictions in the 1970s. His record is clean today. But North Carolina won't let Long drive anymore, because Virginia calls him a "habitual offender."

Long, 65, of Youngsville was using a Virginia license when he got his third DUI in North Carolina in 1977, he said. He briefly held a North Carolina license and then lost it as part of his punishment. The state restored his license in the 1980s and renewed it several times until he turned 65 in July.

This time, the National Driver Register indicated that Virginia had not reinstated his license since the 1970s. Unable to drive, Long was forced to quit his job.

He says he and his wife have spent about $700 for Virginia court fees, a lawyer in Richmond and a counselor in Henderson, who is supposed to certify that Long does not need substance-abuse treatment.

Now he's waiting for a Virginia judge to evaluate his sobriety.

"I haven't taken a drink for 30 years," Long said. "I have a clean driving record, and they penalize me now. It's wrong, and nobody in the state of North Carolina will help me."

In 2006, state agencies checked the National Driver Register for the names of 70 million license applicants and found 9 million of them listed as problem drivers. In all, out of more than 200 million licensed drivers in the United States, 42 million are tagged as problem drivers in the register.

In October, a federal audit report on the National Driver Register faulted states for waiting as long as a year to flag recent violators and for improperly clearing some drivers whose licenses were still revoked. The report did not discuss whether people listed as problem drivers are treated fairly.

A spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said drivers should take any complaints to state motor vehicle agencies.

"Those are issues they need to take up with the state where the license was issued," spokesman Ray Tyson said. "All we are is a repository for the information provided by the states."

Wayne Hurder, North Carolina's deputy commissioner of motor vehicles, says state officials have helped Wait and Long work out their problems with other states. Except for its obligation to respect the National Driver Register listings, North Carolina had no reason to keep either driver off the road.

"Looking at their records, I would certainly sympathize that their history shows that they've learned their lessons," Hurder said of Wait and Long. "Unfortunately, the way the law is, you have to close out the book from that period of time when you had some driving problems."

North Carolina DMV officials often field calls from former residents unable to get licenses in other states, Hurder said, such as former Fort Bragg soldiers who forgot about traffic tickets received years ago in Cumberland County.

'86 ticket bites again

Police in Summersville, W.Va., do not recall whether they gave Frank B. Stitt a speeding ticket in 1986. But Pennsylvania said this year that he never paid it. In November, North Carolina refused to renew his license.

"I used to drive through Summersville, but I don't remember being stopped there," said Stitt, 77, who lives in Raleigh.

A Summersville police clerk couldn't find a record of his ticket.

"She said, 'We'll have to go look in the basement. We weren't on computers back then. Give me a few days to look for it.' They were really nice in West Virginia."

Summersville wrote a letter saying Stitt was in the clear, and he wrote a $25 check to the Pennsylvania DMV. Pennsylvania restored his driving privileges last week, and he renewed his North Carolina license.

"The reason for this law was to get dangerous people," Stitt said. "But it just was written all-encompassing, going back to everybody, to see if they ever had citations that they never paid."

Other drivers describe similar difficulties with the National Driver Register but say they are embarrassed to have their names made public. Some are afraid to let friends or employers know they can't renew their licenses.

Bryan S. Bottger says he never paid for a New Jersey speeding ticket he received in 1983, when he was 17, a few days before his father's job took the family overseas. It will cost more than $900 to settle it now.

"I haven't dealt with it," said Bottger, a Durham restaurant manager. "My wife's mad, because I've got this issue I haven't resolved, and it's going to cost me money.

"I can't not drive. I've got to get to work. You need to get around in a car. They call it a privilege, but I don't know anybody that doesn't need it as a necessity."

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