Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 06-25-25_WEDNESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Credit Repair expert Paul Oster digs into the exploding trend of BUY NOW PAY LATER, peeps getting credit killed for junk. Then we revisit the topic on should we retest for drivers licenses, lots of calls.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Clauser Drilling dot com. Here's Bill Meyer. And no, that is not my opinion. What goes on here? But when you take political advertising, you take it all, folks. It's the way it goes.

It's a I know people are already writing me. Why are you running that? OK, it's well, because they're paying us. It's 10 minutes after seven people are already writing me, why are you running that? Okay. It's a, well, because they're paying us. It's a 10 minutes after seven and everybody has to get paid including Paul Oster, Paul Oster, America's credit repair man, you hear him all over in the media. He is the founder and CEO of credit repair firm

Better Qualified in Eaton town, New Jersey. In fact, his website is betterqualified.com. Paul, how the heck are you? It's great to have you back preparing credit. Thanks for having me back on, Billy. I appreciate it. All right. I was just logging into my one of my credit cards the other day and I pay them off every month. It's just the way it is and life is good and it's a very different from back when I was 20 and a little bit more to the bone. That's the way it was in those days.

And my credit card company ended up saying, hey, we now give you a free FICO score. Thinking, wonderful. Okay, fine. So I checked that and it's just like, all right, you're golden, baby. So they're telling me I'm happy with that. But then I'm reading that FICO is now changing stuff. And they're now going to use those buy now pay later. And you see it on every website now. Hey, you can break down this door dash purchase for, you know, four payments of $15.99 a piece for your Kung Pao chicken or whatever it is, right? And so buy now pay later is going to get folded into credit.

Now there could be some good sides to this, but some bad sides too. What's the story? Bill, I think it's all bad, right? So the first thing is why are consumers using these platforms and programs? The bottom line is they already maxed out their credit cards and this is kind of like the last breath. I know what the marketing geniuses say it's interest free loans and payments but their delinquency rates are growing exponentially every single day which tells us what we thought from the beginning is that these programs are being used by the underbank by the underserved by the people who are already struggling with credit card debt so this now coming on to the credit reports

and being included. In the FICO scoring model. Is it's not going to be a good thing they don't even know. That it all it's so you have to remember there's three different credit bureaus. That collect all the data then they plug it into

whatever FICO scoring model. The lender is going to use no lenders. Most lenders are using- you know for mortgages it's FICO oh for the last major update was FICO it was in oh nine. So it takes a long time for FICO to update

their models it takes even longer for banks to adopt the new scoring models but if and when this actually gets adopted on a wide scale it's not going to be good for the average consumer for sure. Why won't it be good for the average consumer with this new FICO? Well it's going to depend on on how they actually code it right so these are very short-term loans so they're going to hurt the average consumer's credit history, which is about 15% of our overall scores. It's also going to add a lot of different

new tradelines and accounts in a very short period of time, which is also bad for the FICO scoring model. Oh, because they're looking at you as opening up lots and lots of different credit at the same time, right? Yeah. Okay. If you use a traditional credit card, you can use it 10 times in one day. It's all under one account. These are all new separate trade lines and accounts. And then, are they going to report it as a credit card or is it an installment contract in an actual loan. Not to mention you could get hit with a hard inquiry. It's not very clear when you're applying for these- plans whether or not

it's going to actually be a hard inquiry and hard inquiries there's always a risk that it's going to you know bring your scores down. So people have to be really careful and question the fact. do I really need to use a buy now pay later plan?

It's really convenient because half the time all you have to do is take your you just click the little button and they just make it automatic. It seems like there's no approval whatsoever. At least that's the way it looks to me. I've not succumbed to doing that yet because I kind of feel that there's a rat hiding within buy now pay later. Yeah, your spot your spot on they've made the approval process very very easy And basically unless you know, you filed bankruptcy five times. You're gonna get approved. So it's it's Instantaneous it's you know instant gratification for the for the bar for the buyer It's instantaneous. It's instant gratification for the buyer.

But in the long run, this is going to hurt people. And what you mentioned, it's not just DoorDash. Look at the big festival they just had not too long ago, Coachella. We now know that most of the tickets were bought in buy now, pay later plans, and the goods and services merchandise sold at the festival they was all sold using these plans it just doesn't make sense to me consumers have to use a great deal of caution when getting involved in these things because again I think overall this is going to do some damage to everybody's credit scores. Yeah this could be of real concern especially for young

people too because I remember when I was just pretty young, I was not always using credit wisely. I got better with time. And something tells me that if there had been a lot of just instantaneous buy now, pay later, and everything that I wanted at that time when I was 19 was all of a sudden my oyster. You know, I just go ahead and, you know, just go crazy. I could see a lot, a lot of trouble coming in here. And I'd be willing to bet that young people are really the target of this more than anything.

Would I be wrong or right about that? What do you think? No, you're spot on. The demographics of who they're targeting is part of the scary you know formula here they're going after younger generations for sure and again people that are

already struggling with credit card debt they have lower. Credit scores they maybe they can't get approved. For a traditional credit card. So you can you can go on the Internet and shop. Without having a traditional card using these plans. It's

just it's very very scary I've been saying it since day one look corner which is one of the biggest- providers of these plans. Their credit losses rose by. Seventeen percent in the first quarter of this year that's in any other industry.

That people would, you know, they go out of business, they would change the way that they're doing business. But these companies are literally betting on the fact that the consumer is not gonna make all of the payments on time. They're gonna have a balance at the end. Then you get hit with late fees,

you get hit with deferred interest. Yeah, what kind of interest in deferred penalties do you get on something like that if you don't pay your Klarna as it were? Yeah, so it's going to vary by what the size of the initial purchase was, what the payment plans looked like, but you're looking at no less than 25-29% interest plus the late fee, which is no less than 35 bucks. So So again a hundred dollar purchase to just

like if you make a purchase on a credit card if you don't pay it off in full it's not a hundred dollars daily compounding interest says if you don't spend another dollar you only spent the original hundred but at the end of the month it's a hundred and twelve dollars carried for another month. It's a hundred and twelve dollars. Carried for another month it's a hundred and twenty dollars without spending another dollar. Daily compounding

interest increases your balance every single day. Based upon the previous days balance. So people have to be really careful where we've already demonstrated the fact that we have no idea how to handle credit cards. I mean

that the average balance on credit cards is now well over six thousand dollars. If you're only making minimum payments on a six thousand dollar credit card balance. It could take you twenty years to pay it off and you're going to wind up paying about fifteen thousand dollars. When you add up all the interest. So this is just another way that consumers are going to get themselves in trouble. They're reaching out for these. And again, we have to be held accountable, Bill, but the marketing geniuses make these plans so enticing and attractive that the young people are getting sucked in these rabbit holes.

And it's a really, really slippery slope. It's interesting I recall payday loans came under attack by Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon and he was going out there you know I'm going after these predatory these predatory loaners kind of thing and going after predatory loans and such and I can't help but wondering is anybody looking at the buy now pay later under the same rubric? Oh there's definitely they are they are under the microscope right now. Look you can say what you want about the Consumer

Financial Protection Bureau. You know they might that whole department might be on the chopping block but then who is protecting the consumer? And again, I know we should be, you know, we're big people, adults, we should making good decisions, but that's not how, that's not how, that's not reality though, right? So, um, there, they've been called on the carpet. Part of this, adding it to the credit reports was part of that. They should Be regulated under kind of the same laws as credit

card companies because this is an offer of credit. And they've been running around pretty much on the regular hated up until this point so that's a good thing. Again the bad thing is that they they package this like oh this is going to help

people that don't have traditional accounts in their credit report. Well, there's a bunch of different ways you can have stuff added to your report now. This is not one of the good ones. All right, very good. Paul Oster once again, he's America's credit repairman,

betterqualified.com. Before we take off here, Paul, I wanted to ask you, what is the current default rate looking in the in the automotive world in the automotive loans maybe I guess maybe subprime because when it comes to examining what's going on in the in the economy a lot of times car loans is a is a big canary in a coal mine is looking good healthy or we seen some cracks in the surface? What do you think? Well, the cracks are getting wider by the day, Bill. So you're spot on again. Auto delinquencies, credit card delinquencies, you know, they're the ones that come first because people will always

try and pay their mortgage at any cost. But those auto delinquencies are ticking up faster and faster. Credit card delinquencies are up. So it's just faster credit card delinquencies are up so it's just an indication we see this anecdotally every day with our clients. It's just more and more late payments thirty days sixty days ninety days. Look at the student loan debacle you

have you're gonna have ten million student loan borrowers that are in the fall and it's coming very within a couple of months. That's going to happen and not you know then you're going to have collections put on

people's credit reports and when that happens between this buy now pay later thing the student loans inflation as it is- interest rates. You're you're going to remove. You know millions and millions of candidates and borrowers. They won't be able to buy a car.

This is going to have a trickle-down effect on the economy like we've never seen before. It's coming. We're so impatient, we can't even wait for this slowdown to happen. It's been happening. It's just, there's a latency period. It's going to take a little time, auto delinquencies credit card delinquencies Pre-foreclosures mortgage late all of those indicators are showing us that the consumer is starting to drown And what this indicates though is that buying out pay later, please don't go there. Don't don't go there

You would just an employee want stay away from this right now Yet something else to trip you up into into an easy debt trap really. Yeah the story you told before most of these purchases are not things that we need. Look if you have to use a buy now pay later program to buy the groceries so your family doesn't starve to death, if you need it to replace, you know, your washer machine or your stove, okay. But most of these purchases, door dash, like you said, you know, food deliveries, these are things that people want, not what they need. So take a step back, take a deep breath. If you really want to figure out a way

that you can afford it, right, maybe cut some other expenses. So you can actually pay for the things that you want afford it. Right maybe cut some other expenses- so you can actually pay. For the things that you want and you're not using credit to get what you want. And if you could take a step further. Just by the things you need right now circle your

wagons get out of debt. Because the economy on a whole and I hate to be the doomsayer. But I don't care what the stock market does we see this. In everyday people. The old there's going to be the doomsayer, but I don't care what the stock market does. We see this in everyday people. You know, there's going to be, there's going to continue to be this downturn. The housing market's basically frozen.

People are stuck right now. So, but we have to, no one's coming in. The Calvary is not coming to save us. We have to save ourselves. That's the message. All right. By the way, Paul's website is betterqualified.com. What can you do with it? What kind of information do you have available for people

if they go to betterqualified.com? So we have all sorts of free guides, right? We've been doing this for over 20 years, so we can at least give people a free credit analysis and consultation, tell you what to do and not to do so that you can try and get yourself out of debt. You know, one of the things we talk about is making micro payments towards your credit cards. Pay the same amount of money every month, but bust it into two payments and you're going to save yourself a ton of money and interest in the long run. So those are the types of good advice and things that we have to offer. Someone who just comes to our website, you know,

this is all free, right? If you choose to hire us to really dig in and help you then so be it. But you can at least come get lots of free information and use it yourself and you know if you can keep yourself on track, great. If you need us, that's okay too. I agree with your thing about splitting it up into two payments. I do that with my mortgage each month. I pay twice a month, is what I do. Yeah. Try it.

Pay it down more quickly. And it's fascinating how much more quickly it goes down with two payments a month than one. Interesting stuff. Well, the good news about eliminating debt is people always say it. Again, 20 years later, thousands of people have said, Paul, I can't believe how fast this is really going. Because just like it got into debt really quickly, you really can get out of debt quickly and accelerates. More and more money starts going towards the principal balances. So you can get out of

debt, you just have to be disciplined and have a plan in place if you're walking around doing mental math hoping that you're gonna get out of debt it's not gonna work all right Paul Oster once again America's credit repairman find out more and once again better qualified calm Paul great talk thanks for telling us about the buy now pay later craze avoid that that craze if you can, okay? Thanks again. Have a great day, Bill. You too. It is 726 at KMED. American Rancher Garage, your night in a service. The heat is on in the Rogue Valley,

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This is the Sean Hannity Morning Minute. I have been saying on this program for years that Joe Biden's preventable open borders policies that have allowed in all of these, you know, 12 to 8, 20 million illegals that were unvetted, many of them from countries were terrorized. We know specifically that over 1500 Iranian nationals illegally entered the US that we know of between ports and entries nationwide. And we know that a whopping, you know, nearly 750, the Biden administration, newer Iranian nationals and let them stay in the country. To be specific, the number 729 released by Joe Biden.

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I'm doing good. Back in 2003, I had to go through bankruptcy. ever since I've not had any credit cards because they're too easy to get in trouble with no matter how good you are. There are certain circumstances where you could have them if you can pay them off at the end of each month and not carry a balance. Yeah, that's what I end up doing and it has worked out fine since that time. Yeah, my brother does the same thing. But, you know, like in my case, if I don't know how I'm going to pay for it, I don't do loans because it's the root of all evil is me, money, and I don't want to get in that trap again. I appreciate the call, Dave.

Thanks for that. Thank you. 770705633. It's gonna be open phones here for the next 20 minutes or so and I would love to talk with you. I think I know Elaine was not specific about what she's upset with me about but I have an idea I know where it is. And we're gonna give her an email of the day. That's sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson, Central Point Family Dentistry, centralpointfamilydentistry.com. While you weigh crowns available, they have an in-house lab.

All right? And it's next to the Mazatlan Mexican restaurant, Freeman Way in Central Point, centralpointfamilydentistry.com. And Elaine simply says this morning, Bill, did someone inject you with a dose of socialism? Really, it's getting irritating. Elaine. Now Elaine was not specific about what my opinion was that was an injection of socialism,

but given that she sent it at 7.06 this morning, or at least I received it at 7.06 this morning, I'm going to engage in conjecture and think it had to do with my conversation about retesting older drivers. So let's toss this out to the Southern Oregon jury. Should we have tougher drivers tests this morning? I'm going to go right into this one. Should we have a tougher drivers exam? And the reason I brought this up is knowing in my own situation, I'm going to be 64, I'm becoming of a certain age, I'm going there at some point, and I know how it's been with my parents when you have to have the talk, you know, that kind of thing. We've all had to do things like that a lot of times. And the one thing I can tell you is that I haven't had a driver's test.

I'm just talking about my experience. I haven't had a driver's test since I was 15 and a half. Now I have a lot of experience. I have, you know, pretty good experience in which I have, uh, you know, uh, well, lower no accident rate and the insurance rates are low. Okay, so that would seem to stand me in good stead. I'm talking about me and I'm not trying to say that your mileage is the same as mine, you know, that kind of thing.

But I don't know how, I'm presuming this is what she's talking about. And tell me if I'm wrong about that, Elaine, maybe just call the show. I'd love to talk with you about it. But is actually wanting competent drivers on the road who actually aren't doing the conga lines, aren't doing the, you know, the clover-like behavior on the road, not just completely driving their car as if they're not connected to reality out there. Is that socialistic? Is it socialistic to actually expect a driver's license to,

you know, be a demonstration of some kind of reasonable skill of driving? That's the reason I brought it up. Now, I don't know how that is considered socialism, but correct me if I'm wrong. Now maybe you're a person of a certain age too. Does that hurt your feelings or does it give you a little twinge? Hey, I'm going in that direction. I raise the question because the one thing I have noticed is that The driving ain't getting better

It's corroding worse on a yearly basis. At least that's been my observation And yet all these people are licensed drivers. Apparently they're licensed drivers, but there's not being much Asked of a driver today is there? That's why I brought it up. Maybe it should be harder. I know that in Germany it's considered a, now of course they are a socialistic country, but I, but you know, Germany they're all into this, we will follow the rules, you will follow the rules unless you are a migrant, and then we welcome you. Okay, go off on a different direction. But maybe that's what it is, all right? We can talk about that.

7705633, should there be mandatory retesting? And maybe not just of a certain age, how about everybody? Every 10, 15 years, a retested road test? What do you think? You think that would help? A lot of people I've known over the years would have failed a retest. Okay, I don't know. I'm

just raising the possibility. I didn't think of that as being socialism. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this? Good morning Bill. This is Doug. Hey Doug. How you doing? Yeah, well good. You know, I see where you're at. You know, I'm concerned. I see a lot of semi-drivers and sometimes, you know, they're coming from Canada, wherever, I don't even know if they can read English. You know, the proper signs on the freeway. And also-

Hey, I'll agree with you there. I will definitely agree with you. Yeah, anymore driving around town, yellow lights mean nothing. You better watch yourself when you cross an intersection because you know you don't stop until it's red completely. And you don't even begin to enter until you're looking both ways. You want to make sure that they're all that they're all stopped because you can't trust the light that's for sure. You shouldn't be trusting the light anyway you know. yeah totally completely it's pretty scary out there so you better

look both ways before you enter an intersection do you think that enhanced testing would would actually improve something like that or is it just this is just the price of having a vehicle well you know they're putting in more and more cameras downtown in all these intersections and you know if they can see if somebody's going through red lights, they need to be called on the carpet for it. You know what I'm saying? But I'm looking at these guys driving around in these electric scooters and bikes, going 30 miles an hour in traffic lanes, up on the sidewalk.

You know, in my benevolent dictatorship, I want a scooter-seeking, heat-seeking missile. Would that be okay? Is that too unkind? Yeah. It's just kind of wacky out there driving. And I'll finish with this. I listened to Lars yesterday and he was talking about the Oregon Department of Transportation. Have you physically come into North Medford on Highway 62 where they've remodeled, redesigned that intersection when 62 comes into Highway 99? Oh yes, it is the the sidewalk where they've installed the sidewalk so that the bums will feel more comfortable walking near the traffic. Because there's a lot of them on that side of the sidewalk, but you're away with a whole

lane of traffic, a 20-foot sidewalk, and I was talking to the contractor, he says, what's this about? I know ODOT designed it and I'm just pouring the concrete. Yeah, it is called the multimodal. It's the multimodal plan, which means that, in fact, I read part of that plan and what they had mentioned in there is we have done surveys and pedestrians are feeling stressed they're feeling you know fearful you know on the sidewalk and it's like okay what what because the sidewalk is just a regular sidewalk and it's not you know a whole traffic lane wide so come on yep so you got a 20 foot sidewalk all the way to the freeway and then it goes not a whole traffic lane wide. So come on. Yep.

So you got a 20 foot sidewalk all the way to the freeway and then it goes to a regular sidewalk over the freeway and you look at lots of time, you're backed up for a complete mile over the freeway, trying to get to that intersection, turn left in the Medford, turn right in the Central Point or go straight. Okay, so where should the people who came up with the

multimodal plan like this, who designed this, what kind of hell should they be sentenced to, you know, from the Highway 62 change by the mall? Yeah, there again, who designed that? It must have been a kid in elementary school. Oh, I'm sure it's someone that graduated from the American Planning Association. What's going on? And obviously, these guys are getting paid a ballistic amount of money, but how can you... There's two intersections in Medford. You've got South Medford and you've got 62 coming in. And a lot of people use that intersection and it's unbelievable what they did.

Yep, absolutely. Thanks for the call. If you're on hold, I'll take your calls. Anything else on your mind there? But like I said, I was talking about should a driver's license actually mean something? Should you actually have to truly prove competency? I almost failed my driver's test at 15 and a half. I really did. Because the DMV Battleaxe in the San Bernardino office at that time, I was living in Southern California at that time, she tried to trick me into changing lanes in the middle of an intersection and finally I was just about ready to do it and go, no, no, neat, neat, neat.

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repair and replacement get on solid ground visit millett construction dot com from the k m e d news center here's what's going on oregon lawmakers have overwhelmingly voted repeal the wildfire hazard map which was created under a bill passed by the legislature just four years ago the map was the brainchild of local senator Jeff Golden and was largely unpopular and inaccurately portrayed true risks. The bill now goes to the governor. A southern Oregon transient is believed to be responsible for a brush fire in Jackson County last week. While responding to the fire an Oregon

Department of Forestry firefighter reported seeing the man acting suspiciously in the area. 51 year old Alan Bicknell was arrested the next day. He was indicted by a grand jury this week. Oregon's Department of Emergency Management is encouraging people to be alert following a US Department of Homeland Security terrorism bulletin. It says there's heightened risk environments through September 22nd due to geopolitical tensions over the conflict involving Iran. The concerns include cyber attacks, religious and political violence, and threats to government personnel and infrastructure. Bill Lennon, KMED.

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Get your tickets today and be part of Rock History with Kansas. Hi, I'm Lisa with Pacific Service Applied and I'm on KMEd. 745-770-5633. It seems like with some people I've really stepped in it this morning and I'm wondering if it's because they couldn't pass a driver's retest. That's why I wonder it. It makes me wonder. It makes me wonder. How dare you?

How dare you? I'm getting all these Granite Toonbergs coming in here. You're a socialist. No, I just thought that if you're going to have a driver's license and you're supposed to be testing for the competency of being able to drive a vehicle that you probably wouldn't mind doing a retest, right? That kind of thing? I don't know. I'm just raising the issue because even I myself figure I probably picked up some bad habits over the years. Right, we all have really. But I just noted that I have not had a driver's license retest, I haven't had a driver's license test other than the vision test since

1976 All right, and everyone else is probably much the same thing I don't think anybody else gets retested here and I'm just worrying and maybe it would be a good idea to Maybe actually go on a driving test now I'm not talking about passing the test on whether you can read the signs or what it means, but an actual driving test. Go out in traffic and prove your worth. Prove your mettle. Let me go to Jerry. Hello Jerry. I've really stepped in at this morning for some reason, but go ahead. Well Bill, it's important to remember that driving in the state of Oregon and probably throughout

the whole country is not a right, it's a privilege. Indeed it is. Yes, it is. Yeah, that's very important. That means the state basically is going to dictate how and whether or not you're able to drive. Anyway, you know, I do know also along those same lines, when you go to renew your driver's license before it expires, they do give you a visual test. Yes.

You know, I would be in favor of a driving test. You know, I think it would help whether or not they have the resources to do that. I don't know. I would say at minimum, people should, you know, we shouldn't even have to tell people this. They should get their eyes checked and they should also probably get their hearing checked in addition to maybe a driving test. Anyway, if you're going to do a driving test, I don't want to pick on being an oldster, even though I'm becoming an oldster myself. I'm not doing this, but I just realized 50 years never with a retest. I'm thinking what would be a reasonable deal like every third renewal, you have to take a driving test, something like that. So it's be like every 18 years or so. What do you think? Yeah. Hey,

I'm in favor of it. If you're a good driver, what do you have to fear? I appreciate the call. Thanks for that. 7705633, Jeanne's here. Hello, Jeanne. Hello. Hi. What are you thinking? Well, I think about the driver's test. It would be all ages because I have seen... Well, there was one elderly member of my family that his family finally took the license away. Yeah. Which I'm glad of because... A lot of us have had to have those kind of conversations.

They're always horrid. They're very uncomfortable. I get it. Yeah. Well, he thought that, you know, he was a teenager again because when he would go out on the road, pedal to the metal. And that was wrong and I have also seen all ages of people that pedal to the metal in fact they will even pass on a double yellow line

yeah pretty common so all right all right asked about the basics to offer another thing on the driver's test do you know how to turn on your car light and what about turn kiss? You know how to use those? Where is that turn signal? I know it's here someplace, right? Well, they don't seem to have enough brains to use turn signals they'll just Cut right in on a car. too close sometimes. Yeah, yeah. And they're not telling you they're coming in. All right, Gene, thanks. Appreciate that.

For taking calls this morning. Like I said, I stepped in this morning just because I had the temerity to think, you know, maybe we ought to retest over time. But I'm kind of being shouted down in many places, but that's all right. I get it. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hello. Hi. Hello. Hi, this is Michelle. I agree. I just renewed my driver's license myself. I don't want to give my age, but I wondered the same thing. I wondered why we hadn't had to take

a pre-test, this kind of common sense things. You know, laws change. You know, we need to be informed. So, I do think taking a test at a certain time in your life should be... And maybe there should be a time or a cap of when you should... Where parents... People have talked to their parents. I say 75 years old should be when everyone should

willingly give in their driver's license to make their grandchildren drive them around. Oh boy, all right. Yeah, and yet the challenge that we see is that the driver's license really is the freedom ticket in our culture. And so I understand why everybody wants it I'm the same way you know I'm the same way I'm talking about though if you know if we're going to have a driver's license it should be able to demonstrate some kind of basic competency to me other than having a pulse that's all you know right right and there's that that can be like then being she made me laugh to you

and there there's a lot of uh... crazy drivers out there just seems that at one time everyone had the same agreement uh... where we all knew that we had to follow the same rules and regulations and then there's a some out there that just think they can just free and runs it for everyone else i agree i i appreciate the I appreciate the call. Thanks for that. Let me go to Monica. Monica's here too. Hello Monica. You like the scooter seeking missile that I was talking about a few minutes ago? Yes, I love that.

Yeah, you know the other thing other than the including the electric scooter darting everywhere kind of missile there also needs to be a boom seeking missile and you get that one too right? Yes. Yeah I like that. You know it's just like it's coming down you know here comes the Cadillac Escalade on the Rheums right? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and then I like that.

You're gone! Get out of my way. Anyway. I know, I know I know I Don't know about taking a new driver's test. Yeah, I Just know how I've I've adjusted as I've gotten older But no, I drove Medford and back for 30 years for my job five days a week and There were so many idiots out there that were young. It's like competition. And it was like that ever since I can remember. My husband used

to tell me when I'd go to Men's Food to buy groceries and stuff, and I'd come back, and he would say, because he'd be off somewhere, and he would say, oh, you got your freeway face on. Hey, Monica, you brought up something very interesting. How then, you know, I think about that, like I said, I've admitted I've fallen on my sword having been an absolutely insane driver when I was a young driver, right? I was too. All right. And that's kind of the, how about a retest when you become a, when you first get your driver's license, what 15, 16, 17, you know, whatever the case might be. And then-

I was 16. Yeah, and then the first three renewals that you go through, you have to actually retake the driver's test to maybe try to wash out some of that. That would be fine, because here in Ashland when I took my test, we had to have standard cars.

We had to have the cars, we had to have the clutch. I mean, it was just, you couldn't do it with the automatic. That's how old I am. I just turned 77. And the thing about it is with me, if I'm having a bad day, I don't drive because if I ever hit a kid or animal or anything like that, I don't think I could survive it. This is something. So what you have to do is you have to adjust to your age and when it comes time that you know you can't drive anymore, you give it up. There's just no doubt about it. Yeah and there comes a time for a lot of people that you don't like driving at night, you know? No, I don't. Yeah, And I don't drive at night. If I go anywhere, I'm home before night.

Yeah. And so it's just one of those things. The driver's test, I could pass. I wouldn't mind taking one to prove it to everybody. I could pass it. But they don't even give you a written one when all the laws have changed and everything. And I've seen people turn left on a red light across another lane. I've just seen all these stupid things.

And you need to take that. You need that written test. All right. I appreciate the call, Monica. Just taking all our covers this morning, just sharing some thoughts about what the driver's license means. Should it mean more, I guess? Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hello. Is this Bill? Am I on? Yes, it is. Good morning. Hi. I just want to flip this around. I have tried, I'm turning 70 this year, I've tried getting an appointment for my vision test and my renewal and I can't get one for three months, which means my license will be expired before that comes. Now

they may open up again, but the DMV is totally inadequate for what you're asking. I think family and the person involved both need to be individually responsible for this. So now I have to renew mine. Am I already sunk then? Because I just can't get an appointment? I don't know, but I actually, we called Coos Bay, Roseburg, Canyonville, Grants Pass, and Medford. And right now, I don't know if it's because they just weren't making the schedules, but the DMV is totally inadequate for what you're asking. They're inadequate for what they ask of us now. And then trying to actually strengthen or be more rigorous on testing. They couldn't do it even if

we wanted to. Okay. Oh, wow. You'd have to triple the amount of people easily. By the way, if you're going to have a driving test and test things, I suggest merging as a big one. That is my pebble in my shoe. Hey, I'll tell you what. I'm giving you a real American salute on that. The merge. How many times have you seen someone stop on the on-ramp? Oh, it terrifies me. I'm usually behind them and you can't pass them, but you just got a role with it, but it's like, Lord have mercy, don't do this. Thanks for the call. I appreciate it. Let me go to the next line. Hi, this is Bill.

Good morning. Who's this? Hello? Yeah, this is Al on the Applegate. Hi, Al. How are you doing? Good. Hey, I think that anybody who has a suspension on their license for any reason should be retested, especially everybody who's had a DUI. Every conviction should be retested. That's very interesting. So when you have brought attention to yourself in the system, there should be a retest every time. That's an interesting way of

going about that. Yeah. Well, you've proven yourself unworthy to drive. You should have to retest to get back in the game. All right. Interesting take on that, Al. Thanks for the call. 770-5633. Let me grab, uh, take three more and then we'll have to wrap. So, Bill? Scott. Scott Walter. Yeah. Hi, Scott. How you doing? Hey, um, hey, I appreciate being there. I'd say yes, retest. I've retested and tested on professional driver. Last time I did it, 97% and I went to Grant's Palace and did it because the DMV here in Medford is the busiest DMV in Oregon and the biggest money generator. So don't go there, go to Canyonville, go someplace else. It was a joy.

The instructor and I just had a great time. And we tested in a rental car and it had a backup light or a backup camera. And that was the only thing I got marked off on is that it liked me looking around so much. Oh, but that's the way we were trained. Isn't that weird? Yeah, we were trained in the day to not use the you know to actually turn around and look. In fact, I can still remember Driver's Ed and it was back

when there's Driver Ed and Driver's Ed in school and they had a term in Southern California. It was the smog test and it was smog. It was signal. It was signal, check the mirror, over your shoulder, look, and then go. Smog. And I still remember that. He tested it out in Southern California as well. Yeah. Now, if we could just convince Southern Californians when they move up to Medford and Grants Pass that, no, you can't just pull U-turns everywhere you go. Right. And behind the wheel, you know, is the best. Get something behind the wheel.

If you have an opportunity, even have them set up on a parking lot with some pylons and see if they can navigate through there and know what the car is going to do. If it's icy or snowy, they can do that too. Do an autocross. You know, that's really interesting that it kind of give it a motorcycle style test, because don't they make you do that with a motorcycle, go through pylons? That's right. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, that's an interesting wrinkle on that.

I'll grab another caller too, and then I got to go, but maybe we'll pick it up again later. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hello. Hi, good morning, Maya. Yes, you are. Who's this? Hey, good morning, Bill. This is Jay. Hi, good morning, Maya. Yes, you are. Who's this? Hey, good morning, Bill. This is Jay. Hi, Jay.

And I just wanted to let you know that last fall I went down to San Francisco and took a couple of rides in a Waymo, one of those self-driving taxis. Yes. And it was actually an incredible experience. I think that I'm Gen X, I'm towards the end of Gen X, and by the time that I get to the point where my age has me as a questionable driver, I think that there are actually going to be

self-driving cars are going to be kind of like the, almost the norm, at you know for newer cars. By that time it could be yeah yeah you're right you're very very likely right about that. My concern about the self-driving push though is that it will be used to to force the non self-driving vehicles off the road because under the guise of well you're not competent you know to do this or as far as I'm concerned self-driving cars should be able to handle the unpredictability of actual human interaction, and I'm hoping they don't go the other way.

Okay? Yeah. And one quick news item, news headline that I saw last week, Tesla is claiming that their full self-driving reduces accidents by about 20%. So I don't know how to verify that but for what it's worth. All right. Hey, appreciate all your calls this morning. Maybe we'll revisit this a little bit later in the hour, okay? It is KMED HD1 Eagle Point Medford KPXG Grants Pass and this is the Bill

Meyer Show.