MnDrive looks good

THUMBS UP: MnLARS, the computer system that was supposed to bring Minnesota’s vehicle licensing and registration system into the 21st century, took nine years to develop, cost $100 million, ran way, way over its budget and when it was rolled out in 2017, didn’t work worth a darn. It was such a worthless debacle that it had to be scrapped.

This month the state rolled out its replacement, which took only a couple of years to come up with. When they started up MnDRIVE, it worked. It’s been working like it is supposed to since Nov. 16.

We appreciate the work put in by Fast Enterprises, the company the state tapped to replace the faulty MnLARS software. Too bad the state didn’t look for someone who knew what they were doing in the first place instead of trying to create their own system.

College football

THUMBS DOWN: When the Big Ten and other major college conferences decided to cancel the fall football season due to COVID-19, football fans from the White House on down hollered in agony until the conferences relented and decided to play. The results have been anything but eddifying. The University of Minnesota played a couple of games, but COVID caused the Gophers to cancel the Wisconsin game. Now it looks like the last two games are out as well. We’re not alone. Many colleges, their athletes and staff infected with the virus, are cancelling games too. They are claiming they have to consider the safety of their student athletes first.

That’s what they did when they canceled the season in the first place. There’s no guarantee some athletes wouldn’t have gotten sick anyway, but giving it the old college try didn’t work out this time.