:mad:
Been here an hour. Finally got a token. No 419. The counter is on 271. Do I want a license that badly. Never realized what mass of humanity.
Thank God I have 4g internet, otherwise I would kill myself.
ETA: The posters say don’t watch TV and drive. Seriously, you have to tell people that?
ETA 2:One of the ushers has notice my glasses and motioned me to go to another room. Can I hit her? sob
There’s a tiny “express” office, located underground, in downtown Chicago. Been going there since 1994. Never waited more than 15 minutes. Totally worth the 30 minutes to get there by train, since I’m then downtown and can have a fancy lunch and shopping trip, too. Where are you? It’s about 2:30am my time.
I feel your pain; bureaucracy may not count as a WMD but it sure tries.
Las cosas de palacio van despacio… “government things always take a lot of time”. And no, you’re not allowed to hit the usher. It might even be a good idea not to glare too much.
I had to ask for a duplicate of mine in January (my passport and license now have identical spellings, yay). I was pleasantly surprised but only because I already know you better have an appointment beforehand; also, duplicates need a new pic and the webpage didn’t mention this (the person standing at the reservations machine informed me, told me where to find the nearest photographer and apologized for the website).
When I got the new license I was confused. It had my old pic, so WTF?
Last week I got a newer new license with the new picture. I’m even more confused but hey, at least now I have ID in which the pic doesn’t look like a mug shot.
Islamabad. I just also just noticed a “dont use social media and drive” poster. Truly the modern world has unique problems.
Too bad guys. I can go to the AAA office to get a renewal. I do have to wait sometimes, there might be 2 or 3 people ahead of me in line. If they didn’t do that I’d have to stop driving, waits at the DMV are similar to what **AK84 **is experiencing.
One of the things I like about living in Arizona is that your license is good until you’re 65, no matter when you get it. If you keep a clean driving record, no need to go to the DMV ever, except for once a decade to have a new picture taken. Everything else can be done online. Need a duplicate license? Go online. Need to change your address? Go online. I’ve only stepped into a DMV office twice here in the last 16 years. Once when I first arrived in Arizona to exchange my Colorado license for the Arizona one, and once a couple of years ago to have a new picture taken. I shouldn’t have to revisit the DMV until 2022.
Indiana streamlined the process a few years ago, making as much online as possible. Now, I never wait more than about 15 minutes, and the offices have climate control and comfortable chairs. Used to take hours, and you stood in lines in offices with no AC.
When I lived in NYC, it was a nightmare, just one of the many reasons not to have a car if you live in the City. But here, the wait time is at most about 20 minutes, often less.
In 40+ years of driving I’ve never had to wait more than a few minutes, not even when I lived in a small town where the DMV was only open one day a month and served the whole county.
Y’all don’t do this by mail?
My birthday is during college football season, so I can go during a Big Game and it’s empty. My state doesn’t do renewals online or by mail, and it doesn’t have appointments or AAA places that do it, so if you don’t find a quiet time you just have to sit in the flimsy plastic chair and wait for your number. Sometimes there’s a line at the door an hour before it opens, of people pre-waiting so they don’t have to wait during the official waiting time.
They sped all the DMV stuff up in Milwaukee a while back. You used to go there and have to wait in line for an hour or two, but now you walk in, get in a line with like 3 people and tell them what you’re doing. New license, new plates, changing an address etc. They give you some paperwork and you go off to the side to fill it out. When you’re done you bring it back up to that same desk, the clerk glances at it to make sure it’s more or less filled out correctly and you can also ask that person any questions you have about if it’s filled out properly and what you might need to finish it and they’ll help you. They they give you a number, you wait a few minutes and go up to the main desk and get finished up up there.
Furthermore, if there’s anything really wrong that’s going to take some time to fix, they’ll send you away but just tell you to come right back to them when you’re done.
It probably also helps that the DMV is really close (like a half a block) to where I live so when I do need to go I’ll just make a point of driving past it over the course of a few days and wait until I only see a few cars there before I stop in.
You can also do a lot of stuff online, but they charge a convenience fee for it.
What happens if you don’t get a new picture taken?
You do most of it online, but there are new security enhanced licenses out which take biometric data. So everyone who is renewing has to visit to get the details collected if they did not already have one. Since they were introduced about 2 years ago that means everyone basically.
On the plus side they have a printer on site and they give it to you then and there once you are done.
It looks kinda scary. Resembles the first page of a passport. It has a RFID chip as well. The old one just had a barcodes.
Oh, I forgot about that. I used to schedule errands during football games, and be in and out of deserted malls and supermarkets in no time!
Then I started going to bars during the games, and nothing’s been the same since…
Did mine online. Took about three minutes maybe four. Sorry I’m not helping am I?
In Maryland you can renew online every other renewal, so if you renewed online last time, you have to do it in person next time. At least you only have to renew every 4 years.
Careful, AK84 is a lawyer… he’s got heavy, hardcover books!
In MA, the DMV staff is where everyone’s unemployable brother in law goes to die. The ones that are too stupid get transferred to the TSA. RI, on the gripping hand, has only two registry locations, has staff that move like startled snails, and the clocks there are sun dials.
Things got better in MA twenty years ago, but after a regime change it went back to a good place to stash bad relatives. The last time we got new plates, Ronald Wilson Reagan was president. What the frack are they doing for their hundred backs every two years?
Most legal publications take the form of magnetic patterns on servers, these days.
The copy of Abbott’s Law of Merchant Ships and Seamen, 1901, that I keep on a shelf at arm’s length above my desk is probably a good 15cm thick and hard bound in a manner of which modern publishers can only dream.
It would seem a shame to abuse the book by using it for violent purposes but a lawyer’s gotta do what a lawyer’s gotta do.