I had to renew my driver’s license and health card this month. 15 minutes at the nearest Service Ontario office and I’m good for another 5 years. A big improvement over the old service model. The MOT offices basically only do driver testing and initial license issue now.
Islamabad?
Did you remember to “tip” the person who gave you a number? I think you’ll be there a looooong time.
Took 2.5 hours, including their lunch break. Unfortunately, tippings frowned upon.
They did have apparently a heavier than expected day from what one of them told me, of course with Ramazan nearing, people want to get bureaucratic nonsense done beforehand.
I don’t know. I got a reminder in the mail to have a new photo taken. I guess if you don’t, they keep nagging you until you do. I don’t know if there are any penalties for not doing so.
California DMV has improved on some of the most common procedures.
AAA can do some DMV procedures for you, but ISTM they can only do those procedures that the DMV has made easy anyway. :rolleyes:
Driver’s License: Good for 3 to 5 years (I think) depending on your driving record. Can be renewed by mail several times in a row before you have to go to a DMV office in person. So typically, you go in person once every 15 years or so. When renewing by mail, they send you the paperwork a good ten weeks in advance. When you send it all back in, they get it done and send you a new license very quickly.
Vehicle registration: This has to be done every year. But this, too, is usually done by mail, and again, they are very efficient about it.
BUT: Replacing a lost license: May God, Congress, and the United Nations help you!
ETA: And getting your first license: Sorry, no idea how that’s done now, having last done this myself in 1968.
Michaela got hers just about a year ago. Not really difficult. She scheduled an appointment for her written learning permit exam, so didn’t have an excessive wait. Including the testing and grading time she was in and out in less than an hour.
Three weeks later (following lessons in the Dad Driving School) we decided she was ready to go in for the driving exam. The biggest hassle was finding a DMV office that had an appointment time available within a month. Found one for the following day in Long Beach.
I got my first California license in January 2009, and it’s not due for renewal until my birthday in 2018. With an allowance for the fact that they want you to renew around your birthday, it looks to me like CA licenses are 10 years.
Mine run for five years at a time – and I have a 45-year unblemished record! I think it depends on the driver’s age – they want to check up on you more often as you get older.
I just go down to the local privately-owned registry office, and it takes about five minutes. I have never gone to a government DMV office or dealt with a government functionary as regards renewing my driver’s license, or plating my vehicles in Alberta.
And yet, Americans wonder why we protest when they tell us that “Canada is socialist.” :rolleyes:
Yeah I’m not looking forward to renewing mine here in Oregon. It’s about a month expired already but to get it renewed I have to go into the DMV with TWO forms of identification. Luckily they’ll take my expired DL as one but the other one they want is a certified birth certificate, which I don’t have. Since it costs $70 to get me another birth certificate and then it’ll be $40 to renew the license I just don’t have it right now. Apparently I have a year post expiration to renew it without racking up even more fees. Here’s to an incentive to be a safer driver lol
The California DMV sent me a letter the other day—to my Maryland address—telling me how easy it is to renew my license online. I may have sobbed a little. I’d had my CA license since I was 18 and had the number memorized forever.
CA license numbers are in the format: X#######.
MD license numbers are in the format: X-###-###-###-###.
I miss only having to know a letter and seven digits.
Just read an article that Illinois is changing license renewal to a central processing system…? Because that’s more efficient. Mmm Hmm. And it will mitigate identity theft as they will put the new photos through a facial recognition system. OK. This will finally put Illinois into the airport compliance that the State has been putting off for a decade. Well, I guess I can get behind that. But how they’re doing it being more efficient? Not really.
So instead of going to the renewal office and getting my new license immediately, I go through the same rigamarole as always and then they put a hole through my old license and give me a sheet of paper that says my license is on the way. Then they mail the new one after a couple weeks. Or a month. Hopefully within 45 days. This will be fun when I need to show ID in the meantime, when merchants have no idea what they’re looking at.
Wasn’t all that bad the twice I’ve had to do it (within 3 months. Sigh).
Before it comes time to surrender it, scan both sides of your current license, print them out on a single sheet of paper, and carry it around to show to any merchant who is flummoxed by the promissory note version.
Is Washington state weird, in that we don’t renew our driver’s license at the DMV? We do it at the DOL (Department of Licensing). The DMV is, like the name suggests, for licensing motor vehicles, not drivers.
Or getting a replacement plate. It’s been five months and theoretically I will be able to pick it up (from a DMV office I have never been to - why did they ship it there??) a week from tomorrow.
Well technically it is the Vehicle Licensing Office and not the DMV. The odd thing if you haven’t hit it yet is that the DOL no longer does tests but just renewals. It is very fast now but the fees are way higher now.
As I have an EDL it was $72 renew + $30 motorcycle = $102 for 6 yrs…I have no idea why it is $30 just to keep an endorsement but I was done in less than half an hour.
I’ve done both - private insurance agency, and the head office for SGI. It’s always smooth and quick; I can’t remember ever waiting more than five or ten minutes.
We may be socialists, but we know how to farm out things to the private sector to get it done. 
Anyone here ever have to deal with the Texas DMV? I had a friend who moved to Texas from Alaska, went to get a new license. She was told about the paperwork, the driver’s tests, and endless other things she would have to do to get a Texas license. She was surprised and asked why it was so complicated. The answer? “We don’t transfer driver’s licenses from foreign countries.”
Yep, the Texas DMV clerk was so stupid she wouldn’t believe Alaska was a US state. My friend asked for the office manager, and even SHE seemed doubtful, but when she saw my friend was going to stand firm the manager decided to let an ordinary license transfer go through so she herself didn’t get “hassled”.
What does your second paragraph have to do with the first, please? Other than having been written by the same person.