My license is up for renewal, and I have a California DMV appointment (San Diego) next week to convert it to a Real ID license. I’ll be interested to see how long the process takes; if I remember, I’ll report back here.
I could have renewed my license online with no hassles, but it would have been a regular old license. We’re all going to need a Real ID license soon anyway, and I had some free time, so I decided that I might as well get it out of the way now.
It was certainly a mistake somewhere - but I have never had the loan company hold the title. It may vary by state ( I’m in NY) or by the lender, but for six cars with six different lenders I have always held the physical title with a lien recorded on it.
Only if you fly or a Democratic Congress doesn’t dump that xenophobic bill.
Depends on the state. Some states make you change plates every so many years for reasons.
Anyway, my DOL experiences have been pretty ok. I’ve never had to do anything very complicated though - mostly just wait in line for a while then everything gets handled. I can’t remember it taking more than a half hour. (Then again, the past few times, I’ve been able to go midday during a week day. It is probably worse on Saturdays.)
Well, I do fly, and the chances of the law being revoked before the Read ID requirements are fully implemented is basically zero.
Even if the Democrats win both houses of Congress in 2018 (far from a certainty), they won’t do so with a veto-proof majority, and I believe there’s no way in the world that Trump would sign a law repealing Real ID. That means that the earliest possible repeal would come in January 2021, if Democrats win both houses of Congress and the White House in 2020. Real ID will be required of all travelers in October 2020.
I’d be quite happy if the law were repealed, but I’m betting it won’t happen, at least not before full implementation is due. And once all states have complied, I doubt they’ll turn back the clock and go back to producing their old licenses, even if they’re allowed to do so.
Ohio: I went to get my license renewed a few months ago, and I went right at opening time and walked straight up to the desk. I was out within seven minutes.
But if I don’t do that, it can be an hour plus from taking the ticket to my number being called.
I have found the Canadian DMV equivalent to be reasonably friendly and efficient, in four different provinces.
Agreed. And when I couldn’t find an appointment time and day I wanted at the DMV closest to me, I just made an app’t at another, smaller one. (I had gotten a new car and was in a hurry to get it registered, get new plates, etc.)
No great shakes in Hawaii, although I’ve heard some branches are not bad at all. Unfortunately, I went to the main one here in Honolulu, and that was rather trying.
Thailand. My wife has never learned to drive and yet was handed a lifetime driver’s license back in the 1970s. Fortunately, they’ve done away with those. When I first took the test for a Thai driver’s license, upcountry in 1988, an official looked over my shoulder as I was taking the written exam and stopped me from making any incorrect answers. It’s not clear now if I even needed to take the written exam, because when I moved to Thailand again in 1994, I was told as long as I had a valid US state license, all I had to take was the color-blindness test. But I had to renew it once a year, which took up a whole morning. Then they allowed foreigners five-year licenses, which was better, but they started introducing new tests for renewals. All of them were reflection/reaction tests, but they made you watch this dopey hour-long video. Or was it two hours? Felt like four! It was basically just a Thai soap opera, with a family being torn apart by bad driving habits. All in Thai, no subtitles. Lame. Not even a shock value from that gory one they shoed in high-school driver’s ed, The Last Prom. But they finally replaced the soap with an instructional video that really was educational.
“You may have to change plates if you change countries” and “you have to change plates if you change states” are not the same. You may have missed the auxiliary verb.
We had the local register of deeds arrested , she was stealing loads of cash. About $2 million was stolen over 10 years. She has not gone to trial yet.
Why is financing and liens an issue with registration?
I don’t think it’s technically an issue with registration - but changing the person the car is registered to often goes along with a change in title. I could probably allow someone else to register a car titled to me, but it’s more likely that I would transfer the title to that person (either as a sale or gift) and they would then register the car.
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They aren’t, they’re an issue with registration.
Found out when I went to change the titles on my vehicles to just my name after my husband passed away that no one had officially informed the DMV that they were paid for (the car is 16 years old, the truck 19). Meanwhile, we’d been renewing the registrations without problem for nearly two decades.
The registration basically indicates that you paid your fees/taxes, it passes emission standards, and the legal address of the person who claims ownership of the car. It doesn’t address anyone else’s legal claim on it, such as an institution providing financing.
Moving a car between countries in the EU is not quite as simple as it might appear. Many people in the UK own a second home in Portugall. Maybe, a couple of times they drive down, but it’s a long way so they leave the car there and fly home.
Problem 1. The EU requires cars to have an annual test which can only be done in the country in which the car is registered. This means driving the car all the way back to the UK for the test. The car tax cannot be renewed without a valid test and without it, the car is not legal in Portugall.
Problem 2. Portugall allows foreign cars to stay in the country without problems for twelve months. After that, they have to import them and this can be complicated.
Most people check it out and decide that buying a car locally is the better option.
The other side of the coin is that used luxury cars are far cheaper in the UK than in some Eastern European countries, so Albanians come over here to work for the summer, buy a Jag, and drive it back to Albania, where they can sell it for a profit. How they finangle the paperwork is anyone’s guess.
As others have said, the quality of the experience is dependent on the number of people being served. And that depends on the funding. Here in Louisiana they are cutting the state budget severely so the few state offices that remain are getting increased workloads and reduced staffing. Can’t blame them for the long lines. OTOH, they are slowly getting rid of old requirements and unnecessary forms. But every requirement is someone’s iron rice bowl and only with years of cutting personnel is it possible to finally get rid of those forms.
Oh, and naturally the public still expects all those services implied by the forms, they just don’t want to pay for them in either money or time. 
Well, there’s also the question of efficiency. There’s no reason to not have an appointment-based system, for example, or to allow you to pre-fill forms tied to an online account.
Then again, seeing the fiasco that healthcare.gov became, I wouldn’t be surprised if people didn’t trust government to be able to come up with a functional system. Sigh.
We don’t have titles to vehicles here. Registration shows who’s got the vehicle, is using it, and is covered by the insurance. Who owns the car and whether it’s been paid off is not part of the registration process.
I can see if you have to show ownership and financial status of the car, that makes the registration process more involved.
I have a hypothesis that DMVs are underfunded. You HAVE to go there, so state legislatures would rather give tax cuts to real estate developers than properly fund the DMV. Also, make an appointment if you can and go to an office in an upscale area.
I got 99 problems, but the Virginia DMV ain’t one. The used to have ‘Express’ offices in a few of the malls for simple stuff - registration renewals, license renewals, address changes, that sort of thing. Also drive up windows for the above. Now it’s all online. The only reason to go to a real office is for a new driver or a newly purchased used vehicle (new vehicles are registered by the dealer, mostly, as far as I know).
The last time I was there was to turn in plates on a car some kid wrecked for me (he did an illegal u-turn in front of me, and had the sense not to lie about it). I wouldn’t have wasted my time*, but there was >1 year left on the registration, and they gave me money back.
*I’ve a stack of old plates about 2 inches tall, from old cars I no longer own, or from requesting a new plate. I was suppose to turn them in. I didn’t. If they come knocking on my door, I’ll give them up.