I made my quinquennial trip to the RTA this morning to renew my driver’s licence. I walked in, got my ticket, got called straight up to the counter, did the eye test, had my photo taken, paid and then sat back down to wait. A couple of minutes later my new licence was ready. Total elapsed time: 6 minutes, which is certainly the quickest I’ve ever experienced. Isn’t it lovely when bureaucracy performs efficiently?
I am impressed by how quick the RTA are nowadays.
Compare and contrast with CASA - current waiting time for new pilots licence? 95 days and counting…
what does rta stand for? we call it the rmv (registry of motor vehicles)
6 minutes is killer. nice.
PennDOT did mine almost as fast: 10 minutes total, and 5 of those were to fill out a form that I forgot to fill out ahead of time.
If I had done my renewal weeks ago over the internet it would have been 4 minutes, tops. A vast improvement over the 4 hours it took in 1994 when I first got my license.
There was a lot of worry when the agency was privatized here in New Jersey. It seems to have worked out. They were very efficient when I went in to renew last year. Took maybe 20 minutes but there were a ton of people ahead of me. Would have taken hours a few years ago.
Roads & Traffic Authority - the statutory authority dealing with all driving stuff (licences, car registration) as well as the road system in NSW.
I thought that was MFP.
Congratulations, six minutes is truly impressive
I was hoping for an expedient trip to the DMV myself when I first moved to New York. The night before I printed out and completed all the necessary forms. Got up at the ass crack of dawn to get to the DMV in Herald Square before the mad rush. I got there 10 mins after opening and there was already a massive queue.
I waited in line for an hour, finally gave the woman my birth cert, passport and social security card. She took my picture, said everything was fine and gave me a number, “wait to be called”, she said. I waited for an hour and a half before they finally called my number! I literally did a little dance up to the counter I was that ecstatic.
The second lady tells me everything seems to be in order, she just needs to see my ID again. So I give her my birth cert, passport …she takes one look at my social security card and says, “OH, this is laminated, it’s no good!” :smack:
When I was but a wee tater-tot, I laminated my card (it seemed like the sort of thing that should be, they expect you to keep it with you your whole life and they give you a piece of paper!) though it clearly says, Do Not Laminate on the back, I didn’t know what that meant.*****
I told her it really was mine, she said she knew. I asked if she could just pretend to not notice it was laminated, she said no and that I’ll need to get a new SS card.
Which I have successfully procrastinated the entire time I’ve been here. So now I’m walking around with an expired Illinois ID, which for the most part get’s me by. I have my passport if I need a valid ID, for the bank, airport and such.
*****That card has been nothing but an endless source of frustration. I had a spat with IDOT once because the signature on my SS card didn’t match how I signed my ID. I tried to explain that I was five years old when I signed it and that my signature had evolved since then, but he FORCED me to resign my card!
Cunctator, I’m sorry to hear about your record setting time. The bureaucratic gods are an angry and jealous lot.
And it’s tax time! :eek:
Homeskillet, I implore you to get a new SS card so you can get a new driver’s license. Here in Ohio, if you wait too long not only do you risk getting a hefty fine, but you have to re-take the written test as well.
It isn’t tax time here. 
Good job – 6 minutes in person is awesome.
Here, we never, ever retake the exams, so my license renewal takes me about 1.5 minutes online. Go to the website, type in license number and DOB, type in CC number, done. Kinda frightening, cause the last time anyone at the DHSMV - DDL (how’s that for governmental?) saw me was when I was 16, 11 years ago. My mother has used the same license with extensions stuck on to it since 1989. But it works fairly well, so there you go.
New Jersey was the last state to have DLs with no picture. I could renew by mail from Germany and Texas (and did). 911 stopped that. Now we have to go in person and get the picture taken. Not a bad thing IMO. Just be sure to check the website before you go. If you bring the wrong types of ID to prove who you are, you’ll be coming back. Know that one from experience.
Some driver’s licence bureaus were handed over to the private sector in Ontario in 2003 under the Conservative government.
The wait times for getting a new licence plate “sticker” went from an hour to about 10 minutes, in my experience; with a lot more friendliness and a lot less bitchiness IMHO.
Which is why I believe in government focusing on core services and outsourcing everything else to private (for profit - who give a shit about the bottom line) industry,
Shwew! So when DO Aussies file taxes?
I’m only getting an ID card. I haven’t driven a car in over a decade, though you are right I do need to get a social security card so I can get this resolved.
Australian fiscal year: 1 July to 30 June.
Ha ha I got you ALL beat!
I renewed mine online. They charged $15 to my credit card and I got a new license in the mail…they had my old picture on file (actually halfway decent) and extended the expiration date. No standing in line!
I don’t know if you can do that if you had tickets, but I’m a safe driver (knock on wood) and in FL you can renew over the internet.
Top that!
Dammit, Bambi, that will teach me to read every post.
I live in Kentucky, which does not believe in the Internet.
My driver’s license expired last October. When it expired four years ago, I only knew about one office available for driver’s licenses, and since it is also the only office that offers driving exams, the line was pretty long.
In the four-year interim, though, I discovered that there are several other driver’s license/state ID offices in the county, including one less than five miles from my house. These small offices do nothing but renew licenses and issue IDs–they don’t administer any kind of required test, and they have nothing to do with vehicle registration. If you are getting a new license, or if you have to take any kind of test to renew your license, you have to go to the Main office.
So I went to my neighborhood driver’s license office last October, and was in there for less than five minutes. There was no line. I just showed them my old (expiring) license, paid the $8, and had my picture taken.
In December, though, I lost my wallet with my NEW driver’s license in it. I called to find out what documentation I needed to prove that I really was who I said I was (two documents with my name printed on them and my signature–I used a cancelled check and a sales contract). I walked in, showed them my documentation, paid the replacement fee, and was out of there in about 8 minutes–only because the person having their picture taken ahead of me needed to primp first.