The Department of Motor Vehicles, or “DMV.” Every state has one, but they’re not all called that. Some are the “DMV” but the “D” is for “Division.” Here in Maryland they chose the rather unfortunate “MVA” for “Motor Vehicle Administration,” but it’s also standard EMS code for “Motor Vehicle Accident.” :smack:
What’s yours called?
Washington (State) Department of Licensing.
Driver and Vehicle Services
A Division of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety
Michigan: Secretary of State
Illinois is offically “Secretary of State Drivers Services Facility” but everyone just calls it the DMV because we’re not crazy-people.
Edit: That’s the buildings themselves, of course. The “department” (Driver Services) just falls under the Sec of State duties.
Florida: DMV
Massachusetts: Registry of Motor Vehicles
In Arizona, it’s the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division, or MVD.
Actually, it’s the DHSMV (Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles). But everyone still calls it the DMV. I’ve even taken a deposition of a DHSMV employee who tried to correct me when I didn’t say DMV.
TXDOT (Tex-dot) Department of Transportation
Yee. Haw.
What bureaucratic idiocy (but I repeat myself). If all 50 states (not to mention also most countries worldwide) can agree that red means stop and green means go, one might think they could all agree to call the DMV the DMV. The error here, of course is “one might think”. Maybe better to not do that.
That’s only half of it. The drivers license portion is Department of Public Safety. AND it’s actually “driver license” on all the paperwork. Because there’s only one, I guess.
In Indiana we have the BMV–Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Almost sounds like DMV if you’re not listening too carefully.
“MVA” is also similar to “MTA” which reminds one to beware - since you “may never return” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Jw_v3F_Q0) from the waiting room at the MVA either.
Overseas in the Cayman Islands we have the Department of Vehicle & Driver’s Licensing - DVDL
SGI - Saskatchewan Government Insurance
It’s called that because the basic plate insurance is a government product.
Alright, stopping to think … nope, not getting it. What problem are you trying to solve? Are people genuinely unable to transfer licenses and registrations when they move states or countries because the institution doesn’t have the same name? Is this complaint just about the DMV or any government departments? I’m struggling to understand what would be better once we spent money coordinating the names of these departments across all countries and states.
I’m also struggling to understand your vision of how things come to be. “Bureaucratic idiocy” brings to mind a hapless bureaucrat, slipping on a banana peel while a pie splats in his face, clumsily choosing the wrong name in a haze of institutional ineptitude. But clearly these decisions are largely historic, where as individual territories recognized the need for this sort of licensing they’d make up an organization to administrate it or roll it into an existing organization, in a way that fits in with how they’ve structured the rest of their government.
Some decisions are just arbitrary, and it doesn’t matter what you choose as long as you choose something. Agreeing on red and green solves a problem. This doesn’t.
I realize it’s cool to be unrelentingly cynical about everything, and if you’re not assuming every little thing in the world is malignant or incompetent you “just don’t get it”. But cynicism can be a thin veneer over paranoia and lazy thinking.
New Jersey: MVC Motor Vehicle Commision.
It was the DMV up until about 10 years ago so everyone still calls it the DMV.
I didn’t know that TxDOT involved itself in anything but the maintenance of the roads, like any of the other state DOTs (I am familiar with TDOT-Tennessee, and MSDOT, Mississippi). I assume Tennessee got TDOT instead of Texas just because they got there first.
In Texas, the Depart of Public Safety is also known as the Highway Patrol. State Troopers in other states. If the DPS pulls you over, you had better be clean. Fortunately, in my 35 years in Texas, I have never been pulled over by the DPS (knock on wood).
Everywhere I have lived where I obtained a Driver’s License and registered a motor vehicle, the Driver’s License was handled by the Highway Patrol and the vehicle registration (License Plate) was handled by the County Tax office. At least, in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Texas. I’ve never lived anywhere they were combined, nor a place where the vehicle registration wasn’t just another duty of the county tax office (that is, you could pay property taxes, business taxes, etc… at the same window). Now, in and around Houston, they have these things called a “Court House Annex” that are set-up to deal with registration and automobile titles, but, AFAIK, they will also accept payments for any other county taxes.
So, in the northern states (and California), does this DMV take care of license plates and driver’s license? In the county organization, where does it fall? Like I said, in the southeast, the License Plates are controlled by the county Department of Revenue (you can’t get plates except in the courthouse of the county in which you reside) and the Driver’s License is handled by the State Safety Department (you can get your driver’s license anywhere in the state. If you lived in Beaumont, you could walk into a DPS office in El Paso and get your driver’s license-850 miles away and in a different time zone).
It’s going to vary by state of course, but a majority of DMVs are under the state DOT. The DMV generally takes care of just about anything and everything related to driver licensing, vehicle registration, tags, insurance compliance, citations and violations, etc.
Here is a complete list for all states:
http://www.dmv-department-of-motor-vehicles.com/