Finally a good thing happened to me at the DMV (MVA in MD). When we moved here from NY 7 years ago, we used birth certificates, passports, utility bills, NY licenses as proof to get our Maryland licenses. Then this whole RealID stuff started happening. My license was going to expire after the Real ID deadline and I need to be able to fly domestically. As it happens my son needed to upgrade his license because in Maryland the licenses are graduated by levels and he had his for a year and the status changed. While at the MVA I asked an employee about what I needed to do about RealID. He took me to a kiosk and punched in my license #. He said, “you’re all good to go, just go online and ask for a replacement license.” It seems that my wife and I used stuff required for Real ID before Real ID existed and it was noted in our records. So neither of us had to go through the hoops to get RealID licenses. Just $20 and voila. (You knew there’d be a charge.)
I’m going to come in here and add another difference between government-run offices and private businesses:
Private businesses go out of business. Happens all the time.
Private businesses close stores in areas they think unprofitable. Happens all the time.
The DMV needs to be available, as has been said elsewhere in this thread, to everybody. They don’t have an office in every village, no; but, at least in NY, they’ve got one in every county. And it would be a royal mess to hand that over to private enterprise and then have them decide that no, they’re not making enough money in the rural counties, and they don’t care if the nearest office is going to be a three hour drive for some people, they’re closing all those places down. Let alone if one company wins the competition and winds up with an effective monopoly, and then decides it doesn’t want to be bothered with drivers’ licenses at all any more. Sure, somebody else would fill in eventually; but what are you going to do in the meantime?
FWIW, it took me about ten minutes to get my real ID license (I was lucky enough to have all the documentation where I could find it easily); and I hadn’t made an appointment – I don’t even know whether they do that locally, I’ve never found the line long enough to be worth my finding out about it.
In my lifetime in Ontario, two government services have improved by an order of magnitude:
- Driver and vehicle licensing
- Passport service
The difference between these things now and these things 20, 30 years ago is just night and day. In both cases service is almost ludicrously faster, easier, and and accurate. Getting my first passport in the early 90s was approximately as challenging as scaling Everest. Getting a passport today isn’t much more difficult than going to the grocery store. Getting a driver’s license or plate renewed in 1990 was a miserable experience; the last time I did those things, this year, it took about six minutes.
I am not totally sure why this is, but I suspect it’s computers; the IT systems of today make these things a lot easier to do.
Definitely not an old trope…
Nearly 4 hour average wait time at one location in North Texas. And that doesn’t include time waiting in line to get into the building.
I’ve moved around quite a bit over the last decade and the only truly piss-poor experience was getting a Real ID in Arlington. The staff seemed perfectly competent and as pleasant as one can be in that sort of interaction, but they were woefully understaffed. I took 15 minutes but had to wait 3.5 hours before they got to me.
VA and DC both have IMO decent how-to guides to help people who just moved. So I’m always able to assemble the paperwork I need. It’s just a matter of waiting. And unless there’s a reservation system, that will depend on staffing.
I wonder how much productivity is lost due to line-waiting.
We had to go to the MVA today to get our REAL ID licenses. That is I had to as my license is expiring, and my husband went just in case he needs to fly soon. I’m so glad we had appointments - we overheard a manager saying 3 people called out today. It was insane in there!! Combine that with end-of-the-month panic to get registrations renewed (for those who can’t/won’t renew by mail or on line) and students trying to get their licenses before school starts next week - yeah, it was crazy. Thank goodness for our appointments!!
My CDL expires in November, and I wanted to get RealID, plus I couldn’t renew online anymore. I think it’s been 20 years since I had to renew in person.
I couldn’t get an appt at either of the two closest DMV offices to me until November 25th as of this morning!!! Heck, I’ll have to a bit farther out of my way, but I got a Nov 7th appt. Yay.
In Missouri, the state let non-profit organizations operate license offices(i.e., DMV.) The non-profit got some portion of the regular fee. Some of the offices were in better locations or more spruced up than the standard state-run offices, but once you got in line, it was pretty much the same experience.
IMO the DMV or whatever it’s called in your state sucks because people are stupid. Here’s how it works in Missouri:
-
The state lets you renew your license up to 60 days before it expires
But most people still wait until the last week, or even the last day of the month and try to run out and get everything done during their lunch hour. -
The state requires you have four things: your license expiration notice, your paid tax receipt, proof of insurance, and some way of paying for your new license (cash, check or credit card.)
And DESPITE BIG SIGNS OVER EACH LINE SAYING YOU MUST HAVE THESE FOUR THINGS, it’s amazing how many people get to the clerk and then to realize they didn’t bring one or more of those things with them. -
If you’re registering a newly bought vehicle, or changing your registration from another state, there are other things you need.
Even though a car dealer will tell you exactly what you need, and the state’s website tells out-of-state drivers what they need, no one ever gets it right, particularly if you’ve bought an out-of-state-car from a private seller.
One thing Missouri could improve on, though. The DMV office is not the tax office, so if the problem is your tax receipt or exemption, you have to go to a separate office to take care of that.
My absolute favorite DMV experience was when I traded my cavernous minivan for a smaller SUV. The state classified my SUV as a “truck” which meant I needed truck plates, and couldn’t transfer the “automobile” plates from my minivan. The clerk reached under the counter, pulled out a screwdriver and pair of pliers, and told me to go outside, remove the old plates, and come back in to exchange them for the truck plates. That’s full service from a government employee!
Earlier this year, I got myself an appointment about two months out, but then took a chance and just went to the Hollywood DMV, which only services drivers licenses. It was crowded, but very organized and while it took about 1 1/2 hours from the moment I walked in the door to complete the process for my Real ID license, I only spent 20-30 minutes of that time waiting in line.
I strolled into the little DMV office last Wednesday. Walked straight to the counter, transferred two vehicle titles into my name. They showed up in the mail on Saturday.
Damn inefficient DMV! 
I went to the California DMV to get a license renewal (Real ID) . Someone went down the line before the door opened to give people instruction and to check people in line to make sure they had everything they needed. They were processing people 2 minutes per person.
The IL DOT used to be a stepping stone to the governor’s office. It was a miserable place. Understaffed, lines around the room, underlit even. The second to last occupant took it one step further and was funding his campaign for governor by shaking down his own employees and half the truck drivers. After he left, the office was taken by the current occupant, a man who seemed to have no ambition other than to run the best DMV in the country. There is acres of space, you wait sitting down until your number is called, they even lit the place adequately. It is an unalloyed joy. The employees are actually pleasant and even smile. My only complaint is that when I go, I am always stuck on the argumentative, moronic side of the counter. Some things can’t be fixed.
Per the DVLA website, they closed down all the regional offices in 2013, there’s just the Cardiff headquarters now. All contact is online, posted or very occasionally by phone.
Rest assured though, the DVLA can still be a bit of a nightmare if you’re not trying to do something normal; a friend who’s Irish, living in the UK got stuck in a paperwork catch 22 a few years back. I can’t remember the exact details, but it involved her -Irish, living in Ireland- parents giving her their old car. They drove it over when they cam on holiday, and left it at hers, just as the annual safety certificate (NCT? Equivalent to the MOT in the UK) expired. IIRC, it unfortunately turned out there was no application form to register an imported vehicle to a new owner if the vehicle didn’t have an MOT certificate or exemption. At least, not without some commercial dealership document that they hadn’t and couldn’t get. You also can’t get an MOT certificate on a vehicle with no registered owner…
The DVLA just kept sending wrong forms, then refusing to accept them because they were still wrong when sent back, then sending another form, until someone eventually said they didn’t think the right form actually existed and they just stopped replying.
It dragged on for over a year, with a car gradually rotting in the back room of a local garage because it couldn’t legally be on the road. Eventually I think her Dad came back over and worked out something that allowed him to drive the damn thing back to Ireland.
The British DVLA swiftly developed a dire reputation for slowness when it took over from the old county licencing offices in the 1960s (which also coincided with computerisation for the first time). In recent years it seems to have shed this.
It has never been necessary to go there in person and I don’t think it is even possible to do so.
One bit of stupidity still outstanding is that many states (my own included) insist on making vehicle registrations expire at the end of a calendar month and not exactly 1 or 2 years from the date you actually registered. As a result there is a stampede at the end of every month of people who waited til the last minute to renew their registrations.
A bone I have to pick that is technically unrelated to DMVs that many states lack annual vehicle inspections. This is criminally stupid to me. I cannot begin to count how many wrecks I’ve seen on the road that are not roadworthy yet they merrily putt down the streets of our cities until the vehicle changes hands, and then it suddenly becomes imperative that the new owner show prove the hoopty is roadworthy.
It’s one rule I wish was national; that all vehicles at minimum have brakes annually inspected and brought up to safe functioning order.
That’s be impractical to enforce, though. When you renew your registration, you get a sticker to put on your license plate showing the month it expires. Would they have to have different stickers for each day of the year under your plan?
As it is, you have all month to renew your registration. If you wait until the last day of the month to do so, and have a long wait because of it: oh well, sucks to be you.
The cynical side of me wonders if required inspections are just a way for inspectors and mechanics to make money. Is there evidence that requiring annual inspections contributes significantly to safety?
While both the Policía Nacional (National ID and Passport) and Tráfico (Driving Licenses) happen to be national-level, they don’t share pics. But the one time that I did renew my license by mail I just had to send the pics along with the form; other times I’ve done it in person because it was more convenient due to my living on the road (I have a permanent address, but if mailboxes could pout and say “you’re not my owner!”, mine would). Nowadays if you fulfill the conditions for an online renewal they reuse your previous pic; if you need the medical (you don’t need it every time) the same offices that do the check-up handle the actual paperwork side, and if you don’t you can get an appointment and be in and out in less than half an hour.
I agree on the first & second paragraphs. Note: in some states the expiration sticker is on the window and not the plates.
In NJ and some other states, the inspections are not private but state run. No connection to mechanics. At least NJ has done studies that show the inspections to contribute to safety. I would expect there are many studies on this subject.
When we lived in Virginia, we had to get an annual county inspection sticker. The “inspection” cost $10 and took about 5 minutes. It was a joke - lights? check. Horn? check. Four mostly not bald tires? check. Fresh washer fluid? Check…
In Merrylande, vehicles are inspected when they change hands, and it’s a pretty comprehensive inspection. Of course, that doesn’t do a lot of good if someone has owned their car forever and they’re not diligent about regular maintenance.
Exactly my point. My brother said that’s what happened in Florida when they dispensed with annual inspections. You wound up having unsafe pieces of crap on the road that were barely more than a chassis that could still move.
I’d accept a compromise that made inspections mandatory every 3 years, or whenever a vehicle changed hands.