The DMV

Yes, it’s time for a rant about the Department of Motor Vehicles and how inefficient the process of getting new plates for a car is. Come with me on a journey to the bureaucratic maze that is the DMV with a quick detour to the St. Charles County Collector’s Office.

As you may (or may not) know, I recently purchased a brand new 2008 Pontiac G6 GT. This is the first property I’ve owned, so I have not paid personal property taxes in the past. Last year’s personal property tax receipt is one thing I needed in order to get plates on my car. If you’ve not paid personal property taxes before because you’ve not had property, then you have to get a waiver saying you haven’t. On Saturday I go to the Collector’s office to get my waiver. Guess what? They aren’t opened on Saturday. In fact, they are only open 9-5 on Monday-Friday. Great to see that the government services I need are only open during the normal work day so if you need something from them, you have to take off work to get there. My wonderful tax dollars being put to great use (sarcasm).

Monday I decide to try again for my waiver. Luckily, I work at a school and get out at 3:15. I head down to get the waiver. I stand in line for about 10 minutes at the window I was told to go to. The lady looks up my information so I can get my waiver. I was thinking, wow, this isn’t bad. I’ll be out of here in no time. Wrong. The first window was just so I could get a sheet of paper printed saying I needed to have a waiver printed. This lady looked at my tax history and asked me several questions. Why she couldn’t just print the waiver I’ll never know. I head to the next section and pull a number. Number 63. They’re serving number 46. Great. I wait. And wait. And wait. Right now I’m thinking that there was about 15 people here. If they were on number 46, that means the majority of people come at the end of the day, so why do they only have two windows open at the end of the day? Typical government. Finally, after about 45 minutes, my number is called and I get the waiver printed. By this time, it’s too late to make it to the DMV by the time they close. That will be saved for Tuesday.

I go to the DMV on Tuesday. This was relatively painless. I had to wait, but not long. The only bump I ran into along the way is that she wasn’t going to give me new plates yet because my new insurance card with my new car on it says it starts in March. I needed proof of current insurance. Luckily, for some odd reason, I had a card from my Mazda in my glove box. Here’s the part that makes me wonder about the DMV’s efficiency. In order to get personalized plates, I have to fill out a form, mail it to Jefferson City, wait 8 weeks for a letter stating that my plates are in at the DMV, then go pick them up. This can, and should, be much more efficient. I should be able to go in, choose personalized plates if I want them, the DMV should be able to search the records to see if they are available, request those me printed for me, then either mail them to my house or notify me that they are ready to be picked up. I guess if they were efficient, they wouldn’t be the government, right? It’s 2008. It should not be this tedious to get license plates. How hard would it be to get all these forms and things computerized so that nothing needs to be mailed anywhere and it can all be done on the computer at the DMV? Not very hard.