As was predicted, yesterday’s trip to the DMV had its bureaucratic hiccups and cast of interesting characters. I ventured out in the morning with my little blue folder in hand. In it, I had a state-issued birth certificate, my car registration, the bill of sale for my car, along with a few other papers related to the purchase of my car. On my phone, I had downloaded my cable bill, my lease, and my insurance card. I checked the website one last time to make sure I had what I needed. The wait time for walk-ins was approximately 18 minutes.
When I got there, the line to check in was about 15 people deep. It was sunny out and the people in line were all very pleasant. A few of them talked about the questions on the written test. The woman behind me told me about being a truck driver and how she misses living in the city where she was more physically active and walked more. When it was my turn to check in, I said I just moved to California and I need to do everything, license, car, etc. I started to show my paperwork and when I said I had e-documents, I was told they don’t accept them. Go to the coffee shop across the street, print them out, and come back. “Next!” I turned away and he added “I’ll take a bagel and a cup of coffee too.” I’m not entirely without humor, but after standing in line for about twenty minutes, the “joke” didn’t land well. What would have been more helpful instead of his breakfast order would have been the location of the coffee shop that offers printing services.
I paused outside of the building and looked up coffee shops. Then, I looked up printing services. Then, I looked up coffee shops with printing services. Bingo, I found a shop that has a printer for people to use. It wasn’t across the street, but was about a 10 – 15 minute walk from the DMV. Bagel and cup of coffee my ass.
Part way to the coffee shop, I had the brilliant idea of checking to see if I could load my documents to the DMV website. I could – cool. I stood on a side street with my folder and phone ready and I set up shop using a concrete ledge as my workspace. I took a picture of my birth certificate and uploaded it. Success. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a tiny squirrel approaching that turned out to be a rat – eeewww. I stomped my feet and it sauntered away – it most certainly didn’t scurry. I moved on to the other documents. There was no option to load a PDF – only pictures. Well that’s stupid. I put everything back in my folder and continued walking to the coffee shop.
The shop was cool little place, busy, buzzy, and hip. I sat on a cushioned bench and downloaded the app to use the printer. Everything here has an app (except for uploading PDFs to the DMV). In order to use the app and the printer, I needed to pre-load $10 to my account. Which meant creating an account and yet another new password. Printing my documents cost a little over $5. I suppose the other $4 will just be a donation to an app I may never use again. Cool. By this time, I’m frustrated on behalf of all the other people who have to do this crap and may not have an extra $5 or $10 to spare. When they talk about systems that punish poor people and systems that aren’t integrated it’s things like requiring print outs in a world that wants us to go paperless. Everywhere on the DMV site, they promote going paperless and yet…. ahem. As I sat waiting for my documents to print, I tried to remember my experiences with other DMVs. I’m pretty sure in PA I was able to email documents, and I think in TN, they explicitly said only paper documents accepted. Being explicit is key.
Back at the DMV, the line was shorter and just as pleasant as before. The sun was still shining and the jokester was no longer running the check-in table. Instead, a nice woman reviewed my documents, gave me a number and a form to fill out, and instructed me to go in and have a seat.
Inside, the DMV is exactly what one might expect: institutional gray, awful fluorescent lights, a long bank of teller windows, and a lot of confusion. It is decidedly less pleasant than standing in line in the sunshine. Over a loudspeaker, they call the letters and numbers that correspond to what’s written on the little slips of paper we were all given at check-in. G134. F127. F142. Clients at various counters are raising their voices in frustration. “But they told me to come over here!” People are wandering around holding out their slips of paper trying to figure out what they’re supposed to do and where they’re supposed to go. Clerks on the other side of the counter are repeating, loudly and in the slowed-down speech we condescendingly use with toddlers, people who are hard of hearing, and non-native English speakers, “you. need. to take. a seat. over. there.” “watch. the screen. for. your number.” Language barriers abound. An elderly man raises his voice. His accent is hard to place – perhaps western European. He’s very confused and can’t seem to express his frustrations adequately. The people upstairs told him to come downstairs. The clerk is telling him he needs a note from his doctor. He’s saying he already did that and was told to come downstairs. A supervisor gets involved and says he needs to go upstairs. Back and forth they go. Another man, slightly disheveled, walks by singing loudly, “…and the rockets red glare.” He makes his way to the exit and starts repeating the stops on one of the transit lines as though he’s heard them so many times that they’ve been burned into his psyche. “16th and Mission. 24th and Mission.” All the while, my brain is trying to fill out the form AND listen for my number to be called. E008 window 2.
At window 2, I’m greeted by a very helpful gentleman who looks more like a skater/computer programmer than a DMV clerk. I tell him what I told the woman at check-in, “I’m brand new to the state and need to do everything, registration, license, everything.” He smiles and says, “Welcome to California.” He goes through my paperwork. He hands back to me the form I had filled out and tells me to complete the back side of it (I’m an idiot or perhaps I was distracted – I didn’t see the back side). He processes my other documents as I complete the form. And by processes, what I mean is he scans the papers that I just printed at the coffee shop, converting them into an electronic format. Essentially, I spent 30 – 40 minutes and $10 to print out my electronic documents so that they could be scanned back into electronic format. He types things into the computer. He prints things out. He asks if they told me about the VIN verification and the smog check. I said, no, nobody has told me anything. He says I need to have my VIN verified and I need to have the car checked for smog (what we call emissions in PA). I ask him if there’s an order to these things and he said get the smog check first or else they’ll turn me away at the VIN verification. He gives me back my papers, charges me 400 and some dollars and instructs me to wait in line for my photo.
These are the things that could probably be explained on a website. Anticipate the mistakes people will make, and you might be able to provide instructions that will reduce chaos at the site. There is a “New to California” section on the DMV site. It lists the things one needs to do in order to get a license and to register a vehicle. It does not tell you the order in which things need to be done. Moreover, the documents section specifically states: “DMV will not accept an application without the accompanying residency documents. DMV will accept photocopies, “informational copies,” or computer-generated documents for residency purposes.” Given my very recent experience at the DMV, it’s clear that I misinterpreted the meaning of computer-generated documents and that what they really mean (in 2023) are documents that are not hand-written, carbon-copied, mimeographed, faxes, or typed out on a typewriter.
I think what surprised/surprises me most about all of this is that I’m in the heart of Silicon Valley – home of social media, web platforms, tech, along with concepts like user design and user experience. It feels like so many “issues” could be addressed with better up-front, step-by-step instructions and better personnel training. I assumed the guy at check-in was correct about needing hard copies of documents, but maybe not. Maybe his understanding of computer-generated documents is incorrect.
After having my photo taken, I was sent to another line where more people wandered around not quite sure where they were supposed to be. One clerk was managing two lines, but would only say “next” – never indicating where the next person in line was supposed to go. She would then get frustrated (and short) with the people who were rightfully confused and looking helpless. I’m sure in her mind, her instructions were clear. She’s probably thinking, “do you not understand the words that are coming out of my mouth.” Not only were her one-word instructions (“next”) not clear, but her attention was split between trying to serve two customers at the same time, while also talking with a colleague, and spraying some type of disinfectant or air freshener towards the ground of her station. I avoided her ire by going to the correct spot. Hurrah for small victories. She typed a few things into a computer, printed out a temporary paper permit, handed back to me some papers and said my license will come in the mail. “Next!”
I’m pretty sure I was supposed to surrender my PA license (I heard her ask someone else for their old license). She never asked for it and I went on my way – emerging like a mole person from an underground cavern back out into the sunshine.
This entire experience would have been maddening if it weren’t such a humorous cliche. I walked home with my paper license tucked into my blue folder – pretty sure that it will be equally confusing when I go back for the VIN verification.