Carolina Politics Online

I put it off for as long as I could. Like a man waiting until his toothache became unbearable before going to the dentist. Or waiting until the little arrow on your fuel gauge is on ‘E’ before sucking it up and taking out a second mortgage to buy gas. I suppose it makes more sense to take those painful and unpleasant necessities head-on and get them over with as soon as possible; like ripping off a band-aid or watching The View without commercial interruptions. But human nature isn’t like that, and we insist upon putting off uncomfortable unpleasantness until the very last minute.

 

And so when my Florida car registration finally expired, I knew that the inevitable had come- I needed to suck it up and go to the North Carolina DMV.

 

Let’s cut right to the chase- I have dealt with the DMVs of four separate states: New York, Virginia, Florida, and now North Carolina. New York and Florida in particular aren’t exactly known for high-speed government efficiency. And yet I can say without hesitation or pause that my experience with the North Carolina DMV was the worst I’ve had the misfortune of experiencing. The absolute worst.

 

It’s not the fault of the office workers, who seemed friendly and dedicated to their jobs. No, it was the system in which they worked- a fiendish union of archaic bureaucracy and dumbass rules joining forces to make the average North Carolinian’s day just a little bit suckier. How? Read on.

We can start with the fact that I actually had to go to TWO different offices to accomplish my task. You see, I sort of expected that I’d simply be able to go to ONE DMV outpost to get a new driver’s license and groovy new license plate. I guess I’m hopelessly naïve like that. But no… our tax dollars have to go somewhere, and I suppose -in suburban Cary at least- they go to the maintenance of two different DMV offices within 5 miles of each other. One for new drivers’ licenses, and the other for car tags.

 

Ohhhh, it gets better.

 

Once you figure out which is which and head to the driver’s license DMV, the real fun begins. Now, I understand in this day of identity theft and privacy loss that I need to be able to prove I am who I am. I get it. Why someone would want to pretend to be me I have no idea, but that’s for another post. But apparently the Florida driver’s license I was turning in (and got by simply turning in my New York license) wasn’t good enough for North Carolina. I also needed a social security card, a government document with my full name -including my full middle name, and another government ID just to get started. Next year I expect them to initiate a new program wherein they’ll send you to a third office that draws blood and does DNA testing onsite.

 

Honestly- my full middle name? My social security card?! My New York and Florida licenses didn’t require that! What the hell?

 

So after you bring all those in and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that yes- you are you, you get to take a written driving test. Yes, that’s right- by simply moving into North Carolina and applying for a driver’s license, you’re required to take a driving test. Now, if you had a record of tickets and points on your license, this would be a good idea. But I have neither. I have, in fact, a relatively clean driving record. No matter- driving test it is!

 

All of this would have annoying enough, but permissible. But what sent me over the edge and into this full-on anti-government screed were the questions on this so-called “test”. Never, ever, have I seen a more absurd way to measure one’s knowledge than this asinine epitome of government dumbness.

 

My favorite question by far was this one:

 

Don’t hang out in the “No Zone” means what?

A) Don’t loiter

B) Don’t park in zones marked “No Parking”

C) Don’t drive in truckers’ blind zones

 

Now, let’s consider these for a sec. ALL OF THOSE are reasonable answers, in that all are either illegal or highly discouraged. We can cross out A because it has nothing to do with driving. But B AND C are equally plausible, aren’t they?! And what the hell is this “No Zone” thing? I’ve never heard of it, have you? I took a guess and chose C, and turned out to be right. But if I had chosen B would I have been wrong? Does this mean I can park in “No Parking” zones now? Who the hell wrote this damn test?

 

Here’s another one:

 

What’s the legal blood alcohol limit for DWI?

 

Here’s the answer I wanted to give:

 

Who the hell cares? Are you more likely to drive drunk if you don’t know the answer? I doubt it. This question doesn’t measure my driving skills; it measures how well I know legal trivia. I DO know legal trivia, by the way- I go this one right (0.08).

 

If convicted of DWI, your punishment can include what?

 

My Answer: I don’t care. Again, this isn’t driving question; it’s a legal question. Look I get it- drunk driving is bad; don’t do it. But rather than have unfair questions on a driving test, how about you make laws tougher? Or put more cops on the street? Or have a big ol’ banner in the DMV that says “DWI = Bad” and stop wasting my time with this baloney?

 

So you manage to get through all this and are ready for your reward- a spiffy new North Carolina driver’s license. Uhhh… not quite. There is one more thing- payment. This wouldn’t be too much of a bother under usual circumstances. I understand that governments have to charge money for things like this. But apparently in the North Carolina DMV, it’s not enough to charge you money for something; they have to make payment as aggravating as possible.

 

This DMV office did not take credit cards. Apparently, both its bureaucracy and technology are stuck in the 1950’s. Nor did it take out-of-state checks. Now think about this for a second. A large portion of this DMV’s customers are people who just moved here from, where again? Oh yeah, from OUT OF STATE! I had to go the nearest bank, make a withdrawal, pay the extra charge because I didn’t have an account at this bank, go back to the flippin’ DMV, and finally get my freakin’ license.

 

By the time I was done, I had to remind myself what the legal blood alcohol limit was, because I fit to go way beyond it.

 

By contrast, when I moved to Florida and did all of this, it took about 10 minutes at a DMV annex. Folks, Florida can’t freakin’ hold an election without fowling it up, but its DMV’s are more efficient than North Carolina can dream of.

 

Even after all this, I still wasn’t done. Since someone thought it made more sense to have two different DMV offices doing different things, I had to drive across town to the second DMV office, show them my hard-won new license, and finally get my new plate. This office, thank God, took out-of-state checks, because it cost $220 for my new plate, and I don’t carry that sort of walkin’ around money. It took an entire day and a good portion of my already dwindling sanity to accomplish all this.

 

I’ve been told that this website is becoming very popular. That reporters, consultants, and even maybe a few politicians read it. Y’know, mover and shake types. Nothing could delight me more. Let me speak directly to them now: This is an embarrassment. This state should be ashamed at how it treats new arrivals. Your way of saying, “Welcome to North Carolina” is a good old government butt-rape at the hands of some incompetent bureaucracy. This needs to be fixed, and it needs fixing NOW.

 

I don’t expect my government to do a lot for me. Usually, I only ask that it stay the hell out of my life. But when circumstance compels me to come in contact with the entity that my taxes are confiscated to fund, is it too much to ask that it work properly? Is it not enough that you waste my money that you have to waste my time and patience too?

 

I talk to people who are absolutely convinced that we need government-sponsored health care, government-sponsored retirement, government-sponsored fill-in-the-blank. Bigger government; bigger entitlements; bigger, bigger, bigger… And I ask them: have you been to a DMV lately? Do you really want a government bureaucracy running your life? I suppose in that sense I should thank the NCDMV. They’ve given my argument a new resonance that even I didn’t think was possible.

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