Letter to the Governor re: DMV

Dear Gov. Schwarzenegger:

I recently had to go to my local DMV office, in person, to renew my vehicle registration.

It bears noting that the only reason I had to actually go to the office was because the DMV failed to send me my registration renewal notice, which contains the renewal identification number (RIN) necessary to renew a registration over the phone or online.  Luckily, I caught the mistake, but unfortunately I didn't catch it soon enough to afford me the luxury of making an appointment in advance.

Almost everything about my visit to the DMV was lame:

1) The building is ugly.  It obviously needs a complete makeover.  It has needed one since 1984.

2) It was super crowded, even though it was 10:00am on a weekday.  I barely found a spot in the parking lot.

3) I had to wait in line for over an hour just to get a number.

4) I had to wait again for my number to be called, after I had just waited!

5) The screen that displays what number was most recently called was on the fritz.

6) The woman who helped me was very nice.  But the actual "registration renewal" process took less than two minutes!  I handed her a check and she printed and handed me the new registration.  Two hours in line for a two minute transaction.

I am writing to ask you (or whoever's in charge): WHY DOES THE DMV SUCK SO BAD?  Do you make it miserable on purpose?  What could that purpose possibly be?  Are you not aware of how terrible it is?  Are you somehow shielded from the experience because you have an assistant who waits in line at the DMV for you?  It seems to me that no sensible person in a leadership position (such as yours) would look at the current state of the DMV and say, "Yep, this is fine.  Nothing needs to change here.  This is exactly the way it should be."

Now that you are aware of the situation, here are a few of my suggestions on how to improve it:

1) Make it possible for people to renew their registration online even if they didn't get the stupid renewal notice in the mail.

2) Double the number of DMV offices and employees.  At least do it for Los Angeles, please.  If that doesn't help, triple it.  The democrats will love it because you'll be "creating jobs."  Raise the tax on gasoline by 1/10th of a cent per gallon to pay for it.  People will thank you for rounding all of the gas prices up to the nearest cent.

3) Create some kind of "express line" system so that the wait time has some relationship to the complexity of the appointment.

4) Hire some fancy-schmancy consulting firm to take a hard look at the whole operation, and then do whatever they say.

Finally (and probably the best solution):

5) PRIVATIZE THE DMV - The profit motive provides an incentive for businesses to minimize costs and strive for good customer serivice.  Although this doesn't explain why the lines are always so long at the bank, they're still better than the DMV.

Frankly, I see no good reason why the DMV couldn't be privatized.  I know you'll agree with me that it's a brilliant idea.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Yours,

Matt Duffy
California Motorist