From: Fred H. Schlesinger (fred@schlesingers.net)
Date: Mon Nov 03 2003 - 08:06:33 PST
Since many seems to have more than a passing interest into the functioning of
the New Jersey Division of Motor Vehicles, I have put my observations and
experiences in the form of a post. Those who do not, this would be an
appropriate place to hit the ole delete key.
When you go to the DMV up here, the window clerks barely speak English and they
are the most fluent.
The ten step drill, apparently from the DMV manual is:
Step 1: Fill in this stuff and stand in line for a half hour.
Step 2: Get to the window. They gave you the wrong stuff. Fill this stuff in
instead and come back.
Step 3: Stand in line again give the forms in and sit down.
Steps 4-9: and wait...
Step 10: 2 hours later (no exaggeration) pay your money and take your stuff. Go
home and drive your car.
The Scene:
The DMV has several hundred people waiting. Hard plastic chairs, overpriced
vending machines, dirty bathrooms, and if you are lucky, the guy next to you
took a shower this week. Overhead is a very impressive machine that, for your
viewing enjoyment, gives you commercial plugs and news on a ratio of 3 to one.
Staffing:
There is one intake clerk, one person giving out tags and taking pictures, and
two or sometimes three people typing. And of course, everyone is having a fine
conversation instead of working. In Spanish, of course.
And if you hit lunch break, one on the line and one typing. And eating at her
station.
The person handing out the tags does nothing because the tags are accumulated
until they have ten or twenty of them. During that time the person stands at
her window and stares at the hundreds of unhappy customers, the great
unwashed,(literally, see above) eagerly awaiting their tin trinkets and
picture-impregnated plastic.
Special Rules for Drivers Licenses:
The action is pretty much the same, except that you have to bring in three
separate official documents to prove who you are every time you get a license.
Your old drivers license means little or nothing to them. You need a
combination of birth certificate, marriage license, Passport, voter
registration, social security, company or other picture id. No terrorists going
to fool them, no sir. Except the same fine public servants who take two hours
to issue a set of tags are making the judgment.
Welcome to the privatized DMV in Newark, Wayne, Morristown, they are all the
same.
And the Trenton DMV is a special treat. They have a 20 minute line just to get
the stuff to fill in before you get to step one. Otherwise, the same.
Fred
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