I’ve always wondered… nobody here likes having to sit and wait to deal with their insurance, paying old tickets, etc, but never the horror story of the DMV. Is it really that bad/chaotic? What makes it so awful, or have the stories behind it just taken on a life of their own?
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Often considered just inefficient, slow, and inconvenient
Just long waits, and workers who take their sweet ass time. The sloth working at the dmv in Zootopia was a very apt bit in the movie.
It’s often just a very annoying task you have to do during the weekday when you need to be at work and it can be very slow.
Not all DMVs are slow but some are.
Now there are appointment systems which have things move along more easily. At least in the 2 states I have lived the computers they have are incredibly old and slow which doesn’t aid with processing speeds. Also people do not always know what forms of identification they need to bring which slows things down.
It’s where most people experience government bureaucracy. The Michigan Secretary of State (we don’t have a DMV, the SoS handles what a DMV does) is light years better now than it was 15 years ago and jokes like that tend to trail behind reality. Yakov Smirnoff still makes money telling “In Soviet Russia” jokes, after all. I’ve dealt with similar bureaucracy in France and Canada and they’re not any better.
I don’t get it. Every time I’ve been to the DMV it’s been absolutely fine; as long as you have the documents that I needed you’ll be fine.
I do understand why the people that work there may be exhausted. They have to deal with hundreds of people a day and many of them don’t have the correct documents and will insist that they do.
They were very inefficient, and their workers had little incentive to make things better. You would basically stand in a line for 2 hours, to be told to grab a form, fill it out, and go to the end of the line. Things have gotten much better in my state, and a lot of stuff can be done online now.
it varies state by state of course, but I can tell you that at the CA DMV people form lines at crazy hours of the morning. it’s very inefficient and last time I went they stapled pieces of paper together and had me line up in another queue to give it to someone else. I had an appointment (difficult to get), so it wasn’t a nightmare, but they certainly weren’t in a rush.
Well, when you stick a bunch of underachieving government employees in a room…it moves very slowly.. even with multiple near me, it’s a promise you lose 2 hours for the easiest of things
I hate to dunk on public servants in the current climate, but the DMW workers in my area are just awful: slow, mean, not too bright. Also, the waiting times are horrendous.
In my state they have armed security and signs warning that rude behavior will not be tolerated. I’ve seen people hauled out in handcuffs for asking a question that the staff didn’t like.
Depends on where you are. My BMV is very quick and never as ridiculously swamped as you see on TV.
However I have seen pictures of people in a DMV that is absolutely crowded and would take hours to do anything
In larger cities, it can definitely be a nightmare. Extremely long lines, with people in them who aren’t sure they need to be in that line or who didnt bring the proper paperwork to complete their task, and everyone seems to have a bad attitude, customer and employee alike.
In smaller communities, it can be downright pleasant and you’re in and out of there.
DMV workers are usually very short-tempered and rude, which is why a lot of people dread going to the DMV. Add on the long waits and the paperwork that you usually have to get together ahead of time before going to the DMV and it’s no wonder that people put off going as long as they can.
I have no idea. i have always found it pretty snappy.
There are three main issues:
(1) There is no efficient or effective segmentation of concerns, e.g. It’s not like they have one line for people who need new driver’s licenses, people who need to replace expired driver’s licenses, people how need to take written examinations, etc. People wait on one line where they are sorted only after getting to the front of that line.
(2) There is general chaos and confusion. If you need to move between different persons (like between a camera-person and a person who administers the written road test) it’s not clear where to go or that the other person will be ready to assist you.
(3) The people who work at these facilities are usually not America’s best and brightest.
Depends on location. When I lived in CA the DMV experience in Contra Costa county was awful, think 100+ people waiting on their number to be called. Add onto that expensive taxes/fees with a complicated structure, stringent documentation requirements for licenses and registrations, the stress of eye exams and tests/test drives. Then layer on the often accurate trope of slow-moving, not very nice employees who are not excited about their job and you have a recipe for a bad experience.
I will say in my current area the experience isn’t bad. Registration and licensing are in different storefronts and both seem to be reasonably efficient, with friendly staff. The costs/fees/requirements are still mind-boggling. Thank goodness most of it can be handled online these days!
Ok so first off, I’m going to generalize and don’t even really agree with everything I’m saying –
The DMV is where you go to engage with pure bureaucracy being worked by the sloth from Zootopia in order to fulfill some task that perhaps unblocks you in some way but provides no joy whatsoever, and you can only do it during the time of day when you are typically occupied with your own life and the line might be so long that you’ll have to come back tomorrow and if you fucked up a form you have to do it all over again and meanwhile you’re surrounded by people that make the Walmart (not that walmart, the shitty walmart on the other side of town) look like crowd at the Met Gala.
If you are old enough to have experienced the DMV in the 80s and 90s it would make more sense. Going to the DMV now is a significantly different experience.
It’s half a meme and half bad memories.
Today, they have systems like online waiting lists that make the process much less of an aggravation.
It’s never been that bad for me but it is annoying to have to go, and TV and movies often use hyperbole as a mechanism to create humor about that annoyance we all share
They’ve gotten better in recent years, but for a long time they had a reputation for being incredibly slow and inefficient.
Because it’s forced, like taxes, and not really very pleasant. I remember growing up in Ohio, our local DMV had a snack counter. I think all DMVs should have something like that.
Different states have different experiences.
Some states require appointments (and still blame Covid for their shortcomings) that are over 6 weeks away.
Certain DMVs, usually inner city ones, are crazy busy, inefficient, have lots of odd people, and are just generally stressful and hard to deal with.
Many are simply quiet, boring offices
It used to be SOOOOOO much worse than it currently is. Back in the day, it would basically take 3-4 (or more) hours of waiting in order to do something simple that actually took you 5 minutes to get done. With so much being able to be accomplished online, nowadays it’s much better. Still slow, but nothing like it used to be.
It’s just a trope at this point. Nobody likes going to the DMV. It’s a necessary evil. The lines can be long. The staff can be less-than-friendly.
With that said, I’ve never had an issue at the DMV.
I think it’s similar to people saying Taco Bell gives you explosive diarrhea. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten sick from Taco Bell.
Extremely long waits. The last couple of times I had to go in person, there was a line around the building to get a ticket with a number for the line for whatever you needed to do. Appointments aren’t always available in a reasonable/ timely manner in your area, so you’re often at the mercy of the line. I’ve heard of people driving hours away for a DMV appointment.
It feels like an outdated stereotype to me, but, I guess others here have different experiences.
For me, in Boise Idaho, I can do 90% of what I need to online, and when I have to go in, I can make an appointment beforehand and not have to wait forever.
It’s packed and impersonal. The workers there are usually absolutely miserable.
In my experience I always have some tickets shit that I have to deal so I’m afraid of 2 things: the doctors and the DMV.
Because we shouldn’t even have to register our vehicles; and, if you’re convinced we should, why should it cost like $80? Why every year? It should be like $3, one time fee per vehicle.
I was very impressed with my DMV when I renewed my driver’s license. They were courteous and pretty efficient.
I had to renew my drivers license and it took foreeeevvvveeerrr. It was like 2 hours of just waiting in a crowded room, and I swear time moves slower there
I went today to renew my plates and change a title. I was number 120 and they were on 84 when I sat down. It only took about 20 minutes to get to me and the worker was super friendly and fast. No complaints.
I’ve never had a memorably bad experience at the DMV, but I’ve had some experiences where I’m in and out in 15 minutes and others that took hours. I think the dread is the inconvenience of it all and the fact that you just never know what you’re going to get.
it sucks when you have to take work time off to go and do something necessary to continue to move through the world, like renew your driver’s license, as many people live in places without public transit.
i know many folks (especially those with complicated name situations) who have also just been turned away from their appointment because they forgot necessary paperwork, or the instructions weren’t clear. i always bring too many forms of identification just in case.
I think it’s a bit of an outdated cliche honestly. Now that most things are done on the computer and in fact a lot of their services can be done at home online, I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as it was in the past. The last few times I’ve had to go, I’ve been in and out in half an hour.
Since my state made a lot of DMV transactions available online going to the DMV is no problem – fast service.
It’s a meme, but it really depends on your county anymore – some are horribly slow, others are effecient and fast.
Lots of us grew up when they had shit computers at best and everything was paperwork which takes a lot of time, everyone hated the system, and those cuts run deep.
It totally depends on your luck as far as which DMV location you go to and who the clerk is that you get to deal with. ‘ve had some instances where they went well out of their way to fix issues and take care of me. In other cases they flat out lied about requirements, lost paperwork that I had just handed them or entered data in their own system wrong that resulted in endless problems afterwards.
The problem is that you don’t know which you are getting until you’re in the middle of it.
DMV is the most frequent way that Americans are confronted with the fact that if you fund government poorly, you get poor government. They’re unhappy for a day or two and then go back to hating tax increases.
Have you never been?
The DMV in Illinois improved exponentially from what it used to be in the 70s and 80s. I don’t complain anymore.
If the employees weren’t so rude every time we wouldn’t hate it so much.
At least where I live, the DMV is not as bad as it used to be. Maybe because I’m older and realize that no one’s ever going to bend any rules for me if i show up unprepared. “I swear I paid that ticket” is not going to work
It’s become a trope, like “what’s the deal with airplane food.” It’s really not that bad, but I think people go in ready to pick every nit, so they can have their own story to throw in the pot next time it comes up.
I think it has gotten better, at least in California. The last few times I’ve had to go, it wasn’t that bad.
I remember when I first got my license (around 2008, I think), it was terrible. The line was always out the door and everything took forever. There were more lines inside, and you had to sit in a waiting area between each line. The workers were usually in an awful mood, too.
I have never had many issues. I try to go at non-peak hours and to one that will have a lower volume of people. Checking the reviews online tends to help out. It’s still one of those life chores that will never be fun, but it doesn’t ruin my day.
In my state the DMV is really well run. It’s easy to renew your license. The most I ever had to wait was 30 minutes. It’s probably state specific how people feel about it.
It varies state by state. The California dmv for example has a reputation of being painfully slow. Personally though, it has never been that bad for me
When I first started out dealing with it, you could bet on spending a minimum of 2 hours doing something as simple as renewing your license. You had to bring in a bunch of papers and stuff and wait for about a hundred years for an employee to become available to go through and enter all the data and look up how much it’s supposed to cost. Then one day, it just magically changed. I had to go in last week to transfer plates from an old car to a new one and I was there a total of 5 minutes. They have probably 5 times as many people working and the computer system is super efficient. They already had all the information in the system, as it was entered by the dealership at the time of purchase. Just paid the fee, got a receipt and registration printed, and left. Not to mention you can do a lot online from home now and not even bother going in.
Where I live members of the American Automobile Association can do most RMV (registry of motor vehicles) transactions at an AAA facility. I renewed my license and had it upgraded to REAL ID. In and out in under 30 minutes.
I have to be honest in my area it’s not that bad. I don’t think I’ve ever waited more than 15 minutes…. But maybe it’s because I have simple tasks and it’s not complicated… not really sure
Ours used to be a real pain. You’d stand and wait in a winding line for an hour or longer, only to get a ticket then sit inside to wait yet again to be called up. You’d wait to see the first person about the basics. Then you’d wait in another line for photo. Then wait for your temporary card. It was a 2-3 hour commitment sometimes! Even just to renew or change address.
Now, you can schedule for your specific purpose in advance online (or sometimes renew online). For renewal or certain changes, you arrive, check in, wait maybe 5-15 minutes, go to an all-in-one counter (you sit, do the eye test and other stuff, turn for a photo), get a paper printed temp card, and done in 15 minutes. Obviously if you have testing, you get scheduled longer.
I went to DMV 2 weeks ago. The line was out the door, around the corner. I had an appointment so I sailed right inside to the appointments line, which only had 6 people in front of me. Got to the front she gave me a number, and. I waited an HOUR past my appointment time for service. That’s with an appointment! Then I had to go to another line to get my photo taken.
DMV is the worst.
It’s gotten much much better, I no longer dread it. It’s the same as the staff working at DMVs, they used to be really mean and have been surprisingly pleasant recently. If they keep it up I think this stereotype will start to go away.
It’s just a meme. I haven’t had an issue in many years.
It’s no worse than an average doctor’s office.
And more and more is available on line now.
In my state you have the option to make an allotment but you can’t actually make in one within a 3 hour five for 3 months in advance. You can’t go wait but they don’t start taking walk ins until noon and you could potentially go there and wait from morning and then not get in the same day.
Understaffed, slow, long wait times, sometimes forms can be complicated so you have to go back multiple times. A better funded DMV would probably be a better DMV but good luck with that happening.
Mine is oddly not terrible.
I only have to go in there once every 8 years now for a new license photo. My last one was a Real ID so I’ve done that bit.
You make an appointment, plan in advance and you get 8am. Last time I was out the door by 8:10.
We go to the county office when we need to tag a new car. There are no appointments there, but if you’re in the parking lot at 7:59am, refreshing the queueing website, you usually pull a number that gets immediately called by the time you walk into the building. Again, you’re out the door by 8:10.
Kansas is, in this rare care, pretty good.
I mean the place exists to charge you money for forms you have to seek out yourself and complete (in order to maintain a bureaurcracy you have basically no say over). Nobody walks out of the DMV with more money than they started unless they work there. Also every person who works there has to at least have a fundamental understanding of the forms and if they don’t you get to watch them do basically the same research you did to catch up.
I didn’t understand the hate for the DMV til I lived in CA. Now I get it.
Whenever they get close to your number, they go back 20 numbers… and proceed to do this for 2 hours
Slow/ process is outdated and nothing is clear in terms of what is needed under any and all issues. So you can wait 6+ hrs just to be told you need a stupid sheet of paper that nobody said you needed from either side. Wonder why they get yelled and screamed out all day! I feel bad for em!
It’s a periodic annoyance that must be endured to maintain access to a lifestyle necessity. It reminds us that our government is charging us taxes on something we already own, that we already paid taxes on, so that we can use roads, that we paid taxes for, maintained via taxed fuel – and all delivered in the most beurocratic manner possible.
It’s much better now than it used to be. When I got my first license, appointments were not possible. So everyone just had to show up and hope for the best. And you couldn’t even get a simple question answered over the phone. Now, you can request an appointment, and a lot of info is available online.
Unmotivated rude workers.
It’s hilariously inefficient. It might have improved by now but I remember having to leave and find another piece of mail from my GRANDPA’s house by chance because I just came home from college and only had one piece of recent mail sent to home. And yes I did have my id.
Inefficient, poor attitudes, and too crowded. They had DMV Express at one time where I lived and it helped with some of the easier stuff to help unburden the bigger DMVs.
Our DMV has 1 lady. That’s it. You need to get there an hour before opening if you for sure want to be done with the task before lunch. B/c when it gets noon that lady is locking up & leaving (as she should). The other option is to get there before/at lunch & hope you’re finished by closing. If not, you gotta come back another day.
Some DMV offices are run better than others. I remember the one in Los Angeles being a nightmare. Too crowded, too much waiting. After I moved, I found other DMVs weren’t as bad.
It’s not great… especially when there’s other companies who can do what the DMV does in a fraction of the time without the rude bullshit attitude. It’s one of the few things that often gets clowned on in movies and media without really being exaggerated
USA Maryland here…gotta’ say the MD DMV has it’s act all sorted here in Hagerstown.
Patty and Selma?
I think of it as a litmus test for how much of a shit show people’s lives are.
There’s always been a lot of hate for DMV because of how slow it is. I never had an issue with waiting at the DMV until COVID, seemed it generally was a short wait. Since COVID you can get there to stand in line before they open and still take an hour or, if you can luck out you can get an appointment. It took me awhile of checking the appointments online before I was able to schedule one, and then it was several weeks out.
Driver’s tests aside, or something like an Eye Exam –
the notion that in 2025 – most of this can’t be done over the internet is ridiculous, and says everything about the DMV
The DMV used to be awful but now you can do most things online like license renewals, etc so it’s not that big of a deal like it once was.
It isn’t much different than most government bureaucracy, but it’s the one that the average person is most likely to deal with.
And frankly it’s because you’re probably there for something that can be handled in <10 minutes online, but because it’s pretty much impossible to change the way the government does things, is going to take up two hours.
The California DMV changed my hair color from brown to grey. Unprompted.
Yes it’s that bad. You have to make an appointment just to wait the same amount of time as before they were enforced. It takes about 4 hours minimum (Chicago suburbs) to do anything there. The line is so long you have to stand outside for a good portion of it.
Insurance and paying old tickets takes only a few minutes and most of it is done online
It also depends where you live, I grew up in a small rural town in Mississippi where it only takes 10-30 minutes to get anything from the DMV
https://youtu.be/4aUC1VZQE1E?si=fkeTkVGnrBC2Wc8t
This is the sloth scene from Zootopia. Every experience I’ve ever had at the DMV has been like this. The lines are long, and the workers most at speed of sloth. They have no sense of urgency.
I don’t go to the DMV anymore. I pay more money to use a title company. It’s worth the extra money to avoid the DMV.
Because the wait is long, there’s no system that organizes people by what they are in for which makes it confusing, employees can be rude (I get it, it’s probably annoying dealing with people who are argumentative, uncooperative and didn’t prepare for the situation), and then you have to pay money for it.
It’s not that bad. Sometimes I can sense that certain people are there quite often, sort of stuck in the past. That and the state employees who have to tolerate high stress and low appreciation.
Other than that, DMV is pretty efficient (especially here in Oregon) most things can be done completely online, you don’t even have to put on pants.
That being said, I wouldn’t stop there during your lunch break. You probably need at least half a day, sometimes it is busy.
I went to renew a driver license and had all of my documentation with me. One of the documents I brought was my Certificate of Birth Abroad from the State Department. It’s a federal form issued by US embassies to children born overseas.
They tried to turn me away because it wasn’t a “real” birth certificate. They wanted the one from the actual hospital that anyone with novice level skills in MS Paint could doctor to say whatever they wanted.
Their rules are arbitrary, selectively enforced, and don’t provide any tangible increase in safety or security.
It’s not really the D M V, but the people behind the desk. Some if them act like someone peed in their corn flakes.
It has the bad rap of being slow, understaffed, snd frustrating. I’ve had some really efficient experiences with DMV and some really bad ones. Part of the issues is that everyone needs to go to the DMV- even those who don’t drive, cuz that’s where you get your state ID.
Though, my current DMV has a virtual waiting room that texts you 20 mins before you’re next in line so that you don’t need to wait in the building, and can in theory, continue with your day until it’s your turn.
My local built in the 60s DMV’s first line is fight next to a single stall bathroom. Yes it smells as bad as think it does
It’s just very much like in the movie zootopia…bureaucracy at its worst and slowest, unpleasant environment, hard to get answers without waiting in line
Watch the movie Zootopia. It’s honestly pretty accurate.
They are rude. We have 6 branches of the SOS within 20 minutes of my home, and I’ve yet to find one where the staff even smiles.
No food, no drinks allowed. No public bathroom.
Even with the manditory appointment, you get stuck waiting.
When you finally get up there the staff is snappy, and short with you.
I do as much as I possibly can online.
This will vary somewhat by state, since DMVs are a state-run entity. But in California the DMV is the quintessentially bloated, inefficient, and unresponsive state agency, and the only one most people will have to deal with on even a semi-regular basis.
DMVs get sufficient funding, but somehow having to go into an office ranks among the most miserable and inefficient uses of most peoples’ days.
Things have gotten a little better in recent years as the moved more and more activities purely online, but actually going into the office is as annoying as ever.
The DMV just seems to be so needlessly inefficient. I’m sure a lot of it is due to under-budgeting and under-staffing, but they could make it a lot better if they invested in even modest process improvements.
Here’s an example. I got my Real ID a long time ago (~2018). The requirements at the time said that you needed a utility bill for proof of residence, so I printed out a utility bill and brought it along. What wasn’t made clear on their website at the time is that they would not accept a printout, but needed something official that was mailed.
I had made an appointment and stood in line for 45 minutes, only to be told I’d have to come back another time because I only had a utility bill printout. I pointed out that I have gone paperless on all of my utilities, so I didn’t get any bills in the mail. They told me that I could use my vehicle registration instead of a bill (which wasn’t listed as an option on the website), so I said I would run out to my car to fetch it, only for the employee to tell me that I would have to wait in line again, and this time in the non-appointment line since I had already used up my appointment slot. Alternatively, I could make another appointment and come back another time (lead time on appointments was over a month). The employee had no sympathy for my time concerns.
Rather than wait another month, I waited in the non-appointment line for another 90 minutes, and this time was able to complete my Real ID application without issue.
The fact that you have to stand in line for 45 minutes WITH an appointment is crazy to me. Even doctors, notorious for falling behind on appointments, don’t fall that far behind.
I have always been impressed with DMV offices I have visited, but I have heard valid complaints about others in the same county.
Ever since they installed the self-service kiosks, it hasn’t been that bad.
Beyond the fact that most DMV interactions I’ve had have been slow, inefficient, very rude workers, I get pretty frustrated about why I need to jump through 95% of the hoops I do and pay the county/state for the privilege of driving my own fucking car I paid money for, after getting my income taxed, on public roadways that my taxes also fund.
It depends on where you live. New Haven CT DMV is hell on earth. Stand in line to be handed whatever form you need. Fill it out. Stand in another line to check that you filled it properly. Sit and wait for your number to be called. All the while they’re selling hot dogs in the waiting room 🤢
Moved to Utah, walked right in, it was super clean, and I was done in 5 mins.
I’ve never minded my local. They are fast and polite, provided you have an appointment. What I hated was their horrible internet services and that has been much better since covid. So haven’t been in for years now.
It’s much better now that you can make appointments, at least where I’ve lived. As long as you have all the documents you need, it’s just a minor nuisance errand.
Back in the olden days, when you had to just show up and take a number and wait, it was horrible. Could be hours of waiting. My local place didn’t even have restrooms or drinking water for customers, so if the wait was too long you’d have to find someplace else to go (I’d walk up the street to the library), which at least helped kill some time because they still wouldn’t be close to your number when you got back. But there was no telling how fast the line might move, so just going and doing something else for an hour or two was too risky because you might miss your turn.
And like, EVERYONE who needed a license or non-driver ID had to go, so the waiting area would be full of people who really struggled with both the wait and the process, like people with fussy young kids, elderly and disabled people, etc. It was just a hostile environment before you even got the the counter.
It’s much better now. And the last two places I had to go actually had sufficient seating and water and restrooms, although with an appointment the wait was not long at all.
The DMV in my state is remarkably efficient. I think the maximum time that I’ve spent there at peak hours was about 20 minutes. I’m usually in and out in less than 10.
My husband used to live in Virginia and Tennessee. Now he doesn’t LIKE going to the DMV (who likes running errands?) But he DOES think that Southern California DMV’s are much better than he’s used to. Quicker and more organized.
I live in a rural area. There is no DMV location in my town. I would need to go to one of the nearby larger towns, and there are a few to choose from that are all about 30 or so minutes away. Most of those locations are only open 1-2 days a week. But even with the limited availability, they’re usually not too busy or crazy. I have gone to a 5 day a week location in a medium sized city before though, and that was a different story. The lines were long and people were grumpy af.
I’m just really glad that most things can be done online now. I was able to renew my license a couple of years ago online. I’m not sure how often you actually have to go in to have your picture retaken and the eye test, but I’m all set until 2030. I thought about going in to get the real id, but I have a passport so it’s really not a necessity atm. I have been doing all of my plate renewals online for years as well. So it’s not a place that most of us need to visit super often, at least.
It used to be worse. You can do a lot of stuff online now. Back in the day it was pretty awful with the waits.
I think the DMV is inherently anxiety producing. You go to their website to make sure you have what you need but sometimes it is not all that clear on what exactly they need. You think you’re good and go to the DMV. If you don’t have the exact paperwork they need you will be turned away. Then you must start the process all over again.
This creates stress and anxiety that is felt every time you need to visit-even if all is good. It’s like a PTSD reaction and everyone is feeling the same way. Lots of stress in those offices.
In my state, you can’t get an appointment in the ENTIRE state for three months. People wait until midnight hoping that an appointment will open up three months in the future.
If you can’t get an appointment, you have to go stand in line. You need to get there at 6 or 7 in the morning to be at the front of line. You have to do this because there is a very real possibility that, even if you got there at 6am, you may not be seen until sometime in the afternoon. If you dare to arrive at 9 or 10 in the morning, you could stand in line (outside) all day long and never get to see someone.
Once you do get inside, the employees act like you are a giant inconvenience. Forgot a piece of paper? Have a weird birth certificate? Not born in the US? They act like you should have known that you would be rejected because you didn’t have a certain piece of paper or didn’t know there was a form you needed to fill out. You will find all this out after standing in line for hours.
And that’s if you see anyone. I was in line with my daughter once at 8am and a woman came out and yelled at the crowd that they didn’t have anyone to do the physical driving tests so if you were there for a new license that required driving, you should just leave. She said this in a way that suggested she had already told us this 10x. This was the first time she had come out.
So yeah. I hate going and standing in line for hours on end just to find out that I forgot something or get yelled out by someone.
I accidently left my passport in the car when I went to replace my lost driver’s license, and the lady at the desk basically called me stupid and an idiot without ever actually using those words.
She forced me to schedule a new appointment instead of letting me run out and back in.
I was the only person at our slow, small DMV.
Image a bureaucracy so inefficient that it takes you days literally days to do even the simple mundane task. That is most, not all, but most, DMV offices.
I lost my wallet and had to replace all the cards. Easiest to hardest:
Well, it is dark in my local DMV, poor lighting, and it is understaffed, and it takes a long time to take care of business it seems.
If you ever watch the TV show Reaper, it’s a facility run by hell where escaped souls can be returned.
The devil even jokingly explains that any place that seems like he’ll actually is.
It sucks but it’s really not as bad as I’ve been made to believe as a teenager. Longest I’ve ever waited was like 2 hours but that’s an extreme rarity. Most of the time it’s like 40 mins from the time I walk in, to the time I walk out.
I wonder if a lot of the hate comes from all the rules about what you need to bring with you
I would give my local DMV an A+. No issues with them whatsoever and they’re always nice and polite.
i recently had to visit the DMV and was DREADING it, because of my experience at previous visits. It was actually very efficient and quick (quickness likely due to my visiting outside of their peak hours) and the staff who assisted me were VERY friendly. I told them so, thanked them, and gave them a 5star review online
The reality very much depends on the local DMV (or whatever the local equivalent is). The county I grew up in had an okay DMV when I was a teenager – which was decades ago – but the wait times at the location nearest me were ridiculous. I’ve experienced four other DMV/MVRs over the decades, and they ranged from a microcosm of bureaucratic hell that put all jury duty experiences I’ve had to shame, to a five minute wait in line, sit for ten minutes waiting for my name to show up, competent officials got everything handled within a few minutes, they printed out everything, and I walked out. And the horrible one was shortly before the pandemic, so it’s not just that things have gotten better.
But I think the root cause is much like dentists; it isn’t so much that they’re all a terrible experience, it’s that the cultural memory (enshrined by sitcoms, comic strips, and films going back a century or more) has highlighted the worst of them as a kind of archetype that everyone can envision, even if they’ve never experienced that particular thing being that bad firsthand.
Like, we’ve all (most of us, at least) dealt with a bureaucratic system that required us to stand in lines, fill out forms, and generally have our souls sucked out. It’s not the same system for everyone – police, courts, academic institutions, mail services, corporate complaint departments – but for anyone who has experienced that, even if their DMV is awesome (BTW, kudos to Maryland’s MVA for, somehow, in a state where almost every other service is in the bottom 25% for modernization, efficiency, or reliability, managing to be a bastion of efficient, painless, and helpful service), “the DMV” is a familiar shorthand for that experience.
I have no idea why they complain. I log in, set an appointment on line. Show up at the given time with the requested information. The last time I had to be there in person it was about 15 minutes. I perhaps waited 5 minutes pass my scheduled time.
Same with the SSA offices. Once you have an appointment you just go there at the time and it is in and out. Not a big deal.
I lived for a time in a not industrialized country. The DMV line was 4-5 days long. I would hire a “line waiter” for me. And when the line was within a couple of hours to be next, they would call me and I’d show up. You’d have to hire like 3-4 people as a set so they can stay vigil all night until it opens the next day. And they needed a runner to run over to the pay phone to call the actual person needing DMV stuff. It was a racket but it worked.
The dmv in my city is so backed up I had to get an appointment in another city if I didn’t went to wait 3 months to renew my drivers license.
It makes you realize how stupid the average person is. The DMV has great documentation that tells you exactly what you need. I go to the DMV regularly as I by and sell cars and I have a DMV filing business. Over half the time, people don’t have the correct forms or they have filled them out incorrectly. And this is for basic things like transferring plates.
Then you get on the other side where you are doing something strange/complicated. You have read the DMV provided documentation and have everything filled out correctly. Then the DMV clerks proceed to tell you it is wrong or what you are doing is impossible. You have to literally argue with them until they call the head office at the capital to realize what you want to do is perfectly fine and all your paperwork is in order.
Just stupidity on top of stupidity.
I’ve had bad times but also some incredibly kind interactions at the DMV. I still don’t like going because even when I make an appointment I still have to wait sometimes hours in a cramped area with a bunch of strangers who have also been waiting for hours, so no one is feeling or acting their best. Also the system is often very bureaucratic and if you haven’t done everything just right you have to start over/wait longer or gather more paperwork and come back.
My hate for the DMV is personal. When I first got my license, it should’ve been such a monumental moment, right? Wrong. I ended up getting ringworm from my local
petri dishDMV, and was miserable for a week. Other than that, the waits can be long (even sometimes with an appointment), it’s not very well-organized and the employees can be a bit rude.This varies widely by area. I’ve had to take a day off work and wait in lines for six hours (even with an appointment) in some places, and I was in and out in ten minutes other places.
The DMV where I used to live was terrible, but the next closest one was 2 hours away
Rural American life. Moved a couple years ago, I’ve had much better service at the one close to me now, same state. Go figure
In some areas of some states a visit can indeed be onerous. In others, not a big deal and can be quite efficient. Mostly, I believe, it’s due to understaffing in busy outlets.
I’ve not had an issue in years, outside of Florida’s system.
People only remember their worst experiences. It may not matter if the DMV was quick and efficient 9 times out of 10, you’re bound to remember the one time it was terrible. And with the number of things you need to go to the DMV for – it will happen some time or the other.
Long wait times. Inefficient. Sometimes you have every single document they require and they find a reason to tell you to come back cause they’re having a shitty day.
Everyone working there and waiting seems depressed. Something about the building/room itself sucks the soul right out of you…like it’s being guarded by dementors.
I haven’t been there in over 10 years…I have to go next month and I’m already dreading it 😭
Did you fill out the proper request form? Go wait in line 3. Finished waiting in line 3, but you aren’t getting a brand new license it’s a replacement so go wait in line 8. Finished waiting in line 8, fill out this sheet then go sit for 1-2 hours until we call you up to wait in line 19.
It’s a government agency most people interact with.
People vote for lower taxes, but tend not to be happy when they have to interact with underfunded agencies.
At least by me, we tend to get a back and forth in funding levels depending on which party is in charge. It’s definitely a much more pleasant experience when we’ve got a budget set by the Democrats.
It’s not nearly as bad nowadays though. Most stuff can be done online. It used to be way more crowded when you had to do everything in person. 20-25 years ago every little thing had to be done in person, and it was common for something like renewing your license to take hours.
Oh, another fun part is your driver’s license is most people’s primary id. They tend to be really fussy about proving your identity. Multiple forms of proof needed with specific requirements. It’s really easy to get that wrong and need to make another trip.
I always show up on time, set an appointment, do my little research online, print the forms if I can. Literally the only thing that makes me mad at the DMV are the patrons there huffing and puffing.
I’d start to feel pretty rude if I had to put up with how they get treated. It’s very chicken and egg. Dealing with automotive papers is not brain surgery. I’ve done almost all papers, transfers, tests, registration, licneses enough to help out others if they weren’t such jerks.
Half the time I go in there’s a huge line I get to cut because I made an appointment. When I can’t make an appointment I “cut” the line by just going upfront and asking to make sure I’m in the right one and asking people I’m standing next to.
If you can’t make an appointment, print some papers, and stand in the right line and have some patience I don’t know how you survive in life.
It’s more of a traditional complaint these days. Way back before computers, doing anything at any DMV was a 6 hour ordeal, minimum, regardless of what time of day you went. These days, from my direct experience in Texas, Michigan and Georgia, I’ve never spent more than 20 minutes waiting. And the majority of stuff you can do online. But the tradition of complaining about the DMV is like an old sweater. There may be lots of holes, but it’s very comfortable to complain.
When I had to renew, I scheduled an appoint for right when they opened. Got there pretty damn close to opening. Long line around the building. The had people outside telling people to come to the front if they had an appointment. I stepped up and was gone after about 15 minutes.
You ever have to stand in the rain for 45 minutes to get into a building you have to stand in for another hour to get your picture take?