Kevin M. Kruse: Twenty minutes in and out at the DMV to get the new Real ID. 25 years here and it’s always easy and quick. If you’re still using “DMV” as a symbol of government incompetence and slowness, you’re probably in a red state

Twenty minutes in and out at the DMV to get the new Real ID. 25 years here and it’s always easy and quick. If you’re still using “DMV” as a symbol of government incompetence and slowness, you’re probably in a red state

TBF, here in FL we can set an appointment online, and be right in and out, I was shocked at how quick and pleasant the whole experience was

The DPS in TX is the same way. It was a breeze. The nice lady even let me take a second pic because my first one wasn't menacing enough. (The DPS is what TX has instead of DMV. It's the same dept as the Tx Rangers.)

Where in Texas are you? Here in the Austin area, we haven’t gotten through a visit to DPS *with a scheduled appointment* in less than 2 hours for the past couple of years. They just don’t have enough staff to process the volume of people needing license or ID services.

That sucksssss!!!! I'm in Houston.

Georgia, too. Mostly. Getting a new license can still take a frustratingly long time, mostly because of the volume. Georgia calls its DMV the "Department of Driver Services," or "DDS," which always makes me think of getting my teeth cleaned.

Yeah the Florida tax collector/DMV/secretariastate (for my Michigan folks) is super efficient and super clean. Having my license printed out the day of my appointment was a mindblower after trying to hang on to a piece of paper that was super awkward to stuff in a wallet.

I regret to inform you that the DMV in CA is still proud to be a symbol of government incompetence.

It’s been a couple years since I went but there was a multiple hour wait at the CA DMV and that’s with an appointment.

Bay Area. With an appt it’s under an hour.

Santa Clara DMV still generally takes us 2 hours, which is lots of fun since Covid started, with almost nobody but us wearing masks. But it's no longer faster to drive to Pleasanton (I used to work near there, and it was usually <1/2 hour.) Fortunately AAA can do car registration paperwork.

You can do registration paperwork online.

You can, but something often went wrong, and you have to wait for them to mail you the license plate sticker, which AAA gives you right away.

True. Took forever to even get an available Real ID appointment, which then took close to two hours, with a lot of waiting. And this was not even in my own town, had to drive to the next county as my office never opened up available appointments. I hear stories of efficient DMVs as fairy tales.

yeah went to several in the central valley and each time i was turned away even though i had an appointment, but because they changed what papers you need bacl amd forth

It’s not incompetence, it’s under-funded.

The California state government is one of the most persuasive arguments against voting for Democrats

California's Republican Party have long been the most persuasive argument for voting Democrat anyway. And the DMV can't print your license right there like even NJ does because GOP Gov Pete Wilson made them do centralized citizenship checking.

My experience in SoCal is massively different. It was super easy the last three times I went, including for Real ID license renewal, other stuff is straight through my AAA office and other stuff is online. Never more than 15 minutes.

Hawaii too. You can set up an appointment online. But the next available one is eight months away.

Same with Colorado…

The Indiana BMV is insanely efficient, so event hat stigma is going away seeing as how this state's entire Republican platform now is "What are you going to do, vote for a Democrat?"

They closed the hyper efficient BMW in West Lafayette and now everybody has to go to the one in Lafayette which is terrible.

The secret is to head up to the one in Delphi.

I was just going to say the same thing about Indiana's BMV. I've had to go twice since moving here from NJ and spent less than10 minutes each time, including wait times. (to be fair, NJ's DMV wasn't bad, but the wait was much longer because there were so many more people there)

The NJ DMV experience is very good. I'm old enough to remember that Jim McGreevey made it part of his campaign to make it better. And he did! Last time I was there someone apologized for the line (it was long but moving fairly quickly)

Ha! I left NJ in the early 90s, and the DMV back then was slow, crowded, obnoxious, and didn't put up adequate signs to tell you what line to wait in.

McGreevey made it his big issue and dud well

Glad to hear it's better. When I moved from NJ, friends here in California told me to make an appointment to take my driver's test. I was shocked to learn that was even a thing.

the last time I went to the NYC DMV to renew my license (and upgrade to Real ID) I made an appointment for 12:15pm, showed up at noon, and was literally done by 12:10. The only thing I was disappointed by was that they wouldn't let me keep my old (awesome) photo on my license.

Yeah I just went to the one in Brooklyn and I even told the woman at the desk how impressed I was by the experience. And someone a few windows down piped up "Me too!!!" It also arrived 9 days after I had gone in. That's efficiency!!

I went in Dec 2020 and had a pleasant time and a little joke with the very nice woman at the Brooklyn DMV that this was the only place my passport went that whole year.

the prior time I went to renew my license, I had an oddball request (wanted to add my middle name, which wasn't a name "change" per se, so I couldn't figure out what to do), and they were super helpful. (wanted to do this so all my IDs (passport, DL, global entry) had the same name)

NYC has eliminated much of the wait, but they left in the surliness as a nod to the classics.

One of the things that’s been so amazing about twitter is to get more insight into less popular areas of gov’t. Me, before social media: wtf is a boiler inspector? Why does that even exist??? Me, reading boiler inspector’s timeline: oh wow, this is fascinating stuff and this guy is SO diligent.

Bro, you gotta watch that episode of Mythbusters re: water heaters and why you gotta inspect that shit. (Spoiler alert: they end up leveling an entire mock house by rigging a water heater so it couldn't release pressure build up)

Yeah, DMV in NJ was always pretty painless for me

Now DMV stands for the Washington, D.C. metro area, so the old meaning still holds in some minds.

Grr....this usage of "DMV" drives me nuts. What was wrong with "DC area"? Also, it's too close to DelMarVa, which is the peninsula east of the Chesapeake Bay.

I do gotta hand it to Mitch Daniels for his work on revamping the Indiana BMV. Having previous experience with its counterparts in Georgia and Tennessee, it's a marvel of efficiency.

*stares wistfully into space remembering the distant past of 2008, when Republicans who weren't evil lunatics could still win primaries*

LOLWHEN?

I'm in Indiana and it's pretty quick.

It's remarkable how people with a vested interest in the government sucking work to make the government suck extra hard, just so they can point to it and say, "see, everyone knows the government sucks"

And it's a template that's seen heavy racist use in particular for over a century.

indeed

I live in a red state and it's underfunded and we do hate it here, but it's called the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, so BMV, and that makes sense that it starts with a BM because that's how you feel after every visit.

I need to go in for a RealID eventually but WA DMV is otherwise like “renew online, talk to you again in 8 years, you’re keeping the original potato-face pic from 2015 for life”

OR DMV rules.

Well, I’m thinking about the 15 months prior to the 2022 elections in #Georgia, where the automatic voter registration system at the DDS was broken and they claimed they didn’t realize it. Coincidence? www.governing.com/now/georgia-...

Georgia Automatic Voter Registration Surges After Web Fixwww.governing.com A minor change to the state’s registration website instantly fixed the automatic voter registration system, which had been broken for 15 months. April saw a 45 percent increase in registration applica...

I’ve been really impressed by the Manhattan Kansas DMV. You make an appointment on-line, show up & there’s almost no wait. But maybe we may not be a great example. Kansas is kinda purplish. (Democratic governor, Republican legislature, supports abortion rights, state also votes for T***p.)

Post