Tales From the DMV #2

Every few hundred years, the California Department of Motor Vehicles refuses to renew my driver's license by mail and I have to go into one of their offices, take an eye exam and pose for a new photo. The one good thing is that I always — always! — get an interesting anecdote about the experience. Here's the last one which occurred ten years ago.

That time, as you can see, I was in and out in twenty minutes. This time, it promised to be a lot longer because when I called up to get a reservation time, I found out there was a three-week wait. That would put it two weeks after my birthday and the expiration of my current license. I called a number for D.M.V. info, waited a half-hour for a question-answerer-person and asked what I should do. I don't want to drive with an expired license and I don't want to be unable to drive for two weeks.

The lady said, "You'll just have to come in and take your chances with the line…but I warn out, it could be at least an hour wait. Maybe two hours." Her warning seemed prescient. Yesterday, my assistant John and I went to the D.M.V. office in Hollywood. The line there was long enough that had I decided to wait in it — which I did not — I would have gotten to the clerk just in time to do the next renewal or even the one after it.

Instead, we left there and drove to the West Hollywood D.M.V. and I don't know how long the wait would have been there because we never got to it. I'm not sure it was possible to get to it. Every route we tried to take was closed for street repairs. We hit so many detours that we finally gave up and went home. Apparently, this is the new driving test in the state of California. If you can actually figure out how to drive to the West Hollywood D.M.V., you qualify.

This morning, determined to wait as long as it took, I loaded my Kindle with a few books to pass the time, drove to a different D.M.V. office…and I was out in six minutes. That included the time for the eye test and photo. But that's not the anecdote I got.

As I was heading for my car, I witnessed an accident in the parking lot. A teenager trying to maneuver his car into a space tried backing up to approach it from a different angle — and in backing up, he backed into someone else's car — happily, not mine. There were no injuries but I'm guessing $500 worth of damage to each car.

A man I'd guess was the kid's father got out of the passenger seat, assessed the breakage and I heard him tell the young driver, "You're not ready to take your driving test." And then within seconds, the father-guy was back in the car and they pulled out and drove off. No note. No nothing. But I got both license numbers.

I went back into the D.M.V. office and explained to a clerk what had happened. She paged the owner of the bruised auto, he came over and I took him outside to show him what had been done to his vehicle. He was most displeased. I gave him the license number of the dent-and-run car along with my business card and offered to stick around if he wanted to call the police.

That turned out not to be necessary because just then, the car with the teen and his father rolled back into the lot. The father got out and began apologizing and suddenly, I was (happily) no longer needed. When I left, they were discussing whether the father would pay for repairs out of his own pocket or whether it would go through his insurance. I'd like to think they came back because of conscience but I suspect it was because one of them noticed me jotting down their license number.