Erin The Great

Ever since I was a child I heard of stories from my family and relatives about the evils of the DMV. It wasn’t until I was 15 and went to go take the test for my learners permit that I truly understood what they were talking about.

           Going to the DMV is like going to the dentist for a root canal. Most of the time you show up, wait half your life time in back of someone who is seemingly at the end of their rapidly fraying rope or someone who wasn’t informed of the invention of soap. When you finally reach the counter to do whatever you came to do (and secretly wish you’d done via the internet or the mail) you are usually standing in front of someone who’d rather see you die a horrible and painful death, then actually help you.

I’m not quite sure why DMV employees are all that disgruntled, mainly because I think jobs like; postal worker, banker, or retail assoc. pretty much have the market cornered on that one. I honestly think that the experience of the DMV is more painful for the patrons and as customers we usually are the disgruntled ones leaving the establishment…. That is unless you live in Utah Valley, then you REALLY have something to complain about.

In most states, the process of registering your car, changing over your license, or even changing over a car title seems painful but relatively simple right? You go to the Department of Motor Vehicles and you can accomplish all these tasks under one roof. This is not the case in Utah Valley. They have three, count them 3 different places where you can do said ‘tasks’ but none of the others things you need done. It’s sort of ironic that this would be the case in a ‘dry state’ when normal DMV experiences would usually drive one to drink.

One day I needed to do all three of the errands mentioned above and I had to crawl all over creation just to accomplish it. On one side of the city is where you register your car if it’s never been registered in the state of Utah. For registration renewal, that’s a whole other building. The second location on the opposite end of the city is where you change an out of state driver’s license to a Utah one but you can’t renew a current driver’s license there, you have to go back over across town to renew…its asinine! Not to mention taking an already painful process and REALLY making it memorable.

If you’ve purchased a car in a state that doesn’t have sales tax i.e. Oregon, do not I repeat DO NOT register your car in a state where sales tax is enforced, because you’ll have to pay ALL of the sales tax at time of registration… I learned that one the hard way.

I’m beginning to think that they operate on a ‘we can do whatever we want because we’re protected under a million laws so therefore we get to screw over everyone’. You’d think they’d have the decency to buy me dinner first.

I’m thinking that I should remember to take a sedative next time… or just take my chances with the police.