More Arizona DMV Madness
April 8, 2013, 7:22 am
My daughter is ready for her final (in-car) driving test to try to get her driver's license. But it turns out that the AZ DMV only gives driving tests before 3PM each day.
This is yet another policy designed for the pleasure of government workers (who want to get home nice and early) and not customer-citizens. Ask yourself: Who are 99% of the people who take the in-car driving test. Answer: 16-year-olds, also known as high school sophomores. And what are they doing up until 3PM weekdays? Why, they are going to school!
So I have to pull my daughter out of school to take the driving test. But it is worse than that, because we can't just show up at 2:30, missing perhaps her last class. The AZ DMV has this insane process that is essentially a series of chained queues. One waits in line for the receptionist, who gives the "customer" a number based on what task they want to complete (license, tags, etc). One then waits endlessly for this first number to come up, only to find that the person who calls you up can only complete half the task (at best), so you then have to wait in line for the next person to complete the next task, etc.
Well, reports from all the other parents tell us that if you show up two hours early (e.g. at 1PM), there is a very good chance you will not get the driving test. If all the prior queues one must work through cause one to show up at the driving test queue even at 3:01 -- Sorry! You have to come back another day and start all over.
This is obviously insane. The chained queue process is nuts. The fact that the one portion school age kids must complete ends before school is out is nuts. The fact that the person who performs the last step in the chained process goes home first is nuts.
Until last year, and with my previous kid, we did not have to do this. AZ had a very sensible law that allowed private licensed driving schools to give the driving test. You could still go through the DMV, but for a $100 or so one could get this done via a high service, no-queue, work-on-the-weekend private company. But of course our legislature ended this sensible service last year, ostensibly over concerns about quality, but likely because the DMV folks didn't like competition from outsiders who actually gave a sh*t about customer service.
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