Five Wasted Hours in Michael Bloomberg’s DMV
So my family and I just came back from a business
trip to
Brooklyn’s Department of Motor Vehicles. Each of the three
employees we dealt with were as pleasant and helpful as can be;
there were no surprise setbacks along the way, we walked out of
there with both of our goals accomplished (converting my D.C.
license and registration into legitimate New Yorkese, for the low
low price of $265), and the whole process took…five goddamned
hours.
This, it turns out, is totally normal, based on the scientific
evidence of my two colleagues who have also enjoyed the Brooklyn
DMV. “I was there for 5 hours Friday just to change my license from
Virginia one to New York,” one wrote, prophetically, before I
departed. “I once spent 7 hours at that same DMV getting my license
switched over,” another wrote at the halfway mark of my experience.
“Godspeed.”
The DMV-horror story is such a libertarian staple by now that it
almost feels unfair. Here, let’s take a walk through some past Reason
headlines:
* “D.C.’s
Deadly DMV“
* “Smiles
Outlawed: DMV Makes Life Even More Miserable“
* “Hell
Can’t Be Worse Than the DMV“
And don’t forget this
Reason.tv classic:
You don’t have to be a libertarian to shudder at DMV horror stories, because you
have likely experienced them yourself (unless you are one of
these
apparently lucky people who also happen to like commenting at
Bloggingheads.tv). The more salient question is, why do we put up
with this? And why do politicians bore us with any of their
other crap while a monopoly city service sputters on with
all the efficiency (but 200 times the price!) of a Soviet Bloc post
office? (A similar argument could be made about the grotesquely
inefficient system for allocating jury duty, as Greg
Beato wrote for us last year.)
You used to see (or is it that I used to
see?) a
You can read the rest of this article at: http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/06/five-wasted-hours-in-michael-bloombergs
Short URL: http://www.txwclp.org/?p=14305
Posted by rbutler
on Aug 7 2012. Filed under Libertarian News.
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