Here in MA, the RMV (or dreaded Registry) also requires proof of insurance on the car you own/expect to drive.  I don’t know how they deal with the zip car issue. 
When we moved here, we had a leased vehicle.  It was an absolute nightmare because we didn’t hold the title, the company who financed us did and apparently the lease agreement showing that was insufficient.

Better grab a second proof of address, like a utility bill or W2 or something - I’ve had to get driver’s licenses in NY and PA and we always seem to be one document short.

Although it’s clear I need the glasses now, I was really annoyed when I tried to get my license transferred a few years back and I failed my vision test, because it was on such a piddly detail, I literally couldn’t tell if I was looking at an O or a Q.

...Like I’m going to be driving down the road and loudly declare “S-T-Q-P? What the hell does that mean? Oh well, must not have been important!!!”

Also, when I was going for my motorcycle permit, the state had initially had a 2-part system by which you take a written exam and, upon passing, you’re issued a learner’s permit, and then you get your full license after passing the driving test (which is at the end of your motorcycle safety course, which your written exam application fee pays for). So, I pass my written exam, get my learner’s permit, and schedule for the safety course: the next one that has an opening is like, 2 months, but that’s ok because the learner’s permit lasts for 3. So I go out and practice riding around to get the handle of shifting and breaking and turning in the meantime.

Then I started getting the phonecalls from the DMV.

Very dire phonecalls, that I only had a learner’s permit (I know). That my license was only a learner’s permit and that I needed to pass the driving test before I would have a full motorcycle license (I know). So I kept having to call the DMV back and confirm the facts of the matter, and that I was still allowed to ride my motorcycle during the daytime with no passengers (I was). So then one day, I get back to my office and there’s a message from the state DMV, and the message was something along the lines of even my learner’s permit wasn’t valid, and so I called back the number they left and I’m not shitting you, I got the state parole board. So I felt like an idiot asking them if they… uh… had the number for the state dmv office (I figured maybe his happened a lot) and of course no they didn’t. Long story short is that shortly thereafter, I did get my license, but always got a little worried when the phone rang in case it was someone telling me I was in violation of my parole.

“Why not bring your Certificate of Live Birth?
I hear that trumps all the other forms.”

Why not bring Libertarian to vouch for you?

...sorry, I forgot he’s become a Birther, so his credibility is now non-existent…

This is what I’m listening to today: BWH - Stop http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10JljfcXquk

@Comment #2: Libertarian on 04/22 at 09:04 AM

Why not bring your Certificate of Live Birth?

I hear that trumps all the other forms.

Ha Ha, good one!

@Comment #4: Mighty Ponygirl on 04/22 at 08:32 AM

Very dire phonecalls, that I only had a learner’s permit (I know). That my license was only a learner’s permit and that I needed to pass the driving test before I would have a full motorcycle license (I know). So I kept having to call the DMV back and confirm the facts of the matter, and that I was still allowed to ride my motorcycle during the daytime with no passengers (I was). So then one day, I get back to my office and there’s a message from the state DMV, and the message was something along the lines of even my learner’s permit wasn’t valid, and so I called back the number they left and I’m not shitting you, I got the state parole board. So I felt like an idiot asking them if they… uh… had the number for the state dmv office (I figured maybe his happened a lot) and of course no they didn’t. Long story short is that shortly thereafter, I did get my license, but always got a little worried when the phone rang in case it was someone telling me I was in violation of my parole.

OMFG Mighty Ponygirl, that sounds like an absolutely terrifying experience. I wonder if this was a strange kind of intentional policy to keep folks on their toes? Or an example of the right hand not knowing the actions of the left hand? May I ask what city that happened in?

Tactual testing in NY is a total joke, and NY, like MA, seems to think that taking a license away from a REALLY REALLY BAD DRIVER, W

Can’t we get a delete button?

Anyway, NY licensing is a total joke when it comes to actual skills.  Like MA, NY has no provisions to take really bad drivers off the road that have any teeth, either. 

Therefore, it must be fear of immigrants.  Otherwise, one would think the testing would be tougher than in, say, Oregon (which is looking at making NY, MA, NJ and other north east state licensees retake a driving test just like Canadian provinces do).

Helen, that’s bullshit.  MA doesn’t require insurance to get a license.  They do want proof of insurance when you take your parallel parking celebration lap for your crackerjack prize - oops - what passes for a driver’s exam on the car you use to take that exam.  That’s reasonable.

DMV is a patronage shithole for lead-poisoned family members of idiot political families, so I’m not surprised they were clueless.

Sorry - RMV.

atheist—it was in Philadelphia, but I know that the process for getting a motorcycle license has since changed.

See, this makes me giggle - I went to go get a WI drivers license yesterday armed with passport, recent electricity bill, my previous (out of state) license, and $28. It took about half an hour to get to my place in line (in the middle of the day on a Thursday) and the guy behind the counter took my license, looked me up in their system and said “oh, you still have a year left on your WI license, here, just have a duplicate” and charged me $14. He did not even glance at the material I brought to prove I lived at the address I live at, just issued me a new one and poof, not 35 minutes after I walk in the door, I’m on my way with new license.

GOD I love this state.

Amanda, the best of luck with your application to the DMV today! As Ms Kate suggested, the lack of concern for skill probably indicates that you’re right about the reasons behind the overly stringent application process. What a pointless waste of everyone’s time, if that’s the case; but then what is anti-immigrant sentiment other than a pointless, sadistic waste of time?

Thanks for posting X—Los Angeles. I’ve always had a soft spot for that song. I like how Exene and John Doe’s voices seem to twine around each other, but never really meet. I also like the lyrics *, how the protagonist realized that she needed to go when she started to become a racist wingnut.

* X Lyrics - Los Angeles, plyrics.com

@Comment #13: Mighty Ponygirl on 04/22 at 08:57 AM

Philly eh? OK thanks.

I think “London’s Burning” would’ve been a more appropriate Clash song, as it includes a critique of car culture.  I’m busy at work, so here’s what came off the top of my head that’s city/transportation related:

“I Love Living in the City” - Fear
“Bloodstains” - Agent Orange
“Drinking and Driving” - Black Flag
“Bad Habit” - The Offspring
“Roots Radicals” - Rancid

Love the music selection—I’ve had them all for the last 30 years…

My mother recently went through that hassle renewing her license in New Jersey.  She’s 75, she’s lived in New Jersey since 1972, has had one ticket in those 39 years (back in 1976) but was denied a renewal because she did not present her birth certificate.

Fortunately, California doesn’t have these onerous requirements (yet?)

Instead of a genius or random list, I thought I’d post some songs off the awesome stuff I picked up last week for Record Store Day (you all celebrate Record Store Day, right?).

1. Viva Knieval (Kathleen Hannah’s band prior to Bikini Kill)- Dog
2. The Wake - Crush the Flowers
3. The Scientists - Frantic Romantic
4. The Bats - By Night
5. Tall Dwarfs - Nothing’s Going to Happen
6. Wild Nothing - Gruesome Castle
7. Chalk Circle - Side by Side & Reflection (live)
8. Slug Guts - Hangin’ in the Pisser
9. The Normals - Vacation to Nowhere
10. The June Brides - In the Rain

@Comment #14: Hobbes on 04/22 at 10:08 AM

I had a similar experience when I moved back to California a few years ago, except it only cost me $12 and they made me take a new picture. They should have made me take the eye test again, as evidenced by the fact that I’m wearing glasses on my no-corrective-lenses-required license, but apparently my passing score when I got my permit 18 years ago is sufficient.

Nice punk assortment, always does my heart good to see someone remembers X.

I Googled “birth certificate trump” and found this: http://bartblog.bartcop.com/2011/04/20/the-tattlesnake-was-donald-trump-born-in-jamaica-south-africa-or-mexico/

Hmmm —if there is no posting tomorrow, will it be because of site issues, or will Amanda still be stuck at the DMV?

F’king Ada!  I don’t think I could get a license in NY State.

http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/forms/id44.pdf

That’s ludicrous.

Washington state imposed onerous requirements for getting a license after 9/11, which I found out when I tried to get a license almost a year later and the WA DMV website *still* didn’t list the new requirements, so I also got laughed at.

It might be anti-immigrant hysteria.  It might be anti-terrorist hysteria.  Most likely it’s a combination of both.  It’s also probably easier for NY to get away with it since the most populated part of the state has plentiful transit.

Ugh, do I ever hate the NYC DMV. I remember getting a learner’s permit, without any intention of getting a license, just to have an ID to get into clubs. What I do remember is a) giant line that wasn’t moving at all and b) they would call out names too quietly and mispronounce every name (since everyone there was an immigrant and apparently everything other than “John Smith” or something was too difficult to say). So they butcher your name, you miss your spot. HATE. Good luck!

Nice punk playlist. Mine isn’t random. I went to Coachella this past weekend and the most awesome thing about it was that almost every band I saw had a woman in it. I think Amanda talked about it in a music post before, but when you go to a festival and see a ton of bands, it really becomes apparent what a huge role women play in indie music. And it was all kinds of music - from alt-country to electro-punk - and doing all kinds of things, not just singing, but DJing and playing instruments. And even though Coachella is pretty bro-ish, I was interested to observe how Not A Big Deal this was to guys. I remember back in high school and college when only girls liked Hole, for example. But I was at the Best Coast set and it was mostly guys and they were going totally nuts for what in the 90s would’ve been coded “girl music” and ignored (or maybe a dude would say “she rocks for a girl”).

To be clear, it’s not that I think that guys liking bands with women in them confers any kind of additional legitimacy or value onto the music that these women are putting out, I just think it’s great to see how integrated women musicians are becoming at least in the indie genres. But, anyway, here’s my totally not random playlist of Badass Women of Coachella (and this is just the artists whose sets I managed to catch - there were more):

1. Crystal Castles - Baptism
2. CSS - Alala
3. Sleigh Bells - Kids
4. Robyn - Dancehall Queen
5. YACHT - Psychic City (Voodoo City)
6. The Kills - I Hate the Way You Love
7. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Young Adult Friction
8. Best Coast - Sun Was High (So Was I)
9. Titus Andronicus - A More Perfect Union
10. Arcade Fire - Haiti
11. The New Pornographers - These Are the Fables

Requirements for getting a license are stringent because driver’s licenses (and non-driver ID cards obtained from the same DMV monster) are used for general identification purposes.  Other countries use passports or other forms of ID, but in the US, the DL is king.

Always easier to pass the driving test if you have Jeezuz on your side:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXCh9OhDiCI

If you are a disabled person NEVER EVER check the box that says you have a disability, because if you do the DMV will treat you like total shit.

They’ll make you take a driving test, but require you to get a permission slip from your doctor yet not tell you that detail till the day of. Then when you finally get that squared away, and waited weeks for the next opening for the drive test, you’ll finally take the test and pass it but have unfair restrictions put on it, like having your night driving privileges revoked, because of the prescription meds you take.

Sure anyone can go get alcohol anytime without a prescription and people aren’t blanket banned from night driving, yet you’ll be banned, regardless of whether or not you’re taking night classes, and that a ban bars you from working even 9-5 depending on the time of year. Oh they’ll even cite a law in banning you which has nothing to do with meds, but telescopic devices. Then when you call and complain you’ll hear a juicy piece of gossip about yourself which the DMV workers think you shouldn’t be allowed to drive at all.

I’ve fought back but I don’t know if the restriction has come off because I’ve found out that my cancer has come back and metastasized in my lungs. I’ve started in chemo again, and based on previous experience, I don’t think I’ll be able to drive again for about a year.

Actually, this is because of federal requirements post 9/11 REAL ID Act pushed because of anti-immigrant hysteria in the 90s where states couldn’t require proof of citizenship.

Many DMV agents falsely assume their procedures haven’t changed, and many times you get off easy because you’re already in their system.  But if you aren’t, it sucks rocks.

Pennsylvania has a two-tiered system.  You can go to the DMV, and be “served” by rude, inflexible people (who, to be fair, have no flexibility in their guidelines), and who care nothing for you, after you have waited in a long line, or you can go to a private Notary Public, pay an additional service fee (locally around $15), and get everything taken care of for you, with the exception of getting your picture taken and the actual driver’s license handed to you.  The notary can get all of the cards you need, so that all you have to do at DMV is take the photo card to the window, get your picture taken, and the license itself made.  The notaries public also handle vehicle registrations.

About the only things you have to go to DMV for are getting the actual photo and license, and for your initial driver’s test and license.

Weird.  I had absolutely no trouble getting a license in New York (this was ~3 years ago, so well after 9/11).  I wonder if Amanda’s struggles are because she’s trying to get licensed in the city; I was the only person in line at a sleepy upstate DMV.

Now Maryland, Maryland has some fucked up licensing laws.  Getting a license here is truly an all-day experience, even if all your papers are in order, and God help you if they’re not.  I had an ex-boyfriend who couldn’t get licensed because his previous ID said “Quigley B Jones” and his car registration said “Quigley Baxter Jones.”  As far as I know, he’s still waiting on the State Department for a resolution.

When I moved to WA a few years ago from OH not only did I have to present several forms of identification (thank dog I have a passport and my birth certificate) but despite that my current OH license was not expired I was still required to have an eye test AND pass a written examination.  Here I am thirty frickin years old and required to re-pass that stupid test.  I failed first try.

Amalink, they made you retake the test because you came from a state without comprehensive testing requirements.  Western states get a lot of people moving from “back east” who don’t actually know the rules because they never had to learn them - like the ones that end up in the toilet each and every year the GMAC test of road knowledge has been compiled.

When my brother moved from Oregon to Alberta, he didn’t have to retest.  He asked what would have happened if he came from where his sister lives - Massachusetts.  They told him that would require a full retest, complete with rules test, road test, and eye test, because MA is so very ridiculously lame.

I own a place in Oregon now, and I’m considering having my son take his driving test in OR this summer - partly because he can get a permit at 15 and help drive a car back across the country, partly because I want him to have to take a REAL test - not 10 paper questions, five obsessed with picayune junior operator bullshit.

partly because he can get a permit at 15 and help drive a car back across the country,

Check the different state (and city!) laws.  You may be of age and licensed in one state, but “too young” to drive in another.  I know that you must be 18 to be able to drive in New York City, even if you already have a driver’s license.

@Hornet:  Dang it, I just thought of that and came back to post it, but you beat me to it.  A tip of the hat to you.

It’s funny, ‘cause I’ve actually had a few conversations recently about how much more streamlined the DMV in New York is now compared to 10 or 15 years ago. I’ve actually found my last several visits bordered on pleasurable. (And I believe that was the one at the Atlantic Center Mall, which is likely the one that Amanda is going to/went to.)

PA also has the exceptionally wonderful system of not allowing you to sue a driver for running your pedestrian or bicyclist ass over.

Pennsylvania sucks.

Does Amanda live or does she die?

PZ NEEDS HIS MEDS

MINDPHOQUE

http://www.clubconspiracy.com/forum/f29/my-special-poem-randis-head-13401.html

In Sept. I lost my sister, who was an Illinois resident. Transferring the title was insane: IL claimed that it was the jurisdiction of CA, because I am a CA resident, and CA claimed that IL should do it because it was an IL title. After much confusion and many phone calls, I finally got CA to do it—most reluctantly, and only after writing out and signing a 1/2 page explanation of how IL wouldn’t, and practically promising my first-born grandchild. (At least I finally found the title—without that I would have had to transfer it from her name into “Estate of My Sister” in IL, and then into my own name in CA; $100+ per change.)  I also had to submit an affidavit swearing that I had legal authority to claim the car w/o going through probate, and an original death certificate (fair enough, but it’s me signing a paper saying that it’s me who’s getting the car—-!) Then it can’t be registered it until it passes smog and can’t smog it until it’s mine; got it done today…. You’re supposed to have it done “within 10 days of the moment the wheels cross the CA state line” haha! 

My son also got his learner’s permit today, with birth certificate in hand. We only had to stand in line once… (No, he’s not getting the car.)

Um, James? That’s exactly the point - he could be an extra driver with an OR permit due to reciprocity (so long as adults were in the car).  MA is 16 for permit, 17 for license; OR is 15 for permit 16 for license.

I’m getting the same bullshit from MA and OR for a car I legally owned from the beginning, CA resident.  Except the problem isn’t transferring the title so much as proving that I don’t need to pay sales tax!  My father bought the car three years ago, and put me on the title and registration.  I should have cleared him off the title, but I didn’t even get a death certificate for 30 days - more like 50 days!

You should move to Japan - I’ve been here for months and the bureaucracy is amazing.  I didn’t get a driver’s license because fuck that, but I did need an “alien registration card” which requires the lease and the visa and the passport and the employment contract yet still takes 21 days to issue.  Banks and phone companies want to see the card before you can get any accounts, but there is a paper you can buy that should substitute, except the banks don’t really like the paper.  And the phone companies like the paper if you’re paying with a bankbook but the card if you’re paying with a credit card.  Or maybe it’s the other way around.  Whatever, it’ll be different for you if you ever go through the process. 

Banks won’t give a foreigner a bank account with full privileges until you’ve been in the country six months - which means you can’t use the wire transfer, which is basically how everything is done here, including and especially your paycheck.  UNLESS someone with some pull calls the bank, then you can get around that.  The Japan Post bank, which is a bank but different, will serve you no problem but even though everyone uses JP for everything there are some things you can’t do with that account if the person you’re trying to pay decides they don’t want to deal with them.  For example, my employer won’t deposit my pay into a JP account, because meh, they don’t feel like it.

Then there’s the stamp vs signature - sometimes foreigners can use their signatures, but the Japanese don’t use signatures, they get special name stamps that are supposed to be registered with the government.  Some places will let foreigners use their signatures, but others want you to get and use a stamp.  If you use a signature sometimes there’s problems later if your signature is not always an exact match for itself. 

Obviously, I’m still in the process of getting settled, and this turns me into a stark raving lunatic every time I need to do the slightest thing.  Oh, and before you go anywhere, someone will help you out by telling you exactly what you need to bring to make things happen.  One thing on that list will always be wrong.  Currently, I’m in the middle of a three-day attempt to pay my rent.  If I can’t do it from the ATM (with the card, which I just got, not the book, which I already had) then I’ll have to physically take a wad of cash to my landlord’s bank.

In addition, Verizon could take a lesson from Japan.  This place just loves to nickle and dime you to death.  Every one of these transactions involves the expenditure of some pissant amount of money that really starts to add up as you cycle through the system again and again until you do it right.

You should move to Japan - I’ve been here for months and the bureaucracy is amazing.

I was in Japan speaking at a scientific conference a few years’ back, and the bureaucratic process for getting paid my honorarium was fucken hilarious. There was a special room set up for the speakers to receive their honoraria. We all waited in a line—most of us were Japanese and only a few were foreign—to be interviewed by some sort of clerk.

After the interview, the Japanese speakers went to another line, and we foreigners went to a special desk. Once I got to the foreigner desk, I was asked what country I was from. I told the clerk I was from the US (like most of the foreigners). She furrowed her brow and went to the back of the room, where she had a detailed discussion with two other bureaucrats for literally fifteen minutes.

She finally came back to the desk with this extremely complex form to fill out, with all kinds of bizarre questions asking if I am in the fish exporting business and weird crappe like that. I fill out the form, and then she takes the form to the back of the room, and talks to the other two bureaucrats for another five or ten minutes.

She comes back out again, opens a cash box, and hands me 100,000 Yen. So I say to her, “Oh. I thought the honorarium was only 50,000 Yen.” She gives me a look like, “Don’t make me go back and talk to those bureaucrats again”, so I just smiled and thanked her and bowed and she bowed and I rolled out of there.

Aaaaages ago when I got my NYS driving permit, my birth certificate somehow didn’t have some stamp they thought it should have (even though it was the official copy)—my mother looked at the woman, said “She was born. I was there.” & that was good enough… though that was at a relatively sleepy upstate (Putnam/Carmel) DMV, not in the city.  I’ve never had much of a problem there (except the time the cop refused to believe that all of those people parking in the handicapped spot really couldn’t tell that it was a handicapped spot because of the several feet of snow hiding everything unless you looked at the sign from a precise angle, which wasn’t the one from the drivers seat. It actually got kinda funny, as he kept being exasperated at all these lying people saying the exact same thing…)

I was able to renew online recently—just had to type in the doctor’s ID# for the eye test results. Good thing, since we were having blizzards every couple days then & I’d put the whole thing off until too close to the deadline. Once you’re in the system, I think it’s not such a big deal. And if you look at all those kinds of ID they talk about, they seem to be trying to cover all the bases—NYC especially routinely has people from all over the world, not to mention all across the country & hugely varied economic classes. I have no idea what the ‘points’ business is all about, though. Some kinds of “I’m me and I live here” evidence are more valid than others…? The citizenship thing, though, IIRC came from the feds. Can’t have ‘documented undocumented’ people around, after all…

New York City always made it a pain to get a driver’s license, probably because they consider driving an unnatural act in the city. Well, it is.

When you look at a bureaucratic artifact like that ID44, you are seeing scar tissue. It’s the same reason the army has a twenty page specification for cherry pie. They are trying to cover all the bases. Yes, the pie has to have at least 20 cherries per slice, and each cherry has to be a certain size, and they have to be pie fruit cherries, and they can’t be rotten, and so on and so on. Each clause records some kind of stunt some contractor pulled rather than simply baking a proper cherry pie.

The points system outlined in the ID44 makes sense when you consider that getting a driver’s license is the key to getting all sorts of other documents. It’s like the password to your computer’s password repository. They’d like to make it a bit harder than the system default, so they want some set of documents that as a group would be hard to simply forge on an inkjet printer. (I’m not saying you couldn’t forge everything on an inkjet printer, but you’d have to do some work so that everything looks authentic and all the documents are consistent.) This gatekeeping doesn’t always work, but if you’ve ever had your identity stolen because someone got your SS number and date of birth, you’d appreciate that some parties try to make things just a little bit harder.

My father ran into something like this years ago when he applied for a passport. He had been given one name at birth, but had taken another when he learned to speak English as a child. That latter name was the name with which he had graduated law school, joined the bar, married my mother and bought his home. Despite this, the State Department objected. His birth certificate had another name on it. Luckily, his father was still alive and could sign an appropriate affidavit.

P.S. Talk about scar tissue. You’ll notice all that stuff about accepting Canadian St. Regis Mohawk paperwork. Aren’t those are the guys who built the skyscrapers? There was once a Mohawk neighborhood in Brooklyn where they all lived during construction season.

Interesting that OR has a hard skills test.  Things have changed a lot in ID with the DMV, or so my neices and nephews tell me, but when I got my license there in 1981, I didn’t have to take a skills test at all.  All I had to do was present a high school transcript showing I had a B or better in driver’s ed.  It didn’t even have to be from an ID high school; my driver’s ed course was at Central in Spokane, WA.

Yeah, MA, NY and NJ all seem to think taking away someones license to drive is worse than throwing them in jail.

Passport names - I filled out the birth certificate and my daughter filled out her driver’s lisence paperwork, so they match.  My husband filled out the SS paperwork, so it only has an initial.  You wouldn’t think it would be a problem….

Kyso K,
You can drive in Japan on an international driver’s license ($15, a current US license and two photos from almost any AAA office). 
I don’t know that it will help to remember that the Japanese system, like many European systems, is a jobs program set up after WW2 to get everyone working.  The longer it takes, the more hours, the more jobs.  I don’t know if it is better or worse than depending on cars for your primary national jobs program, but it’s more flexible as to what it can screw up.  It also makes it really hard to have a family with two full time workers, or for single people to live alone and have a house.  Thus, it reinforces the existant sexist system.
Ms Kate,
In 1995, if you owned a vehicle and were transfering your driver’s license, the MA RMV required that you transfer the vehicle registration at the same time.  Hence my issues with lease, insurance, et al.