The Department of Motor Vehicles is a grey and tan liminal space where dreams go to die. Take a number, wait in line, an irritated overworked government employee tells you that you forgot some obscure piece of paper, you’ll have to come back some other time, but now it’s illegal to drive your car. Nothing happens quickly, and nobody in the building even remembers what happiness feels like. Aside from paying your taxes every year, the DMV is the place most Americans come face-to-face with The Government, so when you hear people complain about bureaucracy and government overreach, this is usually what they mean.
Where I live in Ohio they take things to a whole different level, splitting the Bureau of Motor Vehicles from the Title Office, so you have to drive to two different municipal offices and wait in two different lines to get a new-to-you vehicle legal. I moved to Ohio three years ago and while I admittedly have more cars and motorcycles than the average person (eight with four wheels, four with two), I’ve spent dozens of visits and thousands of dollars trying to get my machines legal in the state. And I’m still not done.
When I bought my Audi A3 E-Tron a couple of months ago the dealer filed for a title transfer into my name from California, and it recently arrived in my mailbox. I brought the California title to the Ohio Title Office and they said that I couldn’t do anything with the title and that I would have needed to bring the Bill of Sale instead. I’m still working on solving that one. I’ll let you know how it goes.
I’m almost positive everyone hanging out on Jalopnik has a story of DMV annoyance. Sound off in the comments below with your favorite story of an awful time you had staring at a dead-eyed government lackey tell you that the form you printed out and filled in is actually the wrong one and you have to start over next week. Let’s see who has the worst story to tell and we can all get some DMV catharsis.