RMV woes

Last night, I was at Home Depot with Janet buying a door for the new greenhouse. In order to get it home, we ended up needing to rent the Home Depot pickup truck--not a big deal. I went to get it and was told that there was a problem. My Driver's License had expired on my birthday. I had no idea. It turns out that our current Governor has decided to stop telling people when their Driver's Licenses are about to expire, so you actually have to look at your license periodically to figure out when you need to renew. So, Janet got to drive the big pickup truck--she wasn't thrilled.

When I got home, I went on-line to renew my license. It turns out if your picture is over nine years old, you can't renew online.

So, this morning, I had to go the RMV. It opens at 9. I got there at 8:45. There was already a line.

But, it an amazing turn of events, the way the RMV now works is that when they open the door, you go in, pick up the form to get whatever you need, fill out the form and then get a number to see a person who will help you out. If you fill out the form faster, you get in the second line faster. I filled out my form very quickly, completing just enough so that it looked completed, got my number and then looked to see if I had checked all the relevant boxes--sometimes being an economist is good because I am always looking for the production function and then maximizing. I was out of there by 9:15 with my new temporary license in hand.

But, here is the puzzle for the day--in an e-mail age, it would cost almost nothing to set up a reminder system which automatically notified you when your license was about to expire. And, lo and behold, there is such a reminder service. But, the Powers that Be don't seem to have told anyone about it. And, when I signed up for my license renewal, there was nowhere to put my e-mail address to sign up for this service. You have to go to the RMV site, and then look down the long list of options to see that there is, in fact, an automatic reminder service. So, what is the point of having such a service but not automatically signing people up for it?

The moral: Governments are not the most efficient organizations in the world. Shocking, I know.

But, then again, if we just have the Audacity to Hope that the government will do things better, then, by golly, they surely will. Can we do it? Yes, We Can.