Smooth Sailing Through the Local DMV

I had been anxious ever since, some weeks ago, I received a notice in the mail that my driver license would expire on my birthday in August and that I must apply at a Department of Motor Vehicles station for a new one. I must be prepared to take a written test.

I didn’t know whether I would have to take a driving test or not. For the last two four-year periods my new license had come automatically on my birthday. I didn’t know whether I was being asked to apply in person now because of my age or because I had run a red light a couple of years ago.

I felt I knew the law well enough to pass the written test, but sometimes the multiple-answer questions can be ambiguous or deceptive. The last time I had taken the test, I had missed one question.

I dropped in at the Auto Club in Glendale and they gave me a booklet on the law and some sample tests. I put them on a table by my chair and had been going over them off and on for the last few weeks.

I felt secure that, even if I had to take the driving test, I would have no problems. One need only know the law and drive with reasonable caution. On the other hand, the price of failure was unthinkable. Not to have a driver license in Los Angeles is like being under house arrest. I could make a dumb mistake and blow it.

The application form said I could call a DMV office and make an appointment. When I thought I was ready I called the Glendale office and made an appointment for 10 a.m. Monday. My wife decided to go with me. We had breakfast at Billy’s deli in Glendale and then drove to the DMV station on Glenoaks. We were 20 minutes early.

What I had dreaded most was not the test itself, but the bureaucratic processing. In earlier years, I remembered, there were dreary lines, weary clerks, and a feeling of being caught in a web.

I want to say right here for the Department of Motor Vehicles that they run as efficient an operation for a public agency as I have ever seen. The man who had made my appointment told me to go to the yellow desk. I was reminded of the yellow road in “The Wizard of Oz.”

I did indeed see a yellow desk. There were half a dozen people ahead of me, standing on a line. Though I was 20 minutes early, I decided to go ahead. The line vanished quickly. I gave my name. A young woman looked down a list and found it.

She asked for my driver license, typed something on a piece of paper and told me to stand on the red line. There was only one person ahead of me on the red line. When my turn came a young woman extracted $10 from me, asked me to take off my glasses and read a chart. The letters looked like nests of insects. “I can’t read it,” I said.

She moved me down to an optical machine. I looked through it without my glasses and got about halfway through the test. Then I did it with glasses. “Good,” she said. She said I would have to wear glasses while driving. I always had. She aimed me toward a desk called Test Correction and a man gave me a test sheet with 18 questions and motioned me to the test area.

I had no trouble with the questions except one. It read as follows: “You may not drive faster than 55 m.p.h. (1) At any time. (2) Except to keep up with the flow of traffic. (3) Except on designated freeways” (the correct answer).

I knew that on some freeways in the boondocks the speed limit was posted at 65 m.p.h. But “designated freeways” did not say that. To me, it merely meant a highway designated as a freeway. It should have read on freeways posted 65 m.p.h. I sensed a trick. I checked answer No. 1.

I took the test back to the Test Correction desk. The man checked my answer to that question and wrote -1 on my test.

“The correct answer is ambiguous,” I told him, unhappy at not having been perfect. “Everybody goes 65 anyway,” he said with a confidential laugh.

He directed me to the photo line. Only two people were in it ahead of me. I had my picture taken, the young woman gave me my receipt and my temporary license. She said my permanent license would come in the mail. The entire process had taken less than 20 minutes.

The young women who waited on me were unfailingly patient, polite and cheerful.

Four more years.