DMV is a mess
DMVs in CA are a mess, I believe. It took me 3 hours to get registration transferred. It is just the people flocking in which creates full confusion in the whole 1/2 mile radius of the building. First, there is parking for 30 cars and 250 cars are to be parked at any given point.
I drove to the nearest DMV, which is in Oceanside. I parked the car 1/2 a mile away and walked in to join the crowd. There is a "Start Here" board but, that has a big cryptic line to stand in. This is to get the ticket/token. OK, I stood in the Q after completing the "Vehicle Registration" form which I had downloaded from the website. Talking about website, there was a link "take online appointment" - I clicked there and it took 5 minutes for the page to appear. I tried to book an appointment and it gave me 15 days away from today. In the website, they mention, if we take online appointments, waiting time is 4 minutes, "non-appointments", waiting time is 1 hour 5 minutes. I convinced myself to wait for an hour before starting itself.
Once I gave the application to the lady, she said, "You need to get your vehicle verified. Bring in your vehicle to the inspector outside. They will approve that vehicle and documents match. Come back in the lane to get your token." That meant, I had to walk 1/2 a mile to bring my car, get it verified, park my car back in some far place, come back in, get a token, then, finally, wait for that 1 hour 5 mins of waiting period.
I got my car. 30 minutes, nobody was there to ask or inquire. Someone doing a road test saw me and called one inspector from inside. That inspector had no courtesy to say anything near that sorry word. By the time this was over and I parked my car back in a remote location, it was more than an hour since the time I reached DMV. Took the token which was 100 numbers behind. That meant, 100 minutes of waiting. Dragging along, it took 100+ minutes.
In the end, they gave me temporary permit, saying, "Your Smog test is from a different state. We want this test from California". I have 2 months to get this done to get my final registration.
More visits to come. I hunted for California Drivers' Handbook as I needed to get CA license. All the books which were lying around were in Spanish. With more hunting, I finally found the English version!
I drove to the nearest DMV, which is in Oceanside. I parked the car 1/2 a mile away and walked in to join the crowd. There is a "Start Here" board but, that has a big cryptic line to stand in. This is to get the ticket/token. OK, I stood in the Q after completing the "Vehicle Registration" form which I had downloaded from the website. Talking about website, there was a link "take online appointment" - I clicked there and it took 5 minutes for the page to appear. I tried to book an appointment and it gave me 15 days away from today. In the website, they mention, if we take online appointments, waiting time is 4 minutes, "non-appointments", waiting time is 1 hour 5 minutes. I convinced myself to wait for an hour before starting itself.
Once I gave the application to the lady, she said, "You need to get your vehicle verified. Bring in your vehicle to the inspector outside. They will approve that vehicle and documents match. Come back in the lane to get your token." That meant, I had to walk 1/2 a mile to bring my car, get it verified, park my car back in some far place, come back in, get a token, then, finally, wait for that 1 hour 5 mins of waiting period.
I got my car. 30 minutes, nobody was there to ask or inquire. Someone doing a road test saw me and called one inspector from inside. That inspector had no courtesy to say anything near that sorry word. By the time this was over and I parked my car back in a remote location, it was more than an hour since the time I reached DMV. Took the token which was 100 numbers behind. That meant, 100 minutes of waiting. Dragging along, it took 100+ minutes.
In the end, they gave me temporary permit, saying, "Your Smog test is from a different state. We want this test from California". I have 2 months to get this done to get my final registration.
More visits to come. I hunted for California Drivers' Handbook as I needed to get CA license. All the books which were lying around were in Spanish. With more hunting, I finally found the English version!
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