State departments of motor vehicles are cultural icons of government at its most bureaucratic, inefficient, and obtuse. At least according to their reputation, heedless unconcern for the citizens' time or convenience seems to be a basic organizing principle.
To the extent that this reputation is true it provides millions of individuals all over the country with direct personal reinforcement of the Republican anti-government mantra: "Government is bad. Anything you give to the government to run will end up just like the DMV, remember the hell you had there that day last year?"
The Mobile County, Alabama License Commission is a model of customer-oriented efficiency. It shows that government isn't bad, bad government is bad and government services can be run right.
But if you believe as a matter of faith that government is unreformable, why would you want the job of running it?
As this random article i just Googled in 90 seconds exemplifies, you don't have to search long or far for DMV horror stories. Surprisingly, a majority of commenters to this diary do not find this to be the case. Is this an old and now undeserved reputation? Have DMVs across the country responded to their very negative reputation by cleaning up their acts?
The problem that this meme, deserved or undeserved, poses for those of us who believe that government can be a force for progress is that we are not only fighting against constant right wing propaganda and massive amounts of cash from interested parties, but more importantly against the immediate, personal, negative, anecdotal experience of nearly everyone we meet, acquired at their local DMV or by word of mouth.
This diary is prompted by my absolutely painless experience yesterday in getting an Alabama title and license plate for a car I just acquired in Mississippi. In fact, the last three times I've had to go down to the License Commission (correct local name for the DMV) my experiences have been near-uncanny in their convenience and speed.
The Mobile County License Commission has always been pretty good. I don't think I've ever had a really negative experience there. But the election of 2008 brought in a new Commissioner by the name of Kim Hastie (fortunate name) to head the office and the changes were obvious, rapid, and galvanizing. I don't know anything about Ms. Hastie personally but based on results she has been highly effective to say the least.
The Commission has a very informative and well-organized web site you can use to download a wide range of forms and renew practically any type of license online, by telephone, or by mail. The FAQ is good. This disposes of the vast majority of necessary traffic.
If you should choose to come in person, or have a type of need (such as mine, a new title) that requires an in-person inspection, our 1200 square mile, 400,000 population county has five well-distributed License Commission branches in which to carry out your business.
When you get there, evidenced by my recent visit to the Michael Square (main) branch, the first thing you see is a live human greeter
who pleasantly assesses your needs, hands you a number, and advises you what to do next.
You then cross the lobby and sit in one of about a hundred fairly comfy chairs (not the usual hemorrhoid-inducing cheap plastic jobs) and watch five or six flat screen TVs displaying current numbers being served:
Not only that, but the numbers actually change because of the 23 separate windows (20 of them were occupied by clerks during my visit) that are actively processing business.
When your number comes up (and mine came up before I could get settled in my chair) you go to the window and a clerk deals expeditiously with your business. My clerk knew the answer to every question I asked her off the top of her head, knew what I needed, anticipated problems, and was just generally pleasant all around.
I asked if the "Boss's" office was at this branch and her answer was "Yes, she's probably watching us right now." But not in a harassed way. I got to eavesdrop a bit while she was processing my title, and the conversations of the several adjacent clerks I could hear sounded like internal morale is fine.
So, granting the fact that there was very little demand in evidence that day, I was in and out of the Mobile County DMV in about 20 minutes, including the necessity of the clerk going out to the parking lot and physically checking my VIN (reserved parking for cars seeking titles). I really don't know what they could have done to make the experience better for me besides give me my title for free :-)
In all honesty I must state that the person seemingly responsible for this wonder is a Republican, but obviously one who doesn't see anything wrong with making a government service work the way it is supposed to, or one who has not sufficiently absorbed the central philosophy and modus operandi of the modern national Republican Party.
The Mobile County, Alabama License Commission is a model of customer-oriented efficiency. It shows that government isn't bad, bad government is bad and government services can be run right.
11:09 PM PT: My gratitude to the folks at Community Spotlight. Thanks for noticing.
Wed Apr 04, 2012 at 6:01 AM PT: Thanks to everyone for your recs. I guess everyone has a DMV story, good or bad. It is very encouraging to an advocate of good government to discover that these agencies are seemingly responding to past reputations by modernizing and streamlining. -Baz
Wed Apr 04, 2012 at 9:25 AM PT: I think, given the results of this diary, that we have stumbled on a very good thing here. The DMV meme is alive and well, but I think if a right winger reaches for it in the course of an argument, we should all be ready to snap out:
".........hey have you been to the DMV lately? They've really cleaned up their act and shown how government can really work when you care to make the effort!"
Thu Apr 05, 2012 at 7:45 AM PT: Well, that was cool. Great comments and a 24 hour ride on Community Spotlight. The final poll tally:
399 votes cast
61 % well run and efficient or above
21% mediocre
18% various levels of horrible
So it looks like the evidence supports a DMV culture that is aware of its historic reputation and making strenuous efforts to correct it.
Proponents of good government can only work to turn around the remaining 40% so they can't give continuing fuel to the DMV/bad government meme.
Thanks to everyone. DKos is a great place and it's the people who make it.
Baz