My saga of suspended license and the DMV

Level 99 Patience Training

You may or may not be interested in yet another frustrating story about the DMV. It’s so common that it’s basically a trope, right? I don’t even know why I was so surprised to have to this week’s event happen to me. Let me share:

• Monday: I couldn’t update my address online for some reason, so I went to the DMV in person. After an almost 3-hr wait, I talked to a real person who said *surprise* my license has been suspended for the past two years!

• Thinking back, I vaguely remembered that two years ago, after I had just moved, I got an ominous-sounding letter saying that if I didn’t mail back my license plates from New York, my driver’s license would be suspended. I remember writing a hand-written letter pleading to NOT suspend my license, and mailed back my plates right away.

• Now, fast forward to this week, I found out that the suspension did indeed go through, and it resulted in my California license being suspended as well. To my horror, I had been driving with a suspended license for the past two years!!!!

• The DMV person’s advice was to call the New York DMV to update the National Driver Registry. After a 90-minute hold, I was told that I had to talk to another department (something related to insurance?), but that they were closed.

• Tuesday: I called back the next day, and after about an hour on hold, I was told that my records were clean in New York. They had lifted whatever suspension they put on my license after they received the plates. Now, I pleaded with them to update the NDR, but they said there was nothing to update and that the records looked clean. The grumpy NY DMV person told me to talk to the California DMV headquarters. She also added that in-person DMV visits won’t help, as they don’t have access to the same information or have the power to change anything.

• I called California DMV headquarters and was forced to participate in the automatic callback. For New York, this had been an option, but I was afraid that I would miss the call, so I had stayed on. For California, this was not an option. It made me confirm my number then hung up.

• Now the kicker is, somehow, the California DMV numbers are ALL linked. So even though I kept finding different departments and numbers to call, they wouldn’t let me go through saying that I already had a call waiting.

• While I was waiting for California to call me back, I called NDR, who said they don’t update any records; they just keep the records that the state DMV sends.

• Now, by this point, I’m on Reddit, trying to see if there is a way to just get to talk to a REAL PERSON at the DMV headquarters. I’m reading that people have waited 13+ days and never got a callback. Every time they try to call, the automated message won’t let them through because they “already have a callback waiting.” One person even said a message threatened to kick them off the wait list if they keep calling, though I have not personally heard this one.

• Reddit posts recommended other ways, such as reaching out to the California assembly member. I reached out to the assembly member AND senator Scott Wiener. Both of their offices were easier to get in touch with than either of the DMVs. A real person answered every time I called. They took down my information and said they would try to reach out to their contact at the DMV.

• Wednesday: The NEXT day, almost 24 hours after my initial call, I got a callback from the California Records department who said yes, they see that there is still a hold and that I need to talk to California PDPS (Problem Driver Point System, because I am a problem driver now). They gave me a number, which is a number I had been trying to call but couldn’t due to my place on the DMV call wait list for the past 24 hours. Knowing this will likely be another 24ish hour wait (or will it?) I put myself on the dreadful callback waitlist.

• Thursday: The following day, I was in the middle of a work call when I saw that I had missed a call. Panicked, I called PDPS back right away. Unfortunately, the automated message had changed to “we’re too busy to take new calls, try again tomorrow.” This sent me spiraling. What does this mean? Will I EVER get through to talk to a real person? Theoretically after all this ordeal, I have a apply for a license again, take the damn written test, and wait at the DMV for processing. How will I get to work (~1 hr commute).

• Maybe God heard my pleas. PDPS called me back about 15 minutes later. To my surprise, they told me my record looks fine and that my current license is fine to use. They said they don’t see any record of anything being wrong and that I don’t need to reapply for a license. OH. MY. GOD. I don’t know what to believe? Was this all real, or did someone (maybe the assembly member’s office contact?) fix something?

• I honestly didn’t know whether I should be happy or angry, so I just chose to be super ecstatic that this entire ordeal is over. I now solemnly swear to never interact with the DMV any more than I am absolutely forced to.

• I had been updating and communicating with the assembly member’s office staff regularly and they did get back to me with the same result. I think I will use them any time I have some weird bureaucratic issue in the future. They were honestly very understanding, easy to reach, and, at the very least, were real humans I could talk to, and that, nowadays, is a big deal.

Turns out, there is someone who had almost exactly the same problem as me on Reddit:

Sometimes, I feel like becoming a mother made me less patient, less tolerant, and less resilient than I used to be. For some reason, having to deal with the ordeal while dealing with a recent move and everything that comes with it nearly pushed me over the edge, and I just had to document it and put it out there. A vent into the ether, if you will. But if you read it and can commiserate with me, then that’s great, too. Anyway, this is all over now. And I’m just going to assume everything is fine. I’m ready to forget about the DMV for the next few years until my license renewal is due.