One of the Editorial LiveJournalists apparently descended from the sheltered offices of 801 Texas Avenue to discover that in-person license renewals are inconvenient and inefficient:
Texans can renew their driver’s license online, and change the address on the license online. But for no obvious reason, the department won’t let Texans do both if their license has expired. Those with an expired license and a new address must go to one of the department’s crowded, poorly maintained offices.
At the office on Dacoma Street, visitors are met with a dysfunctional bureaucracy that combines the horrifying absurdity of a Franz Kafka story with the cruel indifference of the Soviet bureaucracy before it crumbled. First, one must wait in line for an application. Then applicants must fill it out standing up or squatting on the floor, because there aren’t enough chairs, and using the office’s broad counters is prohibited. Tantalizingly, DPS officials withhold the purpose of this policy.
After a torturous wait of a couple of hours or more, applicants are called by number to stand in a second slow-moving line before getting their applications processed. At the rear of the second line is a small sign stating “No cell phones beyond this point.”
I had to go to the Dacoma office a few weeks ago. While it was slow and inefficient (like many bureaucracies! Imagine how splendid it would be if there were a Department of Government Healthcare!), it actually wasn’t as bad as I expected (total wait was slightly over an hour), and in my experience it didn’t approach “the horrifying absurdity of a Franz Kafka story with the cruel indifference of the Soviet bureaucracy before it crumbled.”
We think we know which Editorial LiveJournalist didn’t qualify for online renewal, though. Check out this Editorial LiveJournal by Mr. Gibbons that we mocked way back in 2005:
The presiding judge of Houston’s municipal courts, Berta Mejia, announced that police officers will soon be coming around and arresting those who failed to appear in court or pay the fines for their traffic tickets. As police and court officials are making their list of delinquents, I suggest they check it twice.
Last week as I was driving downtown I was pulled over by a Houston police officer. He said there was an arrest warrant issued for the driver of a car with my license plates. It was a mistake, perhaps a clerical error. I receive few tickets and have none outstanding. The officer allowed me to go.
Before I drove off I asked the officer if he could do something to prevent me from being stopped again. He said no, there was nothing he could do. It was up to me to straighten it out.
I called Judge Mejia’s office, but an official said that mistaken warrants were not her department. There was nothing the judge could do. I was referred to the office of the chief clerk, but my call was neither answered nor, after I left a voice mail, returned.
An operator at the city’s 311 help line confirmed that there was no warrant in my name or in the name of anyone driving a car with my plates.
The city computer showed an old ticket had been paid, leaving a balance due of zero. The operator said she could not withdraw or dismiss a warrant because none existed.
So there it was. There was nothing anyone could do.
I have not used the adjective “Kafka-esque” since the Nixon administration, but it’s always there, ready and waiting, if I should need it.
Like when an Editorial LiveJournalist must descend from the Chron mothership to go renew a license in person. The DPS office must be cowering in fear about now!
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