Driver’s saga: The futile quest for a Washington driver’s license - Part 3
Episode VII: The Road Awakens
In Seattle during the summer, it doesn’t rain. At a conformable 75-degree high, the blue skies encourage people to get outside. The peaceful weather is coupled with a legal obligation: when moving to Seattle, the law requires that you brand yourself as an “outdoorsy person”. For example, when listing your hobbies on any online platform, if you don’t include hiking, you’ll be subject to a $500 fine - payable by Amazon, Microsoft, or Boeing stock.
On top of the municipal mandate, while not enforceable by law, culture norms require an inhospitable, apathetic attitude toward others - dubbed “the Seattle Freeze”. If you ever find yourself hiking Mt. Rainer and passing another hiker without saying hello or making eye contact, you know you’ve fully integrated into the city. At which point you’re eligible to run for political office.
Outdoorsiness is most enforced during the summer when the rains have cruised away (most popularly to Alaska). During the other months, introverts can use the rain as a get-out-of-events-free card. In summer though, to fulfill their minimum gubernatorial obligations, most Seattleites will go to the lake. Options here include kayaking, paddle boarding, walking, running, sun bathing, volleyball, tennis: hard (tennis), and tennis: easy (pickleball).
Our story begins with a hiker new to the city. He was reading - obviously outside at the lake as required by law - when he decided to upgrade his driver’s license. He didn’t have a car, but he did have one week to kill before his job started. The hiker returned to his apartment, grabbed the necessary documents to upgrade his Idaho license for a Washington license, and charted the bus route to the downtown DMV.
On arrival, the hiker saw a long line that slugged out of the DMV’s office. The unorganized line knotted several times, creating confusing loops. If you pleaded ignorance, you could skip the line, jumping in at the front part of the knot. The other line members couldn’t call out the culprit, because, as mandated in the Seattle Freeze Code, the only acceptable form of confrontation is passive-aggressiveness. You could whisper mean things behind their back, but never to their face. It took the hiker 15-minutes to realize he was a culprit, too late to correct the error.
Adding to the chaos, there exists two types of lines: the first line, the ticket line, granted the patrons the right to be admitted into the DMV, and the second line, the wait line, existed to organize patrons already with tickets. An organizational consultant would point out that the first line was redundant. Unfortunately though, the DMV can’t afford significant organizational changes because their employer, the United States Government, is on a strict, unchecked budget.
Good fortune shone on the hiker. Not only did ignorance considerably cut down his wait time but also a kind sir with a short lunch break. The kind sir, having already waited beyond his allotted time, gave the hiker his ticket. Hence, it allowed the hiker to not only skip the ticket line altogether, but queue into the wait line at an attractive spot.
Things were looking up until, after an hour of waiting, it dawned on the hiker that his number wasn’t going to be called. The patrons behind him in the original ticket line had already been served. The goodwill of the kind sir had made the hiker worse off with a dud ticket, reinforcing the narrative of the Seattle Freeze Code: never take candy from strangers. (For an adult, a quick DMV visit is the equivalent of candy for a kid.)
Reluctantly, the hiker jumped back into the ticket line. Then, after 30 minutes, queued into the wait line. The hiker waited for another hour. An important detail to note, the conversion rate between lifeforce and DMV hours is 2:1. Two and a half hours at the DMV is equivalent to 5 hours of your soul. Symptoms include slight to moderate agitation, loss of hope in humanity, and leg cramps.
The hiker finally reached the peak when they called his number, a grueling 2.5 hours removed from his arrival (i.e., 5 soul hours). The DMV clerk seemed tired and overworked.
DMV clerk, dryly: “How can I help you?”
Hiker, pessimistically: “I’m here to get a Washington license.”
DMV clerk: “This is your first time getting a license?”
Hiker: “No, I just shaved this morning.” {Important background info: The hiker looks somewhat young without his beard.}
Hiker, continued: “I moved from Idaho and would like to convert my license to a Washington one.”
DMV clerk: “Ok, sure. Can I see your current ID and proof of residency.”
The hiker hands over the forms.
DMV clerk: “I’m sorry, your lease doesn’t count as proof of residency. Do you have anything else?”
Hiker: “What do you mean? It’s signed and dated.”
DMV clerk: “I’m sorry, we don’t accept this as proof of residency. Do you maybe have a cell-phone bill or an electricity bill?”
Hiker, defeated: “No, I’ve lived here less than a month and use a prepaid phone plan… Wouldn’t the lease be the best proof of me living here?”
DMV clerk: “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you to come back when you have the proper documentation. Here’s a list of what we accept. Have a good day.”
Documents that count towards proof of residency in Washington - followed by a cynical, sarcastic remark:
Washington Marriage Certificate - You don’t have to own a house or rent in Washington, but getting married here counts.
Renter’s Insurance - Again, you don’t have to rent something here, but having insurance on someone else’s property would count.
Cell Phone Bill - This unjustly excludes those with prepaid phone plans, e.g., myself, those in witness protection, and drug lords.
Bank Statement - The bank doesn’t fact check your address, so it makes this option easy.
Auto Insurance - This is frustrating and redundant. You need a driver’s license before you can purchase auto insurance.
17 Other Options - I counted 17 logical options but I’m excluding those, because the exclusions make my argument stronger: the Washington DMV is frustrating and illogical.
Episode VIII: The Lost License
Several years ago, in an airport far far away, a schmuck lost his driver’s license. Most likely, the license sunk into the TSA underbelly, a dark place devoid of any hope for return. Henceforth, whenever the schmuck needed to present his ID at a bar, he used his passport. While normally you’d think the situation would warrant a laugh - because who doesn’t have a driver’s license - it has only produced a chuckle from a single bartender. Most of these alcohol gatekeepers didn’t know immediately where to look for the birthday, so you know it can’t be that common a situation.
The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that the passport displays a smirking 13-year-old in a hoodie. In the schmuck’s defense, passports have a 10-year shelf life, and you can renew the photo, the photo from 6th grade when you first got the passport. Usually the bartender raises an eyebrow when the mugshot shows someone way too young to be buying alcohol then they look at the older, bearded version of the schmuck.
Piling onto the bartender's confusion, with poor comedic delivery, Schmuck: “Yeah… It’s surprisingly much easier to counterfeit a passport than a driver’s license.”
Obviously the passport is real, but it’s fun to see how the bartender reacts to someone, who’s clearly over 21, claiming their ID is fake (mind you, the ID with a mugshot of a kid) but neither party can prove the ID’s legitimacy. While the above quote wasn’t actually spoken, the whole situation would be dumb, but would make me laugh.
The schmuck operated fine without a license for about a year - the passport worked just fine - until his fiance recommended that he try and get a new license, since he drove her car everyday. Definitely a valid point. Additionally, for an upcoming moving assistance, the schmuck would be captaining a 26-foot U-Haul; not having a license could prove costly there.
The schmuck took a deep breath and sacrificed multiple lunch breaks to deal with the problem. The DMV operates on, what seemed to be, an 11AM to 1PM schedule: definitely an inconvenience for any working professional, i.e., anyone who would need a license. When the schmuck called the Washington Department of Transportation, they stated that he couldn’t request a new driver’s license without first having an Idaho driver’s license. When he called the Idaho Department of Transportation, they told him his license had expired. A natural follow-up question: could he renew the license? The Idaho DMV said yes, but only if the schmuck told them his license number. Tragically, the schmuck couldn’t; he’d lost his license in an airport far far away.
This left the schmuck one remaining option: For the third time in his life, he’d have to retake the driving test.
Episode IX: The Renewing of Credentials
After writing a drawn-out account of driving adventures, covered in a saga of eight episodes, the padawan, young blood, student, lad, driver, worker, hiker, schmuck finally decided to write in the first person. I’m tired of jumping through bureaucratic hoops. Getting a driver’s license shouldn’t be this difficult.
About two months ago, I enrolled in a driving certification - both the written and driving test - for $150. Not to brag, but this is the third time I’ve taken the certification. Both my track-record of passing these tests and my 10 years of driving (with only one minor crash) gave me confidence of success. These tests are designed for 15-year-olds; surely as a 25-year-old I could ace the material.
When I arrived at the school building to take the written test, I noticed a wide range of ages. The cohort consisted of elderly folk, middle-age people, and teenagers. The variety of ages put me at ease; otherwise, it’d be somewhat embarrassing to be 10 years older than all your peers. I assumed that the older group members were in a similar situation to me, or immigrants from other countries. But then…
As we left the hallway for the testing classroom, I realized all the older people were parents or grandparents of the teenagers. Well shoot. My fears had been actualized. It dawned on me that all these teenagers needed someone to drop them off at the testing site. I must have been the only one who drove themselves to the driving test.
Surprisingly, the 40-question test was fairly difficult. Some of the questions boarded on trivia, not relatinging to realistic road travel. Additionally, the answer choices hardly varied, so process-of-elimination proved difficult. For example, a question asked: “What’s the legal limit on THC per milliliter of blood drawn before a driver is considered impared: a) 1 nanogram, b) 5 nanograms, c) 6 nanograms, or d) 10 nanograms?” Knowing the underlying concept - driving under the influence is bad - is important, but knowing exact numbers seems irrelevant to me.
Another question to highlight the folly: “When driving at night, how many feet away from another car should you dim your high beams: a) 100 feet, b) 300 feet, c) 500 feet, or d) 1000 feet?” Even if I did know this piece of trivia, how would I practically apply it? My car doesn’t use sonar and I can’t do mental geometry instantaneously. By the time that I will have calculated the distance away from the oncoming traveler, they will have careened into a ditch to avoid my high beams. Cut forward to the investigation, the officer will ask me why I didn’t dim my high beams 300 feet away, and I’ll have to respond with, “I’m sorry officer - I mostly watch soccer. My reference point is 105 meters, and I was having trouble with the conversion factor. By the time I figured it out, it was already too late.”
Anyways, the test consisted of 40 questions like this. We had 60 minutes to take the test, which shrunk to 40 minutes because of a slow talking proctor. I was the last to finish the test, which was graded on the spot. Before turning in my guesstimates, I overheard the scores of the gaggle of teenagers, and they all passed with overachieving colors. You could pass by missing up to eight questions. Thankfully, I missed seven, so I passed with a one question buffer.
Two days later, I took the driving test. And just like my driving skills, this portion of the certification went very smoothly. I scored a 96%, only missing points for a) not stopping at a stop sign at the line, and b) not parallel parking in three steps. Not to brag, but the 96% was the highest score of the day. Strike that, please go tell all your friends; I’ve already been bragging to Maddie about the impressive achievement. Basically, the state of Washington is saying that I’m a perfect driver (obviously a score of 100% is impossible).
The coveted piece of plastic came in the mail one month later. At age 25 I finally got my Washington driver’s license. Hallelujah!
