The DMV seems immune to improvements (04-10-2025--Hour2)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content, like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:29] Last hour, we talked about the DMV, among other topics. I do have some more on the DMV because I did say that they are looking to make some changes for us. Yeah, some good changes, we are told, I think. It's going to streamline and improve efficiency at the DMV, which honestly, you really can only go one direction at this point, I think. So we'll see how it goes.

[00:00:58] Now, I have been urged, oh wait, on Twitter, I have a Pete tweet from TheEarn, who says, don't you say it. 1201, hunt you down. You ruined my place to go now. I'm fighting till the last minute. I had to wait around for voter ID. Their turn. I don't follow all of that, but I think.

[00:01:22] So in the past, I have divulged the office that I went to, and then I was attacked savagely, I think inappropriately, for identifying the DMV office that I went to.

[00:01:39] And because I got in very quickly, I got an appointment, and I got my renewal. And then people were like, don't tell people where to go. And they blame me now because this office is overrun. That is not my fault. That is the fault of more people moving into that county and the area and them being able to get in for the appointments. Okay, so I am not, although I do understand, you know, there is a, you never tell people where the best sledding hill is.

[00:02:08] You never tell people where the best fishing hole is. Okay, because if you tell people where it is, then everybody else is going to go there. The tragedy of the commons ensues, and now it's ruined. Okay, so. What? Oh, all right. The tragedy of the commons. That is like in the olden days, they had the big patch of grass because like in medieval England, they didn't have any property ownership, which is kind of similar to the way it is now.

[00:02:36] But they didn't have any area to graze their sheep and their goats and whatever else they were trying to have out grazing. And so, you know, the kings or whatever, the vassals, they were like, okay, we're going to go ahead and make the commons for people. So you can go to the commons and you can graze your flocks out on the commons. Well, problem is nobody owns them because they're commons.

[00:03:02] And so without any sense of ownership among any of the people, they don't care. So they overgraze the commons. And then there's no more food. There's no more grass for the flocks to eat. And then you got to slaughter all your herds. So that's the tragedy of the commons. And so that's essentially what the fishing hole and the sledding hill and the DMV office is about. When you, you know, there's no, people take advantage of it.

[00:03:32] Again, you know who these people are. You drive around them all the time on the roads. You know that they are jerks. Okay. So I apologize for identifying because then I said I went all the way up to Hickory. But that I didn't choose that place. I just I wasn't trying to identify the fishing hole here. I just said that I went online and that was the first appointment that I could get. And I tried to find one that was within, you know, two hours of Charlotte. And that's the earliest one I could get. And then I had to take a day off of work so I could make the drive up there.

[00:04:02] Wait in the car for 15 minutes because I was early and you're not allowed to check in early. So I had to wait in the car for 15 minutes. And then I got my eyesight checked. Yep. I'm not blind. Cool. Here's your license. Done. It took I waited in my car longer than the appointment. All right. Let me go and talk to Jennifer. Hello, Jennifer. Welcome to the show. Hi. How are you? Hey, I'm all right. What's going on? So I went to the DMV this morning. Oh.

[00:04:30] And after listening to you just say what you just said, I don't know if I want to tell you which one I went to. Well, you know what? You already used it. So it doesn't matter for you anymore. So you could say. You're right. So I went to the one in Kannapolis. Ah. Got there about 845. And there was probably about eight people in line outside.

[00:04:59] And probably, I don't know, maybe 15 inside already. But I'm assuming just by when I walked in, how many chairs are there. And I had to get my real ID because obviously I'm flying this summer and I need to, you know, that's what you have to have. So I waited maybe about 20 minutes in line. And one of the ladies came out and said, you know, what are you here for? They asked different people.

[00:05:26] And there was probably, in that 20 minutes, there was probably 10 people that lined up behind me. I actually brought one of my chairs because I sat on the sidewalk because I knew I was going to sit there for a little bit. Yep. She took a couple of elderly people that were waiting in front of me. And then maybe about 20 minutes later, another lady came out and asked me specifically what I was there for, you know, along with the people in front of me. Said real ID. And she said, do you have your documents? I said yes.

[00:05:53] And because I went online prior and saw all that. Yeah. I walked in and she checked me in. She let several people come in as, you know, even though they don't take walk-ins until noon, but you're still in line and they kind of, you know, work you in. And she said, you're going to have to wait there. Wait till your number's called. You know, the appointments go first. I was walked back there when my number was called, got my real ID, which was very easy

[00:06:21] because I have the documents and walked out. And when I walked out, it was 1020. So, and I got there at 845 and I didn't have an appointment. Now, when I was in line, I went ahead and made, I kept looking because I've been looking for several months now just to get an appointment. Right. And I was, there was a few in Charlotte that were opened on Monday when I was sitting in line because if they don't confirm, then, you know, the originals are deleted. So I had, I didn't have a bad experience.

[00:06:51] I'm hopeful. Well, no, you just had to wait an hour and a half because you couldn't get an appointment. Right. Right. And that's the problem. And had you been later in the line, you might not have ever, you could have waited. And this happened to my sister-in-law with her son, my nephew. They went to try to get a learner's permit for him and they waited for like six hours and never got in. Yes.

[00:07:20] And, and now Albemarle is really good about if you do wait, because I had to do that with my, um, my child last year when they were getting their learner's permit. Um, if you do wait and you get to the point where it's the end of the day and yes, it, it, you know, it, it's hard that you have to wait that day. Um, but they will tell you, okay, Hey, you will be first in line if you come back tomorrow

[00:07:47] and we'll go ahead and take you because we weren't able to see you today. How do they know that you would be first in line? Well, because in Albemarle, you line up on the sidewalk and then they'll come out, continue, you know, here and there and say, okay, what are you here for? What are you here for? And they, they told me, they said, just let us know as soon as you get here, or you can always knock on this side door and let us know that you're here. And then you can go in and wait in the chairs. So, yeah. But so they, but there's no record that you were actually there.

[00:08:19] Um, no, but it's, it's the same people that work there every day. So they kind of maybe remember you, maybe not. Right. Yeah. Right. And then they have, they have the wait times posted online as well. Um, so, but yeah, so you know how much of your life you're wasting. Right. No, that's good. That's helpful. Yeah. And that's the key because the DMV and with all of that, you are, you are wasting time. Right. Yeah.

[00:08:46] Think about all of the more productive things you could be doing, like doom scrolling for cat videos on your TikTok, right? Like this is what we have to sacrifice. Yeah. Absolutely. All right, Jennifer. I appreciate the, uh, thanks for the intel. Thank you. All right. Take care. I got a message on Twitter, uh, a success story. My husband needs a real ID. My son needs his learner's permit.

[00:09:11] I have been refreshing the DMV screen for two months, just about daily. I successfully got them an appointment on the same day and same time at the same place, a mere two hours away. Diamond in the rough experience, but I was relentless in refreshing the screen to get my way. Now we just have to go to the appointment in the summer. Thanks for the four day confirmation tip because I have no idea. I had no idea that was a thing. I do not want to lose this appointment.

[00:09:40] We are taking off work to go to this. Well, I guess not a success quite yet story because we have not gone to the appointment, but getting the appointments has been crazy. Like nothing available every day for months trying. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in Western North Carolina, just a quick drive up the mountain. And Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable

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[00:11:03] Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Doug, welcome to the program. Hello, Doug. What's up, baby? Hey, man. What's up? I'm just riding around in this old log truck looking down. But like, I just don't understand. Let me explain something to you. I didn't graduate high school. I drive a log truck. You know, I've been married three times. That tells you I ain't the smartest person in the world.

[00:11:30] But this fact that you got to have a license to get on an airplane and drink out of one to vote is crazy. It does seem to be a bit of a disconnect. I think the argument would be that there's no constitutional right to drive versus voting. I think that would be their argument. Some people need to get their rights taken away if they got them. I tell you, I'm out here all day long. They're some fools out here. Oh, I can confirm. There are definitely fools on the roads. I'm usually surrounded by them everywhere I drive. But, Doug, I appreciate the call. Stay safe out there.

[00:12:02] Oh, this is a reference to the 1201 AM. Oh, the 1201 reference. Where one tweeter said, don't say it, 1201. I did not know what that meant. Apparently, in a follow-up tweet from somebody else, from Chooch. That's their name. I don't pick these people's names. They do. It says, 1201 AM, all the appointments open up online.

[00:12:31] I mean, yes, they are three months out. But they're there. So that's what you could do also. You be online at midnight. And when the next wave, so when they open up the next day's appointments, you can try to jump on and find the appointment. And this is a huge problem, too. It's like, and I have encountered this in various aspects over my life. It's like the designers never consult with the end users.

[00:13:01] And so the user experience suffers. And that is the case with the DMV platform. You have to go and click on every individual office to find their own calendars. Right? There's no way to just say, like, show me all of the appointments that are available to me in a list or something. Or on one calendar.

[00:13:31] Show me all of the open appointments within, you know, 100 miles of my location or something. You got to go and click on the individual counties. And then that opens their calendar. And when you're looking at their calendar, then you're like, oh, no appointments there. So you got to back out. You got to scroll back down because it always, like, would revert you back to, like, the top of the page. And so you're scrolling down to find these other offices and stuff. So, yeah, it's not user-friendly.

[00:14:00] And this is not like cutting-edge technology, right, for booking appointments. This stuff exists across all sorts of other platforms. Jeff says, picture a future where DMV wait times are relics of the past. Digital IDs replace driver licenses. Renewals, registrations, and titles happen online, supported by cutting-edge secure tech.

[00:14:29] That's the future we believe North Carolinians deserve and the one we will continue working to build. This is an op-ed at the Charlotte Observer by Michael Lazara. He's a Republican from Onslow County along with Senator Vicki Sawyer from Iredell County in Mecklenburg County. They are co-chairs of the Senate Committee on Transportation. They want a streamlined, efficient DMV.

[00:14:54] A significant part of that future, they say, rests in conducting most DMV transactions online. Renewals, license applications, title transfers should be available, accessible online. With reliable digital options, North Carolinians could handle up to 90% of their DMV interactions from home.

[00:15:19] A key piece of this modernization is the introduction of digital driver's licenses. Secured by advanced encryption, a digital license stored on a smartphone offers the same legitimacy as a plastic card, but without the hassle of losing or replacing it. Several states are already testing this approach, and North Carolina is on its way to become a leader in protecting personal privacy while improving convenience.

[00:15:44] Ha! Joke is on you. I've already had all of my information stolen years ago. You're too late to that party. We can also rethink how we use license plates and inspection stickers. Emerging digital plate technology could simplify renewals, prevent fraud, and provide real-time updates if necessary. The annual inspection requirement for new vehicles deserves fresh scrutiny.

[00:16:11] A 2023 model car is unlikely to have emissions problems, and law enforcement already ensures compliance with state law on window tending and other modifications. Reassessing these mandates would save time and resources. And they have the license plate reader tech. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, and you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources.

[00:16:39] Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check.ground.news. slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using Ground News a few months ago, and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate

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[00:17:35] Russ sends me a message saying, I don't have any problems with DMV because I live in South Carolina. However, the real ID thing? I took one of my sons to get his license. They asked if we wanted to get our real IDs, and we said sure. Despite having my existing license, concealed carry permit, a military contractor badge indicating security clearance, and a bank statement with both my name and my son's name on it,

[00:18:05] I apparently did not have everything I needed to verify my identity. So then she went to my son, who, because he's under the age of 18, she said that I as the parent could vouch for him for the real ID. Yeah, that tracks. That makes sense. Mike, welcome to the program. Hello, Mike. Thank you for taking my call, Pete.

[00:18:35] Sure. What I'm about to tell you, you can't make up. All right. So last year, about this time last year, my wife and I had already gotten our visas. We'd never traveled abroad. Told we needed to get our real ID. So we go to the local DMV office here. Not going to name the county, because I've got to go back in a couple months. Mm-hmm. Get my license renewed. That's smart. So anyway, I go in with proper forms, documents need to get real ID. Go to the DMV examiner after standing there about two hours. And he goes, what can I do for you? I said,

[00:19:05] I need to get my real ID. Why? Well, I'm traveling abroad later in the fall, and I'm told I need it. No, you don't. No. What do you mean I don't? No, you don't. I said, what do you mean I don't? Oh, don't worry about all that. That's going to go away. I said, excuse me? What do you mean it's going away? Basically, to paraphrase everything he was saying, it was a scare tactic. At the time, it won't be required. This is all going to go away. I said, are you kidding me? He goes, no, I'm serious. I said, I'll tell you what,

[00:19:34] I'm not going to take that chance. I need to get my real ID. So I called a buddy of mine, American Airlines, talked to an attorney of mine who travels abroad. He said, you better be glad you got your real ID. Because it's coming. Right. It's right. Now, look, I understand a certain amount of, shall we say, skepticism that they are actually going to start enforcing it on May 7th because they have constantly bumped this enforcement deadline back for, you know, almost two decades.

[00:20:04] So it, I mean, I understand why you might be skeptical of it, but for, for a DMV employee to act like they've got some sort of inside information at the federal level on whether they're going to accept this at the airports, that's nuts. He, he was almost frustrated with the fact that I was requesting this. And I'll be honest, it kind of healed me because I'm thinking I want to do the proper thing, whether you want me to do it or not. I'm not my real ID. Right. That wasn't it.

[00:20:32] I got the real ID and thank goodness I did. Now, of course, I'm going back in a couple of weeks, hopefully to get my license renewed without issue. But let me tell you this. You don't need to do that, Mike. They're doing away with all that. Don't worry about it. But yeah, although I've got the real ID and they say, well, you need to do is bring your, your, your driver's license in or your real ID and we'll reissue it for you. I'm still taking those documents. I'm not going to take a chance on them telling me, Oh,

[00:21:02] just because you have real ID, you still need documents. Yeah. So you're going in for your renewal, not a duplicate. Right. So you're right. Right. Which is so bizarre to me because when I went from just the normal North Carolina license and I got the real ID, I got my picture taken. I had to produce all of this information and they didn't count that as a renewal. They counted it as a duplicate. And that's exactly what they did to you apparently too, which is now you got a quote duplicate,

[00:21:31] but it's not a duplicate because you had all of your information. The only thing, if I remember correctly, the only difference that you're going to experience in this appointment versus your real ID one, besides the bad advice is a, uh, an eye check. They're going to make you look through that thing, you know, and, and read the letters. That's it. To test your eyesight. That's it.

[00:21:56] I think that's going to be the only practical difference to count as a renewal versus a duplicate license. It's, it's, uh, well, you know, whether you're for it, I think it's a great thing. I'm all for it. You know, I'm, I'm not a conspiracy theorist or whatever. I, I just glad they're doing it. Just to be honest with you. The real ID. Yeah. The real ID. If, I mean, I mean, if it is actually more secure, I guess. Sure. Yeah. but you know, it, it,

[00:22:26] it's hard for me to believe that this was a, a vital security issue considering they kept delaying it for 20 years. You know, that's a good point. That kind of undermines their point. Great point. Yeah. Thank you so much, Pete. All right. You too. Appreciate it. Um, it's, it's the, it's, it's like so much of this stuff. A lot of it is theater, you know? Now, about a month ago, a month and a half ago,

[00:22:54] the North Carolina house oversight committee held a hearing on the North Carolina DMV. And they dragged in front of the committee, Wayne Goodwin, Wayne Goodwin, the commissioner of the North Carolina DMV. And he announced, he announced, either like right before or the day after or something that he is stepping down when his term ends,

[00:23:22] having led the DMV since 2022. The, and he made the announcement when the state auditor's office announced that they were going to do an audit of the North Carolina DMV. Who's Wayne Goodman? A good one. All right. So spring is here, a time of renewal and celebrations. You got graduations, weddings, anniversaries, and the special days for mom and dad. Your family's making memories that are going to last a lifetime. But let me ask you,

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[00:24:50] Wayne Goodwin is the former insurance commissioner of North Carolina. And he was also the former chairman of the North Carolina Democrat Party, which I don't want to assume that that's how he got the appointment post. But, in 2019, he was raising money and he was going to run again for insurance commissioner.

[00:25:22] But, then, he, I don't think he did. And then he got a, then he got the post. So, from Cooper. He was a political appointment to run the DMV. And so, he went in front of this House Oversight Committee a couple weeks back. And, the, the House Majority Leader and the committee co-chair, Representative Brandon Jones,

[00:25:52] Republican, said, quote,

[00:26:22] quote, asked him, who was responsible for the DMV failures over the last three years. Quote, as Harry S. Truman would say, the buck stops with me, but I think any reasonable person that I know, know that I'm not running the entire DMV, but I am the commissioner. And Brandon Jones says, so you're the head, so you take responsibility for the failures? And he said, I take responsibility. Fine. Fine.

[00:26:51] Rep. Harry Warren asked if the DMV could have split shifts, be open later in the evening to accommodate people getting home from work. Goodwin said they did look at that, but that would require more employees to be hired. Jones asked again why things like the online appointment portal haven't been fixed for the past three years. They're very popular, Goodwin said, and there's only so many 20-minute time blocks in the given day.

[00:27:17] The insurance commissioner doesn't have the power or authority to add more minutes to a day. Only God Almighty can do that. So that's it. So that's the kind of leadership we have had at the DMV. It's like, going to take an act of God to make this any better, guys.

[00:27:36] Representative Alan Cheser from Nash County, Republican, questioned why the DMV contracted a vendor that could not comply with state law requiring IDs to be printed in color, which in turn led the state to have to go out and buy more equipment for the vendor to be able to print in color. That cost taxpayers more money. Goodwin said that was unintentional. Intentional. Total mistake.

[00:28:04] But you ran an RFP for that, a request for proposal, right? You guys looked at the service contracts. Cheser disagreed, stating that Goodwin himself had previously testified that he hoped the General Assembly would be amenable to changing the law. So that's the, oh man, we gave this contract to a vendor who can't do it in color.

[00:28:35] So we're going to have to buy them all this new equipment. Or, you know, maybe you guys could change the law to allow black and white photos too. It's so on brand for the DMV. Goodwin touted, hey, look, we got nine kiosks in various locations around the whole state. Nine kiosks that have produced 2,700 transactions per month.

[00:28:57] He said that they would like that number to grow to 20 kiosks, but there would need to be 4,500 transactions a month in order to justify the kiosks. So far, 21,000 people have taken advantage of the kiosks.

[00:29:11] There were also just under a million people who used the online portal last year, or sorry, in 2023, leaving him to comment that the lines and the wait times at the DMV offices would have been much worse if the 21,000 people or the million people didn't use those alternate methods.

[00:29:31] Representative Timothy Reeder, a doctor, Republican from Pitt, asked why there wasn't a dashboard for the public to see wait times for different DMV locations. Goodwin said, I can give you a sublink for that. But Reeder said, well, why isn't it on the website? Like, if you have a sublink, you have the ability to show this information, why are you not showing the information to the users?

[00:29:58] Or is this some sort of like a commie party kind of thing where it's like the party leadership, they get access to the sublink so they can see and they get to use that portal? Goodwin said he didn't write the website code. I'm not a coder. So, yeah, it's beyond my abilities as the commissioner. You know, it's just this guy's got this guy's got a case of the not my fault McFadden's sounds like.

[00:30:30] He went on to say that I guess what I'm asking you is if you are not the one who can authorize to put data on your website, who is it that we need to ask that question? Goodwin said, you probably got to ask my boss, North Carolina Department of Transportation Secretary Joey Hopkins. So the secretary of transportation, he can put a sublink on your website. But you, the guy in charge of the website, you cannot. OK, that makes sense.

[00:31:00] Meanwhile. You got these license plate readers. I saw this press release from Lincoln County Sheriff's Office the other day. They're in the process of installing 30 license plate recognition cameras across the county to solve and reduce serious crime. Flock safety cameras. That's the company Flock. They are contracted using drug asset seizure funds, not tax dollars.

[00:31:26] These cameras send a real time alert to law enforcement when a stolen car or known wanted suspect of felony crime from a state or national crime database is detected. They also send out alerts for a tag number connected with a missing person, an amber alert or a silver alert. So, like, do we have the, we got the technology to be scanning people's license plates.

[00:31:51] So, why not have that ability for, for cops to scan the license plates to see if the car is due for inspection? If they are overdue for inspection, right? Doesn't that seem to be a, like, a better use than making everybody, like, having DMV issue the, the stickers and all that stuff? You just enter it into the system. Although that does require them to enter it into the system. So.

[00:32:20] But, hey, if they're able to crack down on the fake license plates with the, the, the tech, like, I'm all, I'm all for it. I am, it's, I am surrounded by people with temporary tags. Everywhere I drive. I don't understand, like, this is a new thing. And then I read this piece over at WSOC TV that apparently you can get these things in, like, a day or two. And they're fakes. And that's what people have been doing. So, like, I guess chances are you see those temporary tags. Chances are they might not be real.

[00:32:51] Drivers have spotted the same fake temporary plate on 20 cars in an area. One photo even showed two drivers side by side with the identical fake plates. This is an area of focus for the Union County Sheriff's Office who said that there is one plate that they have picked up 90 times. Same plate.

[00:33:18] Some people just, they pay the printer of that fictitious plate 60 bucks. And they're, they're, you could, apparently you could find this stuff online. The seller says online that they can register the vehicle's information to their system to generate the plate. And the tag would be sent in a PDF format. And you just print it and then slap it on your car. It, yeah. Like, crack the whip on these people. I don't know why this angers me so much.

[00:33:47] I just, I don't, I know then they're going to end up in the DMV lines too. Gosh. It's a conundrum. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalendershow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.