NYS Drivers License

[leadfoot4]

Have any of you had to renew your drivers license lately? Have you "enjoyed" the process?? My wife's license recently came up for renewal, and it was a pain, to say the least.

The license's expiration date now coincides with your birthday, and with my wife's birthday in the first week in September, she got a renewal notice a few weeks back. The "instructions" are somewhat jumbled, since there are 3-4 types of licenses, from a simple picture ID, to a CDL, and whoever wrote these instructions managed to intertwine the details for each level of license. Bottom line, the state is "highly recommending" the "enhanced" license, because according to them, it will be required for future ID purposes (and it's $40 more, added to the state's coffers!!)

Here's where I found it to get sticky and very frustrating. One of the necessary documents needed, to get the enhanced license, is a "birth certificate". My wife didn't have one....all she has ever had, for the last 67 years, is a document called a "record of birth". She has registered for high school and college, obtained a NYS drivers license in 1967, obtained a Social Security card, obtained a NYS Teacher's License, applied for a marriage license, and most likely a number of other things that required proof of who she was, all with this document. NYS DMV won't accept it, and they were QUITE rude about it, when she and I went to DMV to renew her license.

At this point, you're probably asking why we're so upset. Let me explain.....We contacted the Monroe County Office of Vital Statistics, in order to procure a BC that would be satisfactory to DMV. This was done online, and get this, no ID or proof of who we were, was required!! All we did was type in my wife's name, a valid address, enter a valid credit card number, click on the icon, and a BC was on the way. 10 days later, the BC arrives.....and then the real fun begins.

Like most Christians, my wife was Confirmed, at the age of 12, and took a middle name, a middle name she has used ever since. Come to find out, her parents, as shown on her BC, also gave her a middle name (this is news to us), and it doesn't match the name that my wife took at her Confirmation, and has been using for the last 50+ years. DMV goes into convulsions, over this "conflict of information", and refuses to acknowledge her Confirmation middle name. After much wrangling, they do renew her license, however, it's using the middle name on her BC. Furthermore, they advise us that we'd better contact everyone else (especially the SS Administration), and get this straightened out.

ALL THIS, JUST TO RENEW AN EXISTING DRIVERS LICENSE!!   Bet if she was an "undocumented alien", we wouldn't have had to put up with all of this crap!!!

[Way 2 Lo]

 I sympathize with ya...that being said...the folks here at the Owego DMV are saints. 

[raceannouncer]

I was prepared to go through the rather exhausting process of license renewal recently, as well.  Because I have moved several times since first moving to this wonderful state in 1976, some documents have "disappeared" probably due to the replacement of a "strongbox" along the way--apparently some important stuff didn't survive the transfer process; thus a PA state re-issued BC was needed.  As soon as I realized this new "enhanced" license was going to be required,  I began the painstaking process of obtaining a copy of the PA document (for a fee of course!)The maze of "red-tape" needed to go through this now required mess (with it's higher cost to renew) should serve as a notice to those who lean more to a socialist form of government. Anyone who favors the any government (from local to Federal) has obviously never had to deal with the government for very much of their life.  I learned this after applying for disability.  Now, "Emperor Cuomo" wants new $35 vehicle license plates to be required, claiming that the current plate design doesn't allow police plate scanners to work as intended.  Hey genius:  I am unaware of anyone failing to receiving a ticket due to a faulty reading of the current plate design (unless he's referring to the widely known peeling problem) So his solution is to make EVERYONE pay for new plates instead of the relatively few who need to follow the law of having proper plates and charge them instead.  The logic is that it's a fee and shouldn't be described as a tax!  The Albany power structure strikes again!)

[leadfoot4]

Just an update on my wife's situation. We got the fiasco with the drivers license straightened out, but that, in turn, cascaded into even more "BS" to deal with. MY wife's SS card, Medicare card (yes, we're both that old, now), and health insurance card, all had her "assumed" middle name, and they all now had to be changed.

We went to the SS office this morning, in order to work out the SS and Medicare cards. Given the horror stories we've heard about the lines at the SS office, I consider ourselves somewhat lucky, as we were able to get in and out of there, in just over an hour.....plus the 25-30 minute drive each way, to their location. (in an area as large as Rochester is, you'd think their office would be somewhat centrally located, but it's not. It's WAY out in the northwest quadrant of the area, on Ridge Rd. west, in the western portion of Greece)

End of rant.....until some other, unforeseen wrinkle, crops up over this.

[leadfoot4]

......End of rant.....until some other, unforeseen wrinkle, crops up over this.

Well, to update this rather "sleepy" topic, yes, another "unforeseen wrinkle" cropped up. A few weeks after we got the drivers license fiasco straightened out, the license plates on one of her cars came due for renewal. We then had to go through a bit of "red tape" due to the change in her legal name, and both cars had to be re-registered. That wasn't too big a deal, and was handled right at the DMV office in Rochester. HOWEVER, this, in turn, required the titles for the cars be "corrected".

It's kind of scary, changing anything on a title. You send your title, the only true proof that you own the car, to Albany, hope they receive it, and then wait for it to be processed. You then hope that the post office correctly processes and delivers it to you. In our case, it took over 2 months for us to receive the new paperwork....