These Are Your Worst Experiences At The DMV

Everyone has a bad DMV story or two, right? Earlier this week we asked our readers to tell us about a particularly bad trip to the department of motor vehicles. While a lot of what happens there is important to how cars and drivers stay legal, register to vote, or pay for important services, it's still an unpleasant place to spend a day. One DMV staffer in a bad mood or making a stand could throw a wrench in your whole month. The readers did not disappoint, providing 15 stories that help explain the myth of horrible DMV experiences. Read on to find out why you're probably better off going to AAA.

I was applying for a Real CA driver's license and had the necessary paperwork to prove where I lived. I think I had an AT&T bill. The woman wouldn't accept it because my name wasn't on the first page of the bill. It only had the account number. But, on the second page (and every page after that) it had the same account number and my name so it was obvious the bill was mine. She still wouldn't accept it so I had to go home, get a different source of ID and stand in line all over again.

Suggested by Cedric

When I lived in Yonkers, NY, from 2005-2016, it was an absolute nightmare going to the DMV. There was ONLY street parking, and it was all metered-limited to 1 hour. And the closest spot would be a solid 5-10 minute walk. And I shit you not... I got a parking ticket every single time I went there. So not only would I spend half my day waiting in the most miserable place on the planet, I'd leave with a shiny new parking ticket.

Suggested by Anthony DeFalco

Not my story, but my wife's.... We move from Kansas, back to Metro Dallas. We know what it expect, so we have our documentation, but the wait at the Denton DMV is still 2 hours. I'm able to turn in my KS license and get a Texas DL issued without a problem. But the DMV drone, tells my wife, she needs a copy of her marriage license to go along with her Birth Certificate and KS DL.

My wife is rightfully pissed, but the drone won't hear it. So she goes home, picks up the marriage license, and opts to drive up to the Gainsville, TX DMV office, which doesn't usually have a wait. My wife goes through the whole history with the DMV rep there, and she looks in the system. She says, "well you've had a Texas DL with that same name in the past, I don't know why Denton didn't just issue you license. I don't need to see your marriage license." And she issues the license.

Suggested by Go Padge (GoPadge)

My local driver's license center has someone at the door the check your documents so you don't wait in line for hours for no reason. Except sometimes they don't do their job and tell you that you have everything when you need a very important piece of paperwork for a name change when you have a Real ID so you stand in line anyway and get told off by the clerk at the desk. To add insult to injury the name change page of the state website also doesn't mention this requirement; it's only on the Real ID page that I had no reason to look at again.

I stook in line 45 minutes only to drive home 45 minutes round trip to get another piece of identification. The front desk clerk at least was embarrassed enough that she sent back to the front of the line which pissed off the counter clerk immensely.

Suggested by DrButter1

We fucked up when selling a KLR650 and registered the wrong vin with the state compared to what we sent the owner home with. So when he got the title and it didn't match his vin, it became a mess. In CA, if you want to correct a VIN on a title, you have to prove that you own the vin you have, and get it physically verified by the CHP. It's a giant hastle for the client, so we went out of our way to get it fixed asap. I run the right MSO, his wrong title, and various other forms over to the DMV to make sure I'm doing everything right before going to the CHP for a vin verification.

The woman guides me through the forms, showing me what I need to fill out, and then says, "Sign here," pointing to the line where it says 'vin verification, signature of CHP officer."

I look at her and say, "I'm not CHP." To which she says, "Do you want this done today or not?"

So I signed it. Customer had his corrected registration that day, and a corrected title in the mail about 3 weeks later.

God I miss that DMV.

Suggested by DamnTheNoise

I'll try to make this short, unlike my DMV experience. I moved to NJ from MA. I needed to get my NJ license with motorcycle endorsement and register only 1 car at the time. Simple, right? I went around 10am, thinking it would be relatively quick. Fill out some paperwork, stand in line. Here's some more paperwork, now go to that line. Now fill in this paperwork, go to a different line. Nope, now back to the first line. And this continued. ALL. DAMN. DAY.

I kept getting fed from line to line, eventually reaching people with whom I had already met, only to be greeted with "You're still here?" Everything was a problem, not the least of which was that I had 87 forms of ID, yet none were good enough. They even questioned the authenticity of my birth certificate and Social Security card, and had to verify my identity with my birth city.

After 6.5 hours I was finally handed my driver's license and I started to leave. I almost made it to the door when I realized there was no M endorsement. I marched right back to the front of the line, pushed the next person out of my way and demanded the M endorsement, only to be told I didn't fill out the proper paperwork. Are you kidding me? That's all I've done for the past 6.5 hours!

They promised to "rush" me through the process. Took another 1.5 hours to get the motorcycle endorsement printed on the license. All said and done, I was there for over 8 hours, and filled out countless forms and stood in endless lines throughout it all.

By the time I got back to work (I had gone on my break), the office was locked and everyone had gone home for the night. This was 21 years ago and I'm still traumatized by the event.

Suggested by Jeff Tripp

Trying to register a car with a damaged title has been the worst ongoing DMV experience I've had for about two years now.

I bought a car and up until then, I left freshly-acquired titles on my kitchen counter as a reminder to go to the DMV ASAP to register the cars. Well, my little reminder bit me in the back one day as my wife had a cooking accident, drenching this particular car's title in hot and dirty cooking oil. In a panic, I tried cleaning the oil off the title, which made things so much worse. But at the very least, the VIN was still easily readable, as was the rest of the text. The title was just a little brown in places.

I took it to the DMV anyway and the lady said nope, the title was damaged too much to be valid. Her solution was to get the guy I bought it from to get a dupe title. Sure, except for the fact that he wasn't responding to messages anymore.

I tried another DMV. They told me that the state I bought the car from has a special watermark that activates when the title gets wet to flag for possible title fraud. Look, you can tell it just got wet and nothing else. But nope, that wasn't going to fly.

I then tried a few more DMVs, hoping to find one person who could understand that this was just an honest accident. Still nope. In my state, you can also get title work done at check cashing places, which tend to look the other way when you have stuff the sticklers at the DMV do not like. Even they wouldn't touch the title.

In the past, I would have told my state to buzz off and registered the car in Vermont, but now that loophole is closed. It seems my only real path forward is a service like Dirt Legal, which costs mega bucks, or get a bonded title, which also costs mega bucks. The car isn't even worth that much. Freaking yay.

It's like Schrödinger's title, the car has a title but it also doesn't!

Suggested by former Jalop Mercedes Streeter

The day I went to add the M (Motorcycle) to my DL. I needed to take the riding test because I got caught out without another person had their M class (I had an L class, which is a 125cc or less, or a permit for an M class). At the time there was a set of twins working there, both good guys. But nope, I got the old battle-axe lady with a beehive hairdo. Great. I had been practicing what I thought was correct. We went out to the painted lines, and started. She told me what to do, didn't say anything else. There were 4 different riding tests, no written as I had completed that. Same time she said go, I asked a question, She looked at me blankly, waited about 45 seconds for a reply and she said that I had failed. Well, WTF. She said "I said go, which meant go now." I stopped her and said that I had asked a question, and it needed to be answered before I started. She turned and walked away. One of the two came up to me and told me that she really didn't want to be outside as she was getting ready to leave anyway. He went outside with me 15 minutes later, passed with only one point off because I did the breaking test too fast.

Suggested by McKooglyll

Being in line behind 100+ plus people and someone cutting in front of me when they called my number and the DMV lady tells me I missed my call as I'm waving my ticket at her explaining the guy she took cut in front of me and she didn't check his ticket. She told me to get pull a new number and go all the way back in line.

Suggested by Tom Fong on Facebook

A clerk insisted that the title for the car I inherited from my late father must be signed by the "seller".

I had all required DMV and probate documents, including official death certificate. This person would not accept my explanation that my father was dead and unable to sign the title.

This continued until another employee overheard, intervened and set things straight.

Suggested by Christopher Brown on Facebook

Took my son for his driving test and the car in front of us reversed into us once and then reversed again into one of the DMV employees. They did clear all the cars in front of her before giving her back her keys and sending her home. Her license was due to expire the next day.

Suggested by Brian Fleischer on Facebook

Every. Single. One.

Suggested by Nemo

I tagged along when my cousin went to apply for a driving license. At the end, the DMV employee that took him for the driving portion started selling us on how we should switch our natural gas delivery/supplier. That he had joined a group that helped people switch, and that we could join too. Then proceeded to explain a pyramid scheme structure of people doing this and how you could make money off of it doing nothing if we recruited more people. Once we obviously refused, he finally decided to give my cousin the test results and told him he failed lol.

Suggested by ELUNO

Before our tag expired, my father-in-law "pre-ordered" my wife a new-release collegiate plate. When they became available she went to get her new plate... but my name is first on the registration, so I drove down there. Then they said they couldn't apply my father-in-law's purchased credit to the plate because it was for her name. We gave up and paid (again). They put the same expiration sticker on the plate that was on her previous plate. Then 2 months later, the sticker on the plate was expired and they tell us we can't renew because those new, special plates have to be on for one year before renewal. I asked what we do about the sticker that showed it expired already and nobody knows what to do... I've visited the DMV 3 times to get help with this and they are all stumped. We are now driving around with a 4-month expired license plate sticker.

Suggested by justAustin

Three hour wait and they gave me a license with my photo on it and somebody else's name.

Suggested by kidneystone