Thought the on-line revolution would help, especially with Motor Vehicles Division. For awhile, it did. Doctor agreed I need a disabled placard for parking purposes, filled out form. New change: cannot walk into a DMV office, must enroll on-line. Impossible for some, you think? They are S.O.L.! Wife tried, went in circles. This morning my turn, same result, both of us absolutely disgusted. 3 phone numbers listed, all give recording advising go on-line, then busy signal. No choices available. Tried 800 #, Phoenix #, Tucson #, same result. One recording went so far as to say you MUST HAVE AN APPOINTMENT to do business in DMV office! Ha, try to get one!! Time was, Arizona went out of it's way to remedy the clogging of DMV functions due to huge population growth: lifetime driver licences, for example. But today,..........I guess I take my chances for a $100+ ticket for parking where I can access the store.........think the cop will reconsider? Think anybody gives a shit?? Frank
Sorry for your frustration, Frank. But you must realize that the Covid "shutdown" is affecting all government offices. If they are open at all, they have shortened hours and limited access. Just a sign of the times.
It's government. There is no competition. Pretty obvious, isn't it? You really can't say "I'll never do business with them again." I guess you know to carry a copy of that form with you, but it will only matter if you catch the cop writing the ticket. The worse will be all those nasty little latte-slurping security guard wannabees shooting you dirty looks when you use the space without a placard.
What happens when you try to use the online enrollment that they asked you to do ? Why does it not work, @Frank Sanoica ?
@Yvonne Smith This would read like a novel..........First, you must have a Social Networking Account: they list Google as a possible......Attempting to enroll in the site as a "guest" was most frustrating. Following all the guidelines, over and over, something unacceptable each time, it asked for "authorization", a confirmation number sent automatically to my email. I entered it, to n o avail; still would not let me in. Not kidding, I messed with this 2 hours, after my wife gave up in disgust; she's pretty savvy, but also could get nowhere. If you think there is a chance I'm missing some tiny entry speck, I will copy and paste an entire attempt; who knows, maybe it will work, finally. @Beth Gallagher Virus limitations? Think about the implications: One of the very important governmental functions, motor vehicles, stifled? Mix it all up and look closely at the dirty wash. Folks cannot renew registrations in time, get citations, cops just doing their jobs, the mucky-mucks won't take it, get their lawyers involved in the Catch 22. The problem spreads like, well. .........viruses. Here's one helluva real example: My nephew's wife, born and raised in Missouri, stationed with my nephew (Marine Corps.) past 3 years in Okinawa, Japan......her Driver License (MO) expired last February. MO DMV insisted she MUST appear in person to reinstate. Now, how the hell was she supposed to do that? Military Personnel and spouses RETAIN home residence vehicular credentials while serving out of state, or worse, out of country. No possibility of receiving needed credentials by mail. Now, given the tens of thousands of identical cases of Military Service, don't you wonder WHY this harassment has not been rectified? 50,000 U.S. Soldiers in Okinawa, 50,000+ in S. Korea, Lord knows how many elsewhere.
It's not only government offices but private companies. I needed to cancel all auto deducts in my online checking. I tried the bank. They don't give you any control over that. You can set them up but not cancel them. You have to go to each company and get changed back to mail billing. I spent three hours on the phone with my electric company talking to four different people One said I could cancel auto pay on the phone - I'd have to login to my online account. I told him I couldn't because I'd recently.reinstalled Windows and lost all the usernames and passwords the browser had saved. I couldn't start a new account while I had an old one. He had no solution. Neither did the next two people I talked to. We went round and round. The last one had sense enough to listen to the problem and the authority to go into my account and make the change. He did it in five minutes. Three hours of my life gone for this nonsense. I've run into similar problems with nearly every vendor I deal with. The exception was Geico, who made the change in two minutes.
@Frank Sanoica Sorry you had so much trouble. Mine has gone from temporary to permanent. Got that yesterday without any problems and no appt. guess just depends where you live.Hope you doing better
Could you try a small town office? People always scream and complain about the DMV.s wait times and lines. I know that all states are different, The DMV that I use in never crowded and I have never spent more than fifteen minutes there.
Arizona is kinda funny in a not so ha-ha way, or at least it used to be many years ago. When I lived in Mesa I needed to update my tag but the Tempe office was closest to work so after work I went to the Tempe DMV which directed me to go to the Mesa office since that was where my residence was. One would have thought that I could renew the tag anywhere in the state but nope, that’s not the way they liked to do things. I’m only relating the incident because there is a possibility that going to a different office might not be appropriate in Arizona. I’ll defer back to Frank who would most certainly know better.
The nest thing to happen to the DMVs in Virginia is the internet. Here, we are required to renew our tags annually (you can purchase a 2 year renewal), and I always do it over the web. Same for Driver's License renewals unless an eye exam is required. Then they opened up a few "Express" offices for folks to do the mundane stuff. The last time I set foot in one was when I moved here 10 years ago and needed to do a bunch of stuff: address change on license and registrations, change title on a small boat I purchased, etc. Funny, when I was in there last, a student from the local university was asking folks to test-drive a simulator that was in beta-mode for folks to use to qualify for their first license, rather than take a physical road test. It was "clunky." But I think the threshold for passing is so low anyway that they may as well save some money and go for it.
@Bobby Cole In AZ it never was clear whether DMV was County or State jurisdiction. But long ago, ~ 1985, I found I could stop at the Tempe office and conduct my D.L. and registration there, though I lived in unincorporated Laveen. Strangest experience was, we were renting a house situated on 40 acres, along with 10 others, all owned by one landlord. The mailing addresses were by box #, Laveen, AZ. The box #s were of course within the Laveen Post Office. The clerk refused to accept the box #, I called for a Supervisor, who asked for the legal description of the 40-acre plot. I asked him if he was kidding; he relented, and my new D.L. said "Box #276, Laveen, AZ"!! Frank
@Yvonne Smith Lo and behold! The Powers that Be have relented, and MAILED my wheelchair placard to my home! Ain't it purty?
Thing worse thing about government is its universal ability to make us thankful when it stops screwing us.
The problem with placards is that if you forget to hang it up some towns will fine you for not having it, and will not rescind the fine even if you bring it in and show it to them. Surprise was doing this when we lived out there. We had a plate, always bolted to the car and a plate on the golf cart. We had the placard, but only used it when in someone else's car or a rental.
@Herb Sutton When we left the PHX area, Surprise was still a widespot in the road, Grand Avenue; even Wittman was bigger then! Frank