Mary and I are glad to be back in Vermont (see here for where we were) but we weren’t at all looking forward to changing our drivers’ licenses and car registration. Website for Motor Vehicle was OK but had no clear explanation we could find on how to register a car brought in from out of state so I’m already mad. Only slightly mollified when we get pleasant answers to questions on the phone after negligible wait time. Convinced that answers so casually given and commonsensical will be disowned once we actually get there.
But it has to be done so we clenched our jaws and drove off to Motor Vehicle in Montpelier, ready for the usual fight.
The lady behind the “go here first” counter surprised us: she smiled. She quietly applauds when she sees that we managed to download and fill out some of the forms from the Internet; she doesn’t snarl at our omissions and dumb mistakes. She gives us a number BEFORE we fill out our missing forms to save us wait time once we finish.
So, without delay, we go to counter 16; now we know the trouble will begin. We have confessed that we lived in Vermont once before; I show up in the computer but Mary doesn’t. Oh oh: I don’t have proof that I actually owned the car I traded in on my current car which is all important so far as purchase and use tax credit is concerned. Dianne H. disappears from behind the counter to discuss our situation.
But Dianne comes back quickly, to our surprise. She does some magic and gets into the computer of the New Jersey DMV which does remember me as the owner of that car. Mary is quickly forgiven for disappearing from the Vermont computer. Dianne checks our vision, takes our pictures, goes outside with us to check the VIN on our car, and we’re done. Total time 37 minutes for two new drivers’ licenses, one registration, and – an unexpected bonus – two voter registrations as a byproduct of the same process. Welcome home.
Only sore point was our own fault. Mary mentioned to one of the ladies that Vermont DMV used to work for me back in 1981 when I was Secretary of Transportation here. The young lady, not particularly impressed, said that was the year she was born.