A letter arrived at my home a few weeks ago with ominous origins. Return address was the D.C.
Department of Motor Vehicles — Adjudication Services.
Never good.
My mind rifled through the ways in which I had screwed up. Was it an unpaid parking ticket? Was my truck past inspection? Was I driving on an expired license?
Resigned to my fate, I opened the letter.
It began: “Our records show …”
I considered closing the envelope and tucking it under the stack of unpaid bills, but I read on — “… that the ticket or tickets listed below issued to your vehicle …”
I knew it. I had forgotten to pay that ticket from K Street. Or was it the one on Capitol Hill? I kept reading: “… has an overpaid balance.”
What? The DMV owes me money?
“As the registered owner of the vehicle,” it said, “you are entitled to a refund in the amount listed.”
I read down. I had $25 coming to me.
“A check will be mailed to you,” it continued. “Please allow four to six weeks for processing.”
This had to be a cruel joke. DMVs from Maryland to Virginia are known for sucking money and time from average citizens who cannot drive or park without coming into contact with the clerks who control their fate. Contemplating a trip to the DMV? Set aside a half day for waiting in lines: One to direct you to the right window, one at the window, another at the second window, a third for the cashier.
And who would expect that an arm of the D.C. government — the same government that lost track of $50 million in tax refunds fraudulently siphoned off by corrupt clerks — would know that one citizen had overpaid a $25 traffic ticket?
I called the DMV to see if some mistake had been made. “No,” said Janis Hazel, the department spokeswoman. “We give refunds for overpayment.”
Could she track the ticket and find out what I had done right, or wrong. “No problem,” she said. I heard the clicks of her computer. She gave me the date, time, place of the ticket and the overpayment. “We do a complete accounting at the end of every day. We do a ‘daily dashboard’ that tracks waits in all four service centers.”
Hazel says waits are down at all DMV centers, including the inspection station, near Nationals Park, that checks 259,000 vehicles a year. She says DMV is going digital. Soon you will be able to schedule an inspection online. And have a hearing online.
“Our motto is skip the trip,” Hazel says. “Rather than stand in line, do your business with us online, by mail or by phone. Our biggest problem is customers who don’t have the necessary documents and start to berate the clerks.”
If you have a complaint, e-mail DMV chief Lucinda Babers at [email protected].
As for my alleged refund, I figured it would never arrive, but three weeks after the notice, I got a check for $25.
My e-mail to Babers will say: Bravo.
