I wouldn’t name it an atmospheric river, as a result of these come and go. DMV mail falls in a endless rain, with out regard to seasons.
Not that it’s all dangerous information from readers who, like good troopers, dutifully report each growth from the entrance traces of the battle to resume their driver’s licenses.
Rosa Maria Juarez, 94, shared successful story. The Montebello resident, who assured me she’s a protected and conscientious driver, handed simply and provided to educate me once I take the take a look at later this 12 months.
Right here’s a professional tip from Juarez:
“They instructed me to go on a pc, however the computer systems are soiled. Persons are touching these computer systems. You possibly can see the smudges, the darkish spots. Like they by no means clear them.”
Juarez requested for a paper take a look at as a substitute, sat down, and minutes later, BOOM! License renewed.
Culver Metropolis resident Parrish Hirasaki, 78, began to deliberate after listening to from so many mates who flunked the take a look at. She studied the driving handbook with a highlighter, after which made a examine information — a grid with 9 columns of info about speeds (5 mph on ice), fines ($1,000 for dashing by way of a piece zone) and distances (15 toes or extra from a fireplace hydrant).
“Now I’ve bragging rights with my mates,” Hirasaki stated after acing the take a look at on her first strive. “And I’ve bragged loads.”
The highway to renewal was a bit bumpier for June Meyers, who lives in Westwood. She adopted my advice to take the DMV’s fail-safe eLearning course on her residence laptop. In case you have an excellent driving file and qualify, eLearning is sort of a 45-minute driver ed course, with quizzes after every of seven sections. If you happen to give the mistaken reply, no worries. You possibly can strive once more till you get it proper.
However for Meyers, it was glitch after glitch, simply because it was for many different readers.
“It crashed thrice,” Meyers, 90, stated in a sassy letter to the DMV. She later took an in-person take a look at after learning for per week, and like so many others, Meyers discovered numerous the inquiries to be “as obscure and ridiculous as potential.” She handed anyway, however simply barely.
I instructed Meyers I obtained a kick out of the final line of her DMV letter, wherein she stated, “I don’t need to return for 4 years. With a bit of luck I’ll be useless.”
As for the “obscure and ridiculous” questions, some readers complained that though the DMV had promised me it made a listing of about two dozen inquiries to throw out — together with the aggressively absurd “what’s one other identify for the hand-to-hand steering methodology?” — a few of them have been nonetheless on the take a look at.
So what offers, DMV?
“These questions have been eliminated up to now few days,” DMV Deputy Director Anita Gore assured me late final week.
Relating to glitches within the eLearning system, Gore stated Golden State readers had one thing to do with the tech crashes:
“Because of the eLearning publicity supplied partially by your column, the system was quickly overloaded, inflicting some customers to get error messages,” she stated. “Updates have been made to accommodate extra quantity.”
And efforts are persevering with, Gore stated, to direct extra drivers (of all ages) to the eLearning course, which focuses on protected driving relatively than on memorizing the type of trivia discovered on the written checks.
“Information is extra worthwhile than the power to take a written take a look at,” stated Gore.
That jibes with one thing DMV director Steve Gordon instructed me in our final dialog.
“I don’t know if there’s any robust correlation between having the ability to cross a written take a look at and being a protected driver,” he stated.
I’m clearing my throat right here. OK, prepared?
These checks have been answerable for a long time of stress, household arguments, and untold dishonest makes an attempt and sleepless nights for teenagers, their mother and father and everybody else who’s ever pushed.
And so they might need been a waste of time?
Truly, Gordon didn’t go that far, and there’s apparent worth to testing individuals on the foundations of the highway (supplied the questions are related). However as a number of readers have steered, the truest take a look at of whether or not you could have any enterprise driving is a behind-the-wheel take a look at, as a result of it’s potential to ace a written take a look at and nonetheless be a menace within the driver’s seat.
However how might you get anybody to agree on an age — 70? 75? 80? — for necessary driving checks?
And what politician would push the wanted laws, given the truth that older voters prefer to vote?
As I’ve stated earlier than, good drivers are available in all ages and so do dangerous drivers. However many people have seen our mother and father refuse to give up the keys even when it’s apparent their imaginative and prescient, judgment and response time have slipped. (At the moment in California, about 90,000 behind-the-wheel checks are administered each month to first-time drivers and people who is perhaps having issues, together with older drivers).
Frank Cantor, who operates driving faculties that provide refresher programs to older drivers in California and several other different states, stated judgment and neck mobility are among the many challenges he sees. He introduced up one scholar particularly.
“I gave my mother a refresher and she or he ended up hitting a pedestrian and didn’t even realize it,” Cantor stated from Florida, the place he lives. “She was 75 and she or he was at all times a horrible driver. I taught her that for those who can’t look over your shoulder, you could have the side-view mirrors, and for those who lean ahead, you’ll catch the blind spot.”
That’s one other professional tip. Don’t neglect it.
After I requested Hirasaki, who devised the examine information, what she thought of necessary behind-the wheel testing, her first phrases have been: “Oh, please, no.” However Meyers, who fired off that dart of a letter to the DMV, stated she would completely help the thought.
And Juarez stands able to seize her keys and climb behind the wheel proper now for a driving take a look at.
“I might be glad to take it,” she stated. “I’m not afraid.”
So how precisely did Juarez cross the written information take a look at so simply?
She stated her daughter printed out 4 follow exams from the DMV web site. Juarez took each considered one of them, then proceeded to the DMV workplace and centered on the duty in entrance of her, simply as she does when she’s behind the wheel.
“As I obtained older, I began studying that I must concentrate on each job I’m doing. Give attention to the job. Don’t get distracted,” Suarez stated, particularly after her late husband obtained Alzheimer’s and she or he drove the 2 of them in all places, together with Las Vegas and Palm Springs.
I thanked her for her assist and stated I hoped to satisfy her earlier than renewing my license in October.
She stated she was out there any time, together with the current.
“The place do you hang around?” Juarez requested.
Proper right here at my laptop, making an attempt to atone for all of the DMV emails.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
