You need to go to the DMV to get a license, an ID card or such, why not make an appointment online? Well, good luck.
Local appointments are tough to get these days, although the DMV says you can go to a DMV office without an appointment and wait your turn. Depending upon how busy things are, you might get lucky and be helped quickly. But then you might not.
Curious when the soonest I could get an appointment for a license, I went online Tuesday to check the Santa Rosa office’s availability. Nothing for the next 45 days, which is as far out as the DMV takes appointments.
How about the Petaluma office? Nope. Lakeport? Friday, not too bad. Ukiah? Oct. 1. Fort Bragg? Oct. 4. Napa? Oct. 5.
Then I started selecting randomly from the list of the DMV’s 168 offices to see where the soonest appointment could be. The Coalinga office, in Fresno County, was offering an appointment for today! If the heart of earthquake country doesn’t interest you, the office in Mount Shasta had an appointment open on Thursday.
DMV spokesman Armando Botello in Sacramento said there is no trick to getting an appointment, “you just keep trying.”
He said that with the state budget crisis prompting DMV offices to be closed three Fridays each month, that cuts down on how many appointments are available.
He said the DMV used to take online appointments only 30 days out but expanded that to 45 to give drivers a better chance to get an appointment.
Many DMV transactions can be done online, and he suggested checking to see if you can do that and skip a trip to the DMV. AAA offices also provide some DMV services, but if you want a license, you have to go to the DMV.
Asked if the DMV could hire more people to speed up transactions, Botello said he couldn’t comment on that.
But he said that if you don’t have an appointment, you can go online to check the wait time at a DMV office before going to it.
He said everyone in the waiting room when the DMV offices close at 5 p.m. will be helped, even if some employees stay on overtime.
“If you make it inside (before the doors close), you’re going to get served,” he promised.
But the DMV website notes that no written or audio tests are given after 4:30 p.m.
