Going to the DMV

This week I went to the DMV.

My license expired last month, but since I don’t drive much, I was not worried. Plus, PennDOT had emailed me a pdf with a temporary license, so I was legal.

But when I was traveling for the Stuart Sailfish Sprint, Turo would not accept PennDOT’s temporary license as valid. This caused a bit of an issue. So I figured that I would just go to the DMV and get a new license. Plus it was a beautiful spring day, so I didn’t mind walking outside.

Whenever an organization has a reputation, I like to be open minded. Often times a narrative can spread like wildfire when it is not true. So, instead of blindly accepting the DMV’s bad reputation, I wanted to experience it for myself before forming an opinion.

Before jumping into my DMV visit, let’s rewind to the first week of February. I had received a license renewal notice in the mail, so filled out a renewal form on PennDOT’s website. Upon completion, the screen displayed that I would receive a notice in the mail with next steps.

6 weeks later, nothing had arrived. So I called PennDOT and spoke to a nice woman who told me that yes, I was supposed to have received a camera card in the mail. But since nothing had arrived, I could just go to the DMV without it.

So I went to the DMV. I arrived at 3:15pm. There was a line out the door. Since I hate lines, I walked to the front to make sure that it was still necessary for me to wait since I had already completed the online renewal process. The security guard told me that yes, waiting in line was 100% necessary.

If you’re wondering what the line looked like, watch this video.

After getting in line, I waited for 45 minutes between a guy browsing lululemon’s spring collection on his phone and a woman playing Kendrick Lamar songs for her 2 year old boy. (Funny side note: when the woman playing Kendrick Lamar asked a passerby for a cigarette, the passerby gave her 2 after noticing the long line).

When I finally made it inside, I was handed a deli counter ticket reading C601 and a paper form. I completed the paper form then waited for 20 minutes before getting called to counter 12.

At counter 12, I handed my ID and paper form to a nice lady who did a few things on her computer before handing me back a new piece of paper. She told me to have a seat while I waited for my number to be called again.

Back in my seat, I waited for another 20 minutes before getting called to counter 3. I then handed the paper that I had received at counter 12 to a nice man named Justin who was working at counter 3.

Justin accepted the paper and asked me to answer 10 prompts on a monitor. Once all the prompts were answered, I took a seat and Justin snapped my photo. I approved immediately. After approving, I signed my name and answered several more prompts on the monitor.

Finally at 4:45pm (90 minutes after getting in line), Justin told me that I was good to go. My new license would be mailed to me in 15 days.

If you kept reading to this point, I am impressed. If you skipped to get to the end, I get it. Our time is valuable.

That is one reason why we built Run The Day’s check-in app. To give everyone more time. The check-in app is a good start, but we have a long way to go. So we continue building new technology to make race day more efficient.

It is important for race day to be efficient. Otherwise participation will likely drop. Since races unite our communities, lower participation would be bad.

My trip to the DMV was not efficient. But it was a reminder that simple things, like renewing a drivers license, can become complicated without proper systems and purposeful technology.

-Ian

Simple fundraising teams

I hear repeatedly that folks “love how easy Run The Day makes it to create and join fundraising teams.”

Shoutout to Bill’s Fightin’ Crabs, who have already raised more than 85% of their donation goal ahead of next month’s Kevin Cain 5K. Congrats Bill and team, we love to see it!

Don’t let race day look like the DMV

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