NM MVD…Murphy's Law: Level 9

I finished a motorcycle safety class and got my motorcycle W endorsement. Why W? The instructor said that at some point long ago, someone in New Mexico was stamping the M endorsement upside-down and you can’t change bureaucracy. So, I’ve spent the hot evenings this week sweating outside in long sleeves (for safety/liability) and a helmet for the class. But after today, I think that was the easy part.

I work downtown, so I walked about a mile to the closest MVD, took a number, and sat down a while. Finally noticed a sign that said their camera was down so they weren’t doing any licenses. Walked back to work and looked up the next closest MVD. Google Maps claimed it was on San Mateo and Central. Drove over there and just found a bunch of state government offices…apparently the headquarters of the MVD but not a field office. Called up Vanessa who kindly guided me to the next one on San Mateo and Montgomery. Drove over and saw that it was an MVD Express…a commercial office where they charge you extra because they actually have functioning systems. I didn’t want to pay $25 extra so I called Vanessa and asked why the MVD website said it was a regular office. She verified that it should be a normal MVD. I went into the MVD Express and asked where the normal one was…just around the corner. Finally got to the real MVD and pulled a number…50 people ahead of me. Started waiting. Murphy relented at this point and they started splitting up people who were renewing license, registration, etc. Half way through line, I heard that they required proof of insurance. (They didn’t.) So I ran back to car to get it. Dude kindly held my position in line. It only took about 45 minutes after that. Gained new phobia of waiting in extremely long lines, getting to the front, and finding I was missing some vital piece of documentation or that some vital system was down.